2014 World Wide Conference - Mexico
A GATHERING OF CONEXT PARTNERS
The Conference site is closed. We trust that God met you while at conference and that you had a great time of connection with Him and others. We look forward to seeing you in 2018!
Attendance at World Wide Conference is expected of all staff, but for a good perspective on why you should attend, we appreciate what Sam and John had to say:
A note from Sam Metcalf
Every four years, we set aside time for all of us who minister together around the world to come together. A tradition that began back in 1998, this World Wide Conference has proven to be an essential element in sustaining momentum and a sense of dynamic community.
This coming year, staff and friends from over twenty-five countries will gather for a week of worship, spiritual refreshment, shared learning, and a renewal of our common vision. As we congregate in 2014 in Mexico, our prayer is that we will not only re-engage relationally in one another’s lives and ministries, but that we will experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on us as a unique, apostolic expression of the Body of Christ.
Until July,
Sam Metcalf
On behalf of the Conext Partners
Why do we have a World Wide Conference?
A note from John Hayes
(Director of InnerCHANGE):
“Years ago, I ransacked the gospels for practical insights into sustaining dynamic community over the long haul since that was important for InnerCHANGE if we were to survive in our ministry.
“In the short term, I sensed community would come naturally and easily. . . as we were all pioneers thrown excitedly together in some difficult, challenging contexts. But I was concerned that we would fall prey to the deterioration of relationships that seems to mark so many movements or organizations with the passage of time.
“Luke 4:24, in which Christ references the proverb, ‘A prophet is without honor in his home town’ seemed to speak a warning to our hope of maintaining a close, relational atmosphere for the long haul. What we wanted was more than ‘team,’ more than ‘organization,’ it was family. And as family we enjoyed a natural intimacy. But with family comes familiarity, and with familiarity came the tendency to under-appreciate one another or even diminish one another.
“‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ is simply a more contemporary restatement of the proverb Jesus quoted that was circulating in His day, and we have wrestled with symptoms of that same contempt. One of the symptoms of under-appreciation I have occasionally noticed manifesting itself is a resistance to attending important functions like annual conferences or a cynicism about gathering at other times as staff.
“I believe that when organizations first begin they gather naturally with joy and eagerness regardless of the agenda. There is a tacit sense that gathering as family has value for its own sake. Families gather. They nurture one another. They sharpen as iron sharpens iron.
“However, with time, as the ‘prophet in his hometown syndrome’ begins to deflate our sense of one another’s value, a subtle transition can take place. No longer is it important intrinsically to gather together—we must know the agenda and know that the agenda of the gathering is ‘worth our time’ or ‘worth all this money.’
“I am not suggesting that agenda is not important or need not be discharged in an excellent manner or that costs are difficult to bear —I am suggesting that when our concern about the agenda of a conference or the cost supplants the value of gathering as our unique, apostolic expression of the Body, we are in danger of under-appreciating one another and ‘professionalizing’ our relationships.
“So I believe as we gather … as the CRM Family from around the world, we will be expressing again the value we have in one another’s lives intrinsically as a John 13:34 community over and above simply what we can ‘take’ from one another or from the conference presentation to advance our personal learning curves. For many reasons, being in [Malaysia] is important but this reason alone should be justification enough.”