Articles for tag: Orlando

April 6, 2026

Wes Woodell

exponential 2027

Exponential 2027 Global Conference (Option 2)

Exponential 2027 Global Conference is a gathering for church leaders, pastors, church planters, and ministry teams committed to multiplying disciples and reproducing churches. Built around the theme “Never Alone: Becoming Friends on Mission,” the conference will focus on friendship in mission, relational community, leadership renewal, and shared vision for multiplication. The 2027 conference will offer two identical conference options in the same week, along with main sessions, workshops, networking, and optional pre-conference intensives.

April 6, 2026

Wes Woodell

exponential 2027

Exponential 2027 Global Conference (Option 1)

Exponential 2027 Global Conference is a gathering for church leaders, pastors, church planters, and ministry teams committed to multiplying disciples and reproducing churches. Built around the theme “Never Alone: Becoming Friends on Mission,” the conference will focus on friendship in mission, relational community, leadership renewal, and shared vision for multiplication. The 2027 conference will offer two identical conference options in the same week, along with main sessions, workshops, networking, and optional pre-conference intensives.

April 6, 2026

Wes Woodell

equip 2027 orlando

EQUIP 2027

EQUIP 2027 is a free Christian conference in Orlando designed to encourage and equip the local church to make disciples. Built around the theme “As it is in Heaven,” the conference will feature worship, keynote sessions, breakout classes, and fellowship focused on leadership, disciple-making, marriage and family, intergenerational ministry, church and culture, apologetics and worldview, and teacher training. With classes for kids, teens, men and women, and young adults, EQUIP is designed to serve the whole family.

October 17, 2019

Jerry Harris

Inaugural Spire Conference Marks New Beginning for Leaders

By Jerry Harris Leaders from all over the country descended on the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Florida, for the first-ever Spire Conference from October 8 to 10. More than 1,500 leaders from churches of all sizes gathered with their staffs to learn, network, and collaborate to inspire a movement of healthy, growing churches. One hundred three churches with weekly average attendances of more than 1,000 were represented. This gathering highlighted the Spire platform, a 24/7 tool to facilitate year-round encouragement, tools, best practices, and relationships inside the Restoration Movement. The platform also serves as an invitation into relationship for

September 4, 2019

Christian Standard

Spire: What It Is, What It Isn’t . . . and Why

By Chris Moon New things inevitably generate questions. “What is it?” “Why this?” “Why now?” And “why not this other thing?” It’s been no different for the organizers of Spire Network, a digital platform that has set its sights on uniting and equipping pastors within the independent Christian churches and churches of Christ. The network has been working toward its first conference—set for October 8 to 10 in Orlando—and preparing to roll out its online networking platform this fall. In the middle of all of that, organizers are fielding questions about the nature of Spire and what it hopes to

May 21, 2019

Christian Standard

Rusaw Takes on New Challenge

Pastor steps down after 28 year at Longmont, Colorado, church to lead Spire By Chris Moon “I’m not a hugger,” Rick Rusaw told Christian Standard as he was preparing for his last weekend as pastor with LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colo., “but I’ve been giving out a lifetime’s worth of hugs this week.” Rusaw stepped down Sunday from his 28-year run at LifeBridge and now is focusing his efforts as CEO of Spire Network, the successor organization to the North American Christian Convention. Rusaw started at the church in 1991 after a stint as executive vice president at Cincinnati

July 11, 2013

Christian Standard

40 Under 40: Justin Miller

JUSTIN MILLER Lead pastor,  Real Life Christian Church,  Clermont, Florida If you asked Justin Miller how he plans to influence ministry in the coming years, he”d likely shrug his shoulders and respond quizzically, “I don”t really know. I guess we”ll just keep doing what we”ve been doing.” And precisely what have Justin and Real Life Christian Church been doing? Well, over the past dozen years, Justin and the Real Life team have sensed a call to revitalize declining””or downright dead “”churches through an endeavor they call Vision Orlando. It started with their home campus in Clermont, where Justin grew up and

July 12, 2012

Christian Standard

Just One NACC Story

By Mark A. Taylor Meet Tyrone Benson, minister with the  Pontoon Beach (Illinois) Christian Church, not far from St. Louis Missouri. Tyrone graduated from St. Louis Christian College this spring, and this is his first ministry. This is his first North American Christian Convention too. He’s at the event in Orlando, Florida, this year because of convention president Rick Rusaw’s idea to honor new ministry graduates at a special service during the convention’s closing session Friday morning. Tyrone is one of several dozen such ministers who will be singled out then. I can’t imagine a candidate more deserving of our

July 11, 2012

Christian Standard

It’s All About the Connections

By Mark A. Taylor When the North American Christian Convention advertises itself as “the connecting place,” it’s not false advertising! Just try getting through the halls quickly from one event to another. Inevitably you’ll be stopped by people you know, friends from former ministries, or old college classmates. And if you’re not stopped, you may be doing the stopping as you see a favorite college professor, the guest preacher who visited your church, or the workshop leader who gave your church a new vision for ministry. Happy chatter is the norm in the hallways, around the exhibits, in the elevators,

June 22, 2012

Christian Standard

NACC Plans Live-Stream of Event This Summer

  By Jennifer Johnson The North American Christian Convention will live-stream each of its main sessions during this summer”s event scheduled for July 10-13 in Orlando, FL. The broadcasts will be free and will include music and worship as well as the sermon from each service. Viewers logging in for the broadcasts will also be able to take notes online and live chat with other viewers via Facebook and Twitter. All broadcasts will be in English, but a multilanguage electronic Bible will be available on-screen for easy reference. The complete schedule of speakers and broadcast times is below. Advertising space

March 5, 2012

Christian Standard

Orlando in July? Can”t Wait!

By Mark A. Taylor In the spirit of full disclosure, let me make my bias perfectