Dare Conference

After two very cold and snowy days, meeting as a KKI European leadership team in the south of Germany, I have to confess I was not disappointed to discover that the snow was nearly gone by the time we reached Altensteig on Wednesday. Our final meeting to prepare the conference had been in an Alpine Lodge at the top of a mountain. In blinding snow and freezing winds, we had to take a cable car and then a chairlift to get there, and I felt almost too cold to pray by the time we reached the top. So it was a relief to discover that Altensteig, two hours northwest from there, was sometimes sunny and sometimes rainy, but never as cold as it had been down in Kempten.

We're now in the third day of the DARE conference - a gathering of people who work with children, youth and families all over Europe. There's a good representation from Germany, France and Switzerland, as well as people from Spain, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and the UK. The theme of the conference is Dare to Serve. On the first day, we were re-challenged with the importance of daring to serve out of a constant awareness of God's presence. The next day we looked at how essential it is to serve, even in small and seemingly insignificant ways in our own small corner of the world. And today's theme was "Dare to Serve the World" an invitation to reach out and demonstrate the love of God across Europe, Africa and beyond.

During the afternoons, we've offered a wide variety of interactive workshops. Yesterday I had more than thirty people in the workshop I was offering about using coaching skills to help people be excellent in their ministry and their personal life. Although I presented the workshop mainly in English, it wasn't long before we had groups around the room practising the newly learned skills in four or five different languages. My brain got a good workout as I had to switch constantly from English to German, and then to Dutch and French. The feedback from the workshop was very positive, and one or two people are thinking of signing up for the one-year coach training programme that we're offering next year.

Today, we presented a workshop about the Planting Together vision: of taking teams of young people to plant trees and share the gospel in all kinds of other ways in Africa. Again, we had more than thirty people in the workshop group, and it was encouraging to learn that many of them are seriously praying about taking outreach teams either to Tanzania or Senegal during 2013.

Two more plenary sessions lie ahead - tonight and tomorrow morning. These corporate meetings have been times of worshipping God together, hearing great input from guest speakers as well as KKI leaders, praying for each other and responding to God's call to DARE to serve Him with passion and purity. Thanks for your prayers during these last twenty four hours of the conference.