[Kid Inspiration]

Conference has officially finished this year. Lots of highlights and new things. Full report to come, but right now enjoy the Hip-Hop.

Love it!

I have found a few moments during Hillsong Conference (#hillsongconf for all the twitterers out there), to write a couple of thoughts down.

1. It’s awesome

2. It’s full on!

So many kids, new venues and a whole lot of leaders to pull of the most creative and fresh conference we have done in a while!

(These were short thoughts okay, I’ll try again before the week is out)

But go to http://hillsongconference.com/backstage to see all the action!

It’s conference season! Which is like a the buzz of a gnat (albeit a really groovy gnat with rhythm and dance skills), it takes all your focus!

Hillsong Conference is almost upon us, and my bloggin’ is suffering, but there is great news on the horizon.

1. You can be a part of Conference from anywhere in the world. hillsongconference.com/backstage Live streaming during the week and lots more. Look out for me, i’ll be showing up a couple times.

2. Some really cool announcements about the direction we are going in online as Hillsong Church. I am truly excited about these!

3. It’s better if you have three items on a list

Amen.

Hope you’re havin’ a great summer Northern Hemisphere, winter has not been kind to us here in Sydney, but I love this season anyway… it’s the meloncholic, hot chocolate drinkin’, mellowed out with candles side of me that loves winter.

I’m super freakin’ pumped up like an over-inflated bicycle tyre

My man James Leggot explain in the video which you can watch on the site: hillsongconference.com/backstage

Hillsong BACKSTAGE – Web Design – 5weeks to go from Hillsong Church on Vimeo.

So this is similar to the Catalyst Backstage and Orange Conference Behind the scenes/live streaming plus highlights from the conference!

So it will be developing for the next few weeks as we countdown to the conference. If you cannot make it to the conference then this is the place to be during the week.

I will be hosting some of the live streaming along with a bunch of our team here at church!

Can’t wait!

So we have just launched new ministry tees this weekend at Hillsong Church.

So to all Hillsong Kids Leaders don’t forget to bring in your old tees leaders and trade them in, along with ten bucks if you can!

Photo courtesy of @K4Kieran from our Hills Campus!

I am really happy with the design – and the three colours are just options for our leaders to choose from. If you look in the top right of the design you can see our name tags that are printed out from our Biometric (fingerprint) ESI (Electronic Sign In) kiosks. So there is actually a spot to put the name tag now — looks smart!

Thanks to Ricky on our communications staff who hooked us up and pointed us in the right direction for suppliers!

NOTE: If you are wondering why we get our leaders to bring in old tees, its mainly because we don’t them showing up in second hand clothing stores and we hope to recycle the old ones for some purpose like tee shirt games for kids and even giving them to one of our new campuses in Europe.

It’s really late – and I am gettin’ ready to sleep.

But before I retire, I wrote a bunch of stuff on some Napkin’s this week, small slivers of paper with ideas covering them.

These ideas could be the seeds of my future.

They could be the result a little too much mexican food.

But no matter what, these ideas need to come out. Even if it’s not the greatest idea in the world, there could be gold hiding behind it!

(Or platinum).

So thanks to Justyn and the team at The Church at South Las Vegas for such a flippin’ awesome conference.

#napconf is the hashtag for this years Napkin Conference in Las Vegas.

Man I love it!

With a bunch of like minded people who care about kids – even more than that, the kind of of people who don’t get all freaky about going to ‘sin city‘… the truth is Jesus was all about being where the sinners were!

So the room is full of ‘My People’!

More than any other conference I have attended, I feel like this is a group of friends learning from each other.

Congrats to Pastor Justyn – the first day was sensational! Looking forward to the second day.

P.S. Nathan Mclean, Carlos and I went $1 Graveyard bowling at midnight at the Hotel and Mclean bowled 6 strikes in one game for a score of 160! A true 2am champion!

Check it out! Big News from UNITED!

On Wednesday, November 4th, popular Australian musical sensation Hillsong United will appear on movie screens across the US for an exclusive One Night Event featuring a performance by the internationally recognized worship band and their much-anticipated documentary, hosted live from Australia.

“We’re All in this Together”- Part apologetic, part documentary, part call to action, the film is a story made up of many stories, told by many voices, no individual voice any more or any less important than any other, yet every voice working together to ultimately tell the ONE story – A story that involves everyONE; that seeks to capture our collective and idiosyncratic purpose in ONE.

See you in Las Vegas!

