[Kid Inspiration]

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!

Helen Burns from Relate Church in Vancouver came with her husband recently and spoke at our annual relationship seminar here at Hillsong.

We captured her talking about Kidsong World at Hillsong Conference, you can check it out below or visit the Hillsong Church Youtube channel here.

Thanks Helen, you can come back any time!

I am pretty pumped about this becuase for the first time ever Hillsong Church has created an official online forum!

So if you have been to Hillsong Conference in the last two years or a member of our network then you should have a login for the new online community all based around Conference.

Check it out!

There is pretty much one conference I attend each year that I have nothing to organise and that is Kidshaper. It is the national ACC children’s ministry conference in Melbourne Australia.

I get to just attend and enjoy it!

Except this year I had the honour of speaking as a keynote to the hundreds of awesome men and women of God who sow their lives into the kids of Australia and New Zealand and the world!

You can read a report from the official blog of Kidshaper CM1234

And follow Rob Bradbury (national grand poo-bah of Kids R Us) on twitter.

But from a personal perspective it was such a great few days receiving leadership and wisdom from Papa Smurf himself Jim Wideman and so many other leaders around this nation.

I really felt God speak to my heart about great steps forward both personally and for our church. It was a profound week and I love seeing the same faces each year knowing there are so many volunteers out there running ministries with a heart for God and kids.

If you are one of those people who perhaps is out there running your ministry as a volunteer without a big network of like minded people around you:

1. Find out who is close by you from Kids R Us… make contact and make yourself known. I know Rob and his team would love to support you.
2. Contribute – it’s the greatest way to connect. Write a nice comment on someone’s blog, reply to them on twitter. Connection is not all about the phone and face to face anymore. As you give you will receive. Send a resource to another Church, help them out. You may just find a lifetime ministry friend.
3. Come to Kidshaper next year and say hi.

Thanks Rob and team!

See you in Las Vegas!

Napkin Conference

View: Conference Promo

I really tried to think of something clever to title this post with, but all that came to mind was that above… I apologise and promise that it won’t happen again for at least a week.

I am excted though about coming to the big ole US and speaking at the Napkin Conference in Las Vegas Feb 2010.

I met Justyn Smith last year whe he came over with his Pastor Benny Perez who was speaking at Church. Benny is just one of those leaders who just has miracles follow him around and he spoke a great message to our Church. One of the miracles following him was Justyn who I met briefly and connected with as a young dude excited about reaching kids for Christ!

So I am truly honoured to come and be a part of this conference and already feel like God is putting a message in my heart for y’all.

So please come along and bring your team I would love to meet as many bloggers/twitterers as I can.

C Ya in Vegas Baby!

So a month ago we had our annual Men’s Conference here at Hillsong. It was probably our most significant one at a time when Men are really needed to assume leadership and take a stand for Christ in their families.

Robert Fergusson talked about the empty chair. His father died when he was eight and left an empty chair… but you don’t need to be dead to be vacant in areas of your life.

And I was really pumped to see Perry Noble speak as a guest speaker at the conference. I have been reading the dude’s blog for a couple of years and he just oozes passion. I also love reading one of his Children’s Pastors blog… shout out to Pudge! When a new post pop’s up from his blog I REALLY read it.

Anywoo… Perry bought a bunch of people along with him one of whom was Cherie Duffy the Children’s Pastor at Newspring!

It was fantastic meeting her and I dug up some stories on Pudge  (not really buddy) and generally connected with a passionate advocate of kids in the South of the US.

Now the reason I am blogging it now it because I realised after seeing the following video that I had not blogged about the conference or indeed the very Noble Perry, The video is at Tony Morgan’s blog

So check out the video below and subscribe to Tony’s blog, it’s top of my reading list!

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!