Conference Season 2012/2013

As I said in my last post one of the reasons I am so behind in my blogging is because of conference season.  I have worked with SDEA for 16 years now (crazy!) and for the past 11 years I have been in charge of the conferences.  What does that mean?  Well, I wear a few hats but the main hat is working with the youth pastors getting their groups registered, hotels reserved and all their needs taken care of.  I really do love my job - I feel that it is a huge responsibility that the Lord has entrusted me with.  It can be very stressful at times but the end results and seeing it all come together is worth the stress.  Here are a few pictures of this year's Strength to Stand Conferences!

Our theme this year was Nothing to Lose - A Generation for Desperation

We start 2 days after Christmas with our December - Southeastern Student Conference.  We had around 1000 students from 8 states represented.

Rush of Fools were the worship leaders

Jamie Grace was in concert

During all the stress my sweet husband sent me these beautiful tulips!  He knows when I need a pick me up!

The whole office gets in on the conference work!

We then turn to our Smoky Mountain Student Conference.  This is the complicated one where we have what we like to call - controlled chaos.  Its held during the MLK holiday weekend when the students are out of school on Monday.  This is our larger conference - this year we had 10,140 from 15 states and multi-denominations.  We run 4 small theaters at the same time with 2 sessions - so we have 4 worship leaders who play to 2 different audiences.  Our speakers will speak to 8 different audiences - same message, different audience.  Then, we do 2 large concerts on separate nights.  We have a large conference but it has an intimate feel, yet we can still do big concerts.  Lots of info but it works.

Pigeon Forge loves when we come into town - its a down time for them in January so we help bring in tourism.

Rush of Fools led worship at the Smoky Mountain Palace which holds 1700 - so in total it can hold 3400 students for the weekend..

Grand Majestic Theater with worship leader Bethany Barr Phillips.
This theater holds 1000 - so with both sessions it can hold 2000.

Matt Papa led worship at the Smoky Mountain Opry which holds 1200 - so with both sessions - 2400.

Brett Younker led worship at Country Tonite which holds 1500 and a total of 3000 for both sessions.

Scott speaking on the "Big Night" (this is what we call our 2 large concert nights).  We do 2 Big Nights with a little over 5,000 students per night. 

Scott praying before he went up to speak

Counseling at the Big Night

This year we had David Crowder perform

Kari Jobe was also in concert - she is amazing!

KJ-52 got the Big Night crowd warmed up and was emcee for the night

Kristian Stanfill was also in concert and does an incredible job leading worship

The youth pastors got to hear from Kristian Stanfill and Crowder before their session.

Trip Lee did concerts for all of the theaters - so in 2 nights he did 8 concerts...busy!

Scott and some members of the team go around to all 8 sessions to meet with the youth pastors.  Its an opportunity for us to tell them how much we appreciate them and go over details for the weekend.

A few views from some of the theaters...

We cannot do these events without wonderful volunteers and team members.  I am only one person and we have a great team that supports each other.  Here is one of our office volunteers - who has been with us for seven years - she is a staff member in our eyes - Ms. Gail - and if you cannot tell- she loves to have a good time!

So, another year has come to a close and now our sites turn to the 2013/2014 conference season. We are already busy preparing.

We had over 600 decisions made for Christ at the conferences.  That is why we do what we do - not to do a conference but for evangelism.  I love being able to play a small part in making an eternal impact for the Kingdom!