In the spring of 2000, the leaders of the children's ministry at church called me in for a meeting. Not knowing what to expect, I just thought it was a time for us to touch base about what we were trying in my class. It turned into so much more.
They were impressed with how the other volunteer and I had taken the material we heard at the one day conference in the fall and applied it to our class. Turns out Willow Creek - the church that did the one day conference, was doing a BIG conference at their home church. This would be a 3 day long event and afterwards they would be doing tours of their facilities. It was in Chicago in the spring and sounded amazing.
Then I was completely dumbfounded when they told me that they wanted me to attend. I completely didn't expect that! I thought that those kinds of conferences were only for paid staff members. Not for volunteers. But I stood corrected when they informed me that they were bringing all their children's ministry staff and also bringing some key volunteers. People they thought could make a difference in the ministry.
I was flattered and flabbergasted. And also poor. I was a college student working a few part time jobs to make ends meet. It wasn't like I had money for the tickets or registration or hotel - there was no way I had a couple hundred dollars to spend on this, no matter how much I wanted to attend.
No comments:
Post a Comment