Taking your team to CPC--(Widen the Circle)

I had the privelege of doing something which was, for me, totally new at CPC this year. I brought my team. I highly recommend it for anyone that is able to do it.

Here's why it was worth it:
For years I have been growing personally as a leader and learning about all kinds of ways to better minister to our kids and families. I would come back from the conference and try to communicate things that I was very excited about and that made perfect sense to me. You would have thought I had 4 heads by the responses I would get. Now, we have made progress and slowly worked toward some of these goals over the past few years. However, it has at times seemed like I was the only one pushing for these initiatives (which was probably true).

Taking my team to CPC has totally changed this. I now have 5 staff members who came back, all hearing the same things, and all on the same page. Specifically for our church, they got to hear about the "Orange" concept of family ministry. I have to say I was amazed at their excitement and passion for this. Why, after I've been trying to share this for years, were they so excited about it now?

They heard it from someone else.

Orange calls this concept 'widening the circle'. The thought is that as kids grow older, other voices will become louder and louder and they will listen to those voices more than the voices of their parent. So parents should intentionally choose the voices their kids will get to hear. Taking my team to CPC (and choosing some of their breakouts) was a way of choosing the voices my team would hear. So, letting them hear the same things I'd been saying to them, from somebody else, made a huge difference. No matter how good a leader you might be, there is value in letting other people teach your team. They hear things differently from someone else, much like a teenager hears truth from a small group leader or teacher or coach, than they do from a parent. They have all come back from CPC fired up for ministry and ready to make necessary changes to do things better.

Taking your team to CPC gives you the opportunity to let your team members hear, from 'experts', the concepts you would like to share with them yourself. The difference is when they hear it, they have the opportunity to 'own' the idea and run with it, which helps you accomplish the dreams God has given you for your ministry. Other conferences offer the same potential, but CPC offers so many different options that you can accomplish this with your team, no matter what your focus in ministry might be. Whether you want to develop your special needs ministry, improve your partnership with parents, or run the best VBS every this summer, taking your team to CPC can help you develop the leaders on your team to do it!