Leadership Training Conference

Greeting from the other side of the world. We had a great opportunity to conduct a leadership training conference for church leaders in Battambang. The event started with a Cambodian worship team taking us into the presence of God. It was such a special feeling hearing songs being sung in another language yet feeling God's presence move just the same. Dougie Fresh and his team lead us next and they were incredible. Seeing how they had no sound check and had never played togethter, the sound was amazing. The Lord's presence again came down and fill the building. It was a great start to a wonderful conference.

After worship, we had three quest speakers. Lance LeBlanc, from Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, La, spoke on being salt and serving in your community. I spoke about overcoming adversity and growing closer with God, Sheri, from Life Chuch in Memphis, spoke about managing your team.

The main theme that we all took back from the conference was how young the leaders were. There were 300-400 leaders in attendance and 95% were under the age of 20, yet here they were leading small groups and ministries in their churches. 300 churches were represented in this leadership conference. The truth we were able to impart to them will not only help change this country but will impact this part of the world for generations.

Yet, the biggest impact was made on me. Seeing people with nothing, who live on $2 a day, living not only their life but there Christian walk with pure joy was inspiring. We are so blessed in America, yet we constantly get trapped in the same game: Keeping Up with the Jones. Seeing people truly happy always put things in perspective. This is a great thing we are doing over here. We are all blessed to be part of Church that make missions a focus and a priority.

John Brooks (JB)