Righto, so blog posts are meant to be reasonably short. This is not a format for essay’s or novels — so this is part one of my thoughts about the Annual Kidshaper conference this year.

It is Saturday right now and I am enjoying my own house with my boys and some quality time with my laptop.

First of all I would like to say thanks to Rob Bradbury, Children’s minister and legend veteran inspirational leader man for inviting myself and our Hillsong Kids team to speak and be a part of this conference. I was excited to share all about ‘Makin’ It Up’ (outline to come soon), and some of our team shared at the electives in the afternoon.

Second of all it is so great to hang out with our Hillsong Kids Staff and lots of key volunteers/students and leaders. You are honestly remarkable and I love the passion and heart for our Church you have. I love the longevity and consistency that each of you already have!

Thirdly to every leader of children in the Church of Australia. You have a voice and experience and something to contribute! You have a calling and a passion and don’t allow anything to dampen what God can do through you!

Fourthly, to my own Church Hillsong and my Senior Pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston and to Joel and Julia A’Bell, I appreciate your leadership so much. You have taught me that focus, singular vision and keeping your heart with all diligence will take you a long way, in fact all way to your calling.

Lots more to come.

Our annual Hillsong Conference is over for another year – we will have photos and videos up on the Conference website but it is in ‘promo mode’ without a specific Kidsong page getting ready for next year. So when it returns to info mode I will point you to it for sure.

Because of the Hillsong One Days we were in the Sydney Entertainment Centre (probably the lamest venue in Sydney for Kids), but we had tents… in the middle of winter! Okay, they were very nice marquees with big heaters (I want one for my house). So we were comfortably housed and our Primary school Year 2-6 kids were bused to our City Campus to spend the day in luxury.

It was a huge success on all counts, especially pulling off the crazy marquee thing and making buses a beautiful experience for all concerned!

I would like to officially acknowledge the fantastic Hillsong Kids Staff from all of our campuses for making this the safest and most enjoyable conference for kids ever! (I am basing that on data available from Paramedics and General feedback from Parents and Kids, so very scientific).

And as always the hundreds of volunteers that made it work, not only logistically but relationally, you really made it happen! (I even heard of kids crying at the end of the week because they would miss you. Brilliant!)

Here is the theme and teaching for this years conference!

KIDSONG 2011 BIG PICTURE:  Unchartered Journey

PRIMARY BIG WORD: Psalm 25:4 “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior and my hope is in you all day long” (NIV)

EARLY CHILDHOOD BIG WORD: John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God John 14:1

TUESDAY PM

BIG IDEA: LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
BIG POINT: God has an epic journey planned just for me
EC WORD OF DAY: Dreams – God has a plan for my life

PREACHING NOTES: Children will learn that God has a great future for them. An Epic journey is not always easy, not always fun, there will be challenges and lessons learned along the way but with God it will be an epic adventure!

Psalm 37:23 (NKJV) The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

Jeremiah 29:11 New International Reader’s Version (NIRV) “I know the plans I have for you,” announces the Lord. “I want you to enjoy success. I do not plan to harm you. I will give you hope for the years to come.

WEDNESDAY AM & PM

BIG IDEA: OPENING SCENE!
BIG POINT: If I trust God, he will direct my journey
EC WORD OF DAY: Love – God’s love leads us

PREACHING NOTES: We can trust God with our future. We don’t know what the future holds, but we can know that one that holds our future.

Proverbs 3:5-6 New International Version (NIV) Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

THURSDAY AM & PM

BIG IDEA:                    STICK WITH GOD!

BIG POINT:                 No matter what, never give up

EC WORD THE DAY:  Pray – I can talk to God all the time

PREACHING NOTES: An epic journey has a beginning, middle and end. What makes the story of the journey EPIC and exciting is that there are challenges to overcome along the way. Think of any movie you’ve seen – what makes it good is that the character has to overcome something to get where they need to go. And if they don’t give up in the end is VICTORY!  No matter what, don’t give up, God is with you!

Galatians 6:9 New International Version (NIV) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

FRIDAY AM & PM

BIG IDEA:                    CLOSING CREDITS
BIG POINT:                 With Jesus I can overcome any obstacles
EC WORD OF DAY:     Jesus – Jesus is always with me

PREACHING NOTES: With Jesus anything could happen, nothing is impossible and with Him we can overcome any obstacles. When we focus on how BIG God is, problems we thought were big, look small.

2 Timothy 1:7 New King James Version (NKJV) “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Matthew 19:26 New International Reader’s Version (NIRV) “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man, that is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.”

Isaiah 41:10 New International Reader’s Version (NIRV) “So do not be afraid. I am with you. Do not be terrified. I am your God  I will make you strong and help you. My powerful right hand will take good care of you.  I always do what is right.”

I’m involved in this:

What Matters Now In Children’s Ministry

So visit here: cmwhatmattersnow.com

This blog has been quiet.

It may not get much noisier in the next little while, but I would love to share a couple of highlights from the last few weeks.

We have Kidsfest both in our Hills Campus in Sydney (all Sydney campuses join us) and for the first time in Brisbane!

We recorded a project for our preschoolers in Sydney, the first ever for that age group.

The days ran amazingly well, probably the best run Kidsfest we have ever had! Well done to our Hillsong Kids team!

By the way: Thanks for so much great feedback on the recent post about Story fill zyrtec prescription = Danger? In all the years writing this blog, its has been the most well engaged and responded post ever! So thanks to all commentors! And I will do a follow up post eventually!

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 dostinex without prescriptions 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 discount zyrtec online 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!

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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 dilantin 50 mg 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.