Was it a Revelation?

It’s now a month since our inaugural Revelation Music and Ministry conference, and what a great time it was.  Almost 200 people, including around 40 volunteers and presenters, from around 35 churches gathered together on a cold, but sunny, weekend at Immanuel College.

I’m biased, but I think my father’s talks were fantastic.  At some point, we’ll develop the resources section of the Revelation website and upload them. He challenged us from Ephesians, Hebrews and Psalm 116 about making our gatherings places of praise, prayer, proclamation and edification.

We ran about 25 workshops on a range of topics, with much positive feedback… thank you so much to those presenters.  And not to mention the people who shared a song at the Open Mic sessions – wow… what talent.

And it was a wonderful privilege to share the platform with Nicky Chiswell and Geoff Bullock, both of whom had fantastic challenges about what’s important in our lives and ministries.

It was a conference with pastors, musicians and members of congregations present, and there was something for everyone.

So, was it a revelation?

What I discovered was how much the Christian community can encourage one another around a common ministry goal.  I was so buoyed by the vibe of the people.  Some come from smaller churches where they’re busting their guts week after week to do music; others came from larger churches with the pressures of lots of opinions to navigate.  But we all became increasingly aware that our gatherings together are places in which music plays a role in planting gospel seeds deeply into our lives.

I thank God for a great first conference!  Stay tuned for info about 2012.

Workshop Program at Revelation

After months of planning, the Revelation Conference team has now released the list of workshops that we’ll be offering at the conference.  The workshops are a key way in which we plan to cater for the diverse group of attendees at the conference: e.g. pastors, musicians, members of the general congregation, people involved in associated ministries such as youth or kids ministry, etc…

There are about 25 workshops on offer this year, spread over 5 workshop slots in the program, so that at any point in the program there will be about 5 or 6 different choices.

Part of our planning process has involved carefully working through all the workshop topics to allocate them in such a way that in any of the workshop slots there is always something for everyone.  For example, there will always be something on offer for non-musicians, and none of the slots contain 4 or 5 specialist topics simultaneously.

We plan to update the program on the website to show this allocation of workshops.  Thank you for your patience as we plan this brand new event to make it as useful as possible for as many as possible.

Register online today to make sure there is still space for you.  Places are filling up quickly and the conference is less than 3 weeks away!

 

Revelation Conference Website Launch

This week the website for the brand new music and ministry conference went live.  Check it out.  www.revelation.org.au

Registration is all online.  Consider coming along and being part of the inaugural event.

There’ll be launching of new music (including my own new album), a whole heap of really interesting and thought-provoking workshops, plus we’ll be delving into the whole question of how our gatherings need good music!

I can’t wait to share the stage with Nicky Chiswell and Geoff Bullock – 2 artists for whom I have enormous respect, and from whom I always expect to be challenged and uplifted.

Join us!  Take the Friday off work.  Travel if you have to.

Hope to see you there.

New Album, New Conference

Revelation: Music and Ministry Conference” is kicking off this year.  Here are the details for your diary:

14-16 July at Immanuel College (Novar Gardens)
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Main Speaker: David Peterson (can’t say it’s no relation, but can say it’ll be very good!), author of “Engaging with God: a Biblical Theology of Worship”.

Guest Artists: Nicky Chiswell and Geoff Bullock

An then there’s the CD

The CD will be launched at the conference.  Can’t wait.  New musical directions for me.  The CD will be in 2 halves: first half a bunch of new songs recorded in the studio.  The second half a range of old hymns and a couple of my own songs recorded live at Mens Katoomba Convention.

More info to come…