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I’ve spent the last few days in Lexington, KY participating in the CMXPO. It’s a different kind of conference for kids ministry. At the Children’s Ministry Expo, the focus is really put on networking and seeing what products are out there for kidmin. Here are a few things I enjoyed about my experience.
Readers: It was awesome to meet so many readers from our website. Each one had a different story about how our site has served their ministry. Hearing from them has been a great reminder of why we keep growing this website.
Other Bloggers: Wayne Stocks, Commander Bill, Gina McClain, Amy Fenton Lee, Tamara Kraft, Roger Fields, Jim Wideman and Matt McKee were all hanging around. A few of them even made some mischief on camera. See the last 30 seconds in the video below.
Website Sponsors: I was glad to finally meet Bob Singleton from God’s Kids Worship and the people from Kidz Matter. They have been generous supporters of this site and I loved seeing their products up-close. They both had really awesome booths.
Speaking Experience: I gave two short presentations at the expo. The format was a little challenging because so much was going on, but I had fun anyway. I get to preach in big church about 4 times each year, but this was my first time at a kids ministry conference. I really loved the interaction and learned so much from the after talk conversations with people.
New Friends: I loved the chance to get to know so many new people. I was glad to meet the people from Seeds Family Worship, Kidology, D6 Family Ministry, Coach D, Ask Me Whooo, Advancing Native Missions, CPC Conference, Yancy, R04R and Jesus Film for Kids. You can see their booths in my video below.
Exhibit Booth: The conference gave me a spot to set-up as an exhibitor. This was a little weird, since all our content is 100% free. It was nice to have a home base, but most conference attendees didn’t really get what we were about. I did get some insight into what Christian publishers have to do when getting the word out about their products.
Update: Other are writing about the EXPO. Wayne is posting about his favorite part of the conference. Steven Bourque posed a recap of the event. You can also read Commander Bill’s highlights too.
Here is my highlight video from the event. This is only a small number of the total booths, but I tried to catch most of the companies I like or friends with Kidmin blogs.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It was great to meet you…thanks for keeping those of us around the world informed and providing a platform to share!
Thanks for putting us in the video Tony. Appreciate that.
It was great to finally connect as well. Look forward to doing more of that.
My wife thinks I look good in the purple t-shirt. Not sure when that will see the light of day. I’ve been trying to tweet since our conversation, but it’s just really hard. I keep getting a headache and forgetting what I am supposed to be doing.
I am registered to attend Napkin 2011 again next year. That will probably be my only conference for awhile. I am trying to take a couple of personal vacations as well to explore other interests.
Looks like everyone had a great time. Wish I could have been there! Thanks for sharing this video.
It was mostly fun. I didn’t video all the boring parts… but there was always something going on. With the schedule, often 3 things were happening at once.
Do you have CM conferences on your schedule?