DEBRIEF - AFTER THE 2020 CONFERENCE

DEBRIEF - AFTER THE 2020 CONFERENCE
Tuesday, March 10, 2020 by Cindy Sproles

What can I say? Except WOW!

What a wonderful conference. Despite the attempts to have us derailed, everything went well. So, I felt it best to do a little debrief.

Now that you've had time to get home, rest, and absorb I hope you are finding what you learned and the friends you made are amazing.

What do we want you to walk away with?
1) The importance of the call from God upon your life to be a writer for Him
2) The importance of making it about Him and not about you
3) The importance of learning to wait on His timing
4) The vital skill of learning the craft of writing so that you produce the best work you can
5) Practice, practice, practice. Enter contests. Submit. JUST DO IT.
6) Fall deeper in love with this wonderful journey God has placed you on.

If we've helped you see those things, then we have been successful.

What do we hope is next?
Well, February 26-28, 2021 at the Cove, Asheville, NC is our next conference. In the meantime, we hope you'll stretch your wings and test the waters at some larger conferences. Linda Gilden has the Carolina Christian Writers Conference, Eva Marie Everson has the Florida and the North GA Christian Writers Conferences. Edie Melson has Mountainside Marketing, the fall retreat, and also Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. Just to name a few.

For those who paid the $25 to hold your room at the Cove, please don't jump the gun and pay in full until I send you an invoice. Folks forget they paid that $25 and it will come off your total. I have your names and your email addresses and I will notify you around August. I will ask if you still plan to attend and verify the room choice. PLEASE NOTE: If I do not hear from you in the specified time, your spot is placed back into the available rooms for new conferees and the $25 goes into our scholarship fund. So when I email you, please respond. If you cannot attend, it is your responsibility to let me know.

CHECK THE WEBSITE - Continue to check the website newsletter page for updates on the 2021 conference. You will always be informed if you keep checking the site.

A FEW HOUSEKEEPING RULES - Just so you know. Our conference, Ridgecrest Conference Center, and the Billy Graham Training Center are both SMOKE FREE and ALCOHOL FREE (Vaping and drug free) conferences and campuses. Please remember when you attend a Christian Conference to check the site of the conference and also of the venue and verify their policies. Never assume. Always check the policies. It is not my business what you choose to do at home, but we are bound by liability insurance, venue policies, and our ministry policies. Please help us by leaving these items at home.

BOOKING FOR 2021 - We were able to book additional rooms at Ridgecrest because of their size and availability. And I was happy to do that, however, we do not have this privilege at the Cove. We have 60 rooms reserved for CONFEREES ONLY. If your spouse wishes to attend with you there are two options. 1) They register as a conferee and pay for the conference or 2) you register as off campus and secure your own hotel room at one of the 3 hotels at the foot of the Cove. The Cove charges us per person and with an all inclusive price. Your housing and meals, also your conference fees are included in the price you register under. Our ministry cannot book rooms on campus for additional family members. The Cove is a 501c3 and their non-profit status requires that for you to stay ON CAMPUS, you must be registered for a conference or event. This is not our policies, these are the polices set in place by the Cove to protect their non-profit status. We cannot book rooms for NON-conferees. . .so heads up in your planning.

I know conferences are an investment. We manage to make funds for the things we really want to do. So start saving your quarters. Pray for provision and for guidance in how and which conferences to attend and then listen.

Our website will open in Early May for registration for the 2021 conference. But if you'd like a hint of faculty...Well...
Returning alumni - Bob Hostetler, Eva Marie Everson, and Edie Melson.
Sarah Thomas, Nancy Lohr, and a cool surprise in this field.
New Faculty - The amazing best selling author, Lynette Eason (and a couple of surprises yet to be announced)
Mentors - Linda Gilden, Yvonne Lehman, Larry Leech, and Eddie Jones

This is only a fraction of our faculty and invitations have already been extended to the remaining faculty. Hang on. We'll announce the full faculty in May. We look forward to what God has in store.