Napkin Conference

View: Conference Promo

So I am in the beautiful Gold Coast in Queensland at the National ACC conference. Some very powerful messages happening and great connecting going on all over the place. \n\nMy pastor Brian Houston finished his current season as the National President and has handed the leadership to Wayne Alcorn to lead this awesome movement (just gotta love voting!) (not really)\n\nIt has been quite an honour to watch Brian pretty close up over the last few years and I LOVE to see a good transition in leadership, it just blesses my soul.\n\nThanks Brian. \nWelcome Wayne, I got ya back. \n

GMA Awards were recently announced, Tell the World is nominated for:

CHILDREN’S MUSIC ALBUM
album; artist; producer; label

Absolute Modern Worship for Kids 4; Phoebe Ebensberger, Emily Ebensberger, Abbie Ebensberger, Joseph O’Brien, Timmy O’Brien, Mikey O’Brien, Abbie Chapman, Meghan O’Brien, Adelaide Bauer, Kristen Bauer, Karissa Selby, Emma Rose Williamson, Tyler Beiden, Garrett Williamson; Chance Scoggins; Fervent Records
All God’s Animals; TJ McCloud; Brandon Scott Thomas, Eric Wyse; Martingale Music
David: Shepherd, Psalmist, Soldier, King!; Bible StorySongs; Paula King, Catherine Walker; Bible StorySongs
Shout Praises Kids – I Am Free; Jeff Sandstrom, Kurt Goebel, Stephen Leiweke, Jeremy Redmon; Integrity Music
Sleepytime Lullabies; Praise Baby; Matt Huesmann; Big House Kids
Tell The World; Hillsong Kids; Julia A’Bell, Gio Galanti, Andrew Crawford, David Wakerley; Hillsong, Integrity Music

The awards are on April 32rd!

See the full list of nominations here

Cover of K Mag.

Earlier this year I was invited to be a part of a fantastic new venture… K!

K! Magazine is sweeping children’s ministries around the globe. Each issue is jam-packed with practical articles, great ideas, and the best tips for ministering to 21st century kids and their families.

There are very few magazines of this calibre about ministry to kids in the world!!

So here is what you should do…

Go to www.thekmagazine.com and then click on the “Bulk Subscription” link to learn more about bulk subscriptions and rates… buy some for your whole team!!

In this months edition you can read what I wrote about Private Devotion and Public Passion – Training kids to worship God Monday through Saturday.

And in the next – The Air They Breathe.

I write with my wife Beci about the journey of Hillsong Kids Praise and Worship!

Check it out now.

So first night at the Grove Studio for 2008 kids album. Lots of work to do. But I am up for the challenge. There are a couple songs I believe will be VERY powerful for kids to sing. So next two weeks are spent getting ready for recording on 8th October. Pictured Andrew Crawford recording guru.

Last week our team flew to Melbourne to the Kidshaper conference.

We took most of the staff, and a bunch of volunteers, about 20 people all up.

There is MUCH that could be said about the week. The fantastic input from Glen Berteau, the awesome worship from the Planetshakers band and the team from Citikidz in Brisbane. Being massively inspired by the ever youthful Rob Bradbury who is more passionate about reaching kids for Christ than he ever was!

One of the afternoons we sat down as a team and talked about what we felt God was saying to us and others. I really felt that God is pounding the point into my somewhat slow cranium, that I need to pray, believe and expect for miracles with our kids and powerful encounters with God each service!

It’s not just about teaching the word of God, but it is also His presence!

In a country with very few full time ministers to children I am VERY excited to see over one thousand at a conference like this.

So here’s to next year with the statesman that is Jim WIdeman and daughter Yancy!

Even though I didn’t blog much during the conference, I did twitter a bunch, so check the stream out.

So thanks Rob and Team… and I guess I have to write a book now?

At some ungodly hour I will awaken tomorrow and get on a little bus and make my way down south… Way down South to Melbourne to Kidshaper, our annual national Children’s ministry conference.

We are taking not just our staff this year, but a whole bunch of volunteers so it will be a blast!!!

I plan to Twitter the conference which will hopefully be a better experience than the one at our Colour conference a few months ago.

It turns out it’s hard to blog a conference while serving at it! (who knew).

I am speaking in just one elective so I will have a lot more time to comment on the messages and ministry.

So follow the Twitter stream at http://Twitter.com/kidinspiration

If you are coming, see you there! My elective is on Thursday afternoon, come and say hi!

Friday afternoon, 3pm in a corporate suite in the Acer Arena Sydney (it’s not what you know, but who!)

High School Musical: The Ice Tour

School holidays were on, so stadium packed with mum’s and kids!

Review: Show is basically movie 1 and 2 in two halves. From where I was sitting all the skaters looked like their movie counterparts. I don’t think that many kids would have realised they weren’t from the movie, unless you had front row seats.

Ice rink/East High School.

Crowd at the Acer Arena

Mirjam, Esther and Beci in our suite.

The Stage again

So a fun afternoon hanging with Troy and Gabriella… what can I apply to ministry?

Well thousands of kids are much easier to manage with their parents sitting with them!