Kevin Presseault

My bags are packed and I'm heading out in about 20 minutes to the airport! This has been a great week of learning and meeting new people but there is NO place like home! I just can't wait to give the family a HUGE hug.

The conference is officially over. What a great GREAT time! I met a lot of great people and took in a ton of information. Tonight I'll be processing some of my notes and will blog on some of the big ideas that I have come out with.

Man oh man... you wouldn't believe the data dump going on here at the Purpose Driven Small Group Conference! I was hoping to blog more regularly but I've been spending my breaks absorbing everything and enjoying the California sun! :) Luckily today is cold and cloudy so I'll be blogging more thoughts from the conference later on today.

Steve Gladen, Small Group Pastor from Saddleback gave a GREAT session on "How to Define Success" in your small group ministry. The big take away for me in this session is the importance of ensuring a healthy and vibrant spiritual live in MYSELF. A healthy life spills into our leaders and then out into our ministry. This was a very important reminder... no matter the plan, no matter the training, God will do his best work in the one who seeks him daily. I especially like the Health Assessment Plan that he had us work on. I mentioned this tool to our small group leader training we did at my house a couple of weeks ago but didn't have the full info that was given this morning. I'll definitely have to explain this tool better to our leaders so they can use it look at their own walks with God.

Only 4 minutes left for the break so I'll try to sum up pretty quickly the first session of the conference. A Worship time was opened with the song "Without Love" by the Doobie Brothers. I loved it! What a great reminder... where would we be now without the love that God has given us. The music was loud and rocking. Just the way I like it :) The first speaker was Randy Frazee , teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church. He oversees adult ministries and a new neighbourhood strategy. His session was great. The big take away for me is the need to BE the church and not simply GO to church. We live in a culture suffering from "crowded loneliness"... where people have so many contact points and people in their lives but so incredibly few close, meaningful relationship! The worship band just kicked in... I'll post again at lunch.

Here I am. Sitting in the beautiful, sun-filled worship center of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California! What an incredible campus they have here. It's a lot smaller then I thought... maybe my trip to Willow Creek last year warped my perception of big churches :) The volunteers are SUPER friendly and incredibly helpful. The first session starts in 10 minutes... just enough time to grab another coffee before it gets started :) I'll be posting regularly throughout the conference. If anyone has any specific questions or stuff you'd like me to find out for you don't hesitate to drop me a line.

In a few hours I'm heading off to Toronto to catch my flight to Orange County, California. Just one last stop to the bank to grab some US currency then I'll be all set. I'm really looking forward to this conference. I'll be sure to post regular updates on the conference here on my blog.