ONTO THE NEWS

MP3s are in production! Don't fret. It takes about a month or just over for all these mp3s to be completed. I have sent them to Scott this past week. It took me a week or so to get them in order and uploaded so Scott could step in. He will edit, add the intros and smooth them out, then send them back.

Here's how the MP3 delivery will work:
*When they are on the password protected page, I will send you an email. You will then receive the passcode for the page. The mp3s will be on the page for just over a month when the page is then taken down. I encourage you to make a file on your desk top and down load them as soon as we make the available. It's an easy process. If you are not good on the computer, grab a local teenager from your church - or better yet, a 5-year-old. They tend to do better at technology than the pros. In the mean time, be patient. It takes a few weeks to get this ready. We will let you know via email when they are available.

Also, since we missed Edie Melson's early bird class due to technical difficulty, we are pulling her early bird session from 2019. Edie teaches this class for us yearly. So don't fret, you'll get her class. There may be a couple of differences but overall, it's the same class.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU

I cannot thank you enough for your kindness, letters, notes, and calls as Tim and I walked this cancer path. I was thrilled for him to attend the conference with me, and yes...I am a helicopter wife over him since surgery. He wasn't ready to be left alone at home and though we did experience a few issues with him at the conference, I was grateful I had him with me so we could walk through the post-surgical crazies together. He is doing beautifully. And if you do not follow me on Facebook then you need to know that we did get the final pathology report and my prince is CANCER FREE. So thank you so much for your prayers. We felt them and we saw them in action. Thank you a million times over. We still have some tests and things to do over the next year or two, but trust me...with the prayers that have gone up in his behalf, the gates of heaven shook!

Finally, continue to practice your writing. Don't grow discouraged. Re-read your marching orders. Pray. Write.

Until MAY...I wish you good writing. You are loved. You are prayed for. May God bless your efforts.

ONE LAST THOUGHT TO CHEW ON . . .

The Church – The Bride
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. – Revelation 21:2 NIV

I've never experienced the church like this until Tim grew ill. There has always been love, and welcoming arms, but to truly "experience" the Church Christ envisioned – wow. It is the most amazingly simple, yet complex, thing ever. I liken it to a beehive or an ant colony, where every need is seen, and nothing goes undone.

A month out from surgery and the worker bees still make their way to our door. Even when we said, we're good, the bees said, “Nope, you still need.” And their work continues.

I know that Christ is looking down with a huge smile. He must nod in approval as His children do His bidding. Listen to His call. It is truly and abiding kindness.

When John penned his vision of heaven, he spoke of the church as a bride beautifully dressed and waiting for her husband. What an amazing picture to paint. The church clad in the joyful beauty of a bride and Christ as her husband. It was the best way he could gather his descriptive thoughts of all the church really is. After centuries of preparing for the most exciting day of her life, this bride stood in all her glory waiting to be taken in arms.

We are daily experiencing THE CHURCH at our house as the stream of workers who care and nurture to the glory of the King keep coming. It is an extremely simple, yet utterly complex plan God has put in place. It’s perfect. And what we heard after the conference was that you felt blessed and loved. You felt prayed for. Cared for. Thought of. And you were and still are. The Church comes in a variety of forms but when we see her in action - when we feel her work, then we are blessed and God is pleased.

I spoke to our minister on the phone recently and said to him, “We’ve seen the true church at work. We've seen it in the results of this conference. We've seen in the generosity of God's people to provide an awesome donation for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and in the results of being cared for through Tim's illness. It's something to behold.”

He sighed into the phone and replied, “And she’s a beautiful bride, isn’t she?”

“Indeed, she is.” I said. "Indeed, she is."

If I were to ever wonder what it means to be fully loved in Christ it would be through the actions of His bride as she prepares for her wedding day. Everything has been lovingly cared for. It’s all in place. Her preparations were set in play by her obedience, her willingness to do as He bided, as He taught, as He loved. And it was all “good.” She is ready.

Work on your writing. Make it the best it can be. We can't wait for the results. In the meantime, prepare your heart. Be ready for the day the groom comes for His bride. It’s a celebration you don’t want to miss.

Blessings to you all.

Cindy Sproles
Director, Asheville Christian Writers Conference