I just attended the second annual MinistryCOM Conference here in Phoenix. This conference was designed for church communications professionals (and amateurs alike). Since I am relatively new to the church communications scene, my church sent me to glean as much knowledge from the bigwigs that my brain capacity would allow.
I enjoyed the chance to meet people from all over the nation from all sorts of churches. The first day, I sat at a table with 3 women from Presbyterian churches in Florida and Texas, and one from a Lutheran church in Oklahoma. It was interesting for me to see that long-time traditional churches were investing money in sending their staff to a very forward-thinking conference.
The most worth-while sessions I attended were led by Dawn Nicole Baldwin with AspireOne, Jon Edmiston of CCV, and Kem Meyer of Granger Community Church. I think I liked Jon’s session best because he gave us a great look into the specific target marketing practices that have been in place at CCV for about 16 years, and have helped make that church a successful ministry to the Peoria area.
I also spent some time talking to two guys with National Community Church in Washington D.C. These guys (Dave and David) do a good job on print, website, and video projects for their very media-heavy church. They helped me out by giving me advice for planning, organizing, and follow-through methods for large projects. I’m looking forward to streamlining my design process at Palm Valley using some tips from them.
Even though I enjoyed my time at the MinistryCOM Conference, I felt a bit like a senior taking a freshman-level college course. I’m not saying that I am an expert at all of this, but Palm Valley has presented me with an opportunity to work with a very cutting-edge church, and much of what I heard seemed like pretty basic stuff.
My goal is to simply find three specific things from the conference that I can take with me and implement in my job. After a bit of rest and time for reflection, I will try to outline the three most important things I learned in a new entry.
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