I’m excited to say that Illuminate has year two behind it now with just finishing the second event in Austin, TX. Although we had a very high retention of churches come back again (in addition to many new churches), I was amazed by how many people were brand new this year. It felt like the whole room.

I’m incredibly blessed because everything went so exceedingly well. Other than the little tweak here and the adjustment there, there isn’t much of anything that I would change. It was a fantastic second year event. I’ll be sending out email evaluations later this week, but that hasn’t stopped the emails from coming in already. Here are what some people are saying:

“Again I wanted to say great job!  My team was buzzing like crazy the whole way back home. We had a great time and learned so much!  Thank you for dreaming up a conference that truly blesses volunteers.”

“Thank you for all of the work, time, heart, and prayer that you all put into today’s program. We walked away encouraged and inspired!”

“I was so very blessed to attend this conference.  God is working in so many different areas of our ministry here, due to the conference. I just can’t fully describe in words how this conference has changed my thinking and how God was making plans last spring and summer!!  What a blessing you and Illuminate has been to me and will be to our church from birth to college aged.”

I’ll be honest, there have been times this year when I’ve questioned whether I really needed to do this. As great of an idea as it has been, it’s been a lot of hard work and at times very frustrating. But seeing it happen and hearing how much it impacted people make ever bit worth it. I’ll write more posts this week about what happened at the event.