3 Great Reasons to Attend Worship424 (and one just OK reason)

By Jon Nicol

You've made it through the holidays, packed away the Christmas tunes for another year, and likely have enough just left in your tank to limp into 2013.

If you live within 4 or 5 hours of the Dayton, OH area, I've got something to refill your reserves and get you excited to do ministry again.

Cedarville University is hosting their annual Worship424 Conference January 25 - 26. This is a great conference. Let me tell you why:

First, they don't mess around with their headliners. They brought in the team from Gateway Church (Dallas, TX) last year. This year, it's NewLife Worship. (Yeah, that NewLife…I Am Free, Great I Am, Overcome, Amazed, etc.)

Second, it's not a huge event like some of the national conferences where the artists are off limits unless you wait for 2 hours for an autograph. I was able to get to know a few of the team from Gateway. Even found out one of them grew up 30 minutes away from my hometown in Iowa. (There's instant camaraderie among those who escape that giant cornfield just west of the Mississippi.) The other presenters were equally as accessible and willing to chat and give advice.

Third, the price is just sick. (Good sick, not make-a-mess-of-the-carpet sick.) They extended the early bird price of $30 till this Monday (1/7). That gets you into the sessions and the concert on Friday, as well as all day Saturday. Even if you can't come on Friday, Saturday's worth it, even at the full price of $50. If you do get there on Friday, an extra $10 for the networking lunch is worth it, too.

So if that's not enough to convince you to come, let me add the clincher: I'll be there. (See, that probably changes everything, doesn't it?) But seriously, I'll be teaching two different breakout sessions based on my Small Church/Big Worship resources. I'd love to connect with you in one of those.

Or if there are better sessions to attend (and it looks like there easily could be), it'd be fun to connect with you at lunch or during one of the breaks. So if you're going and you'd like to chat, shoot me an email.

Last thing, if you haven't taken your team to a conference before, here's an article I wrote that talks about how conferences can grow and develop your team.

I'd love to hear from you: what conferences do you invest in?

January 3, 2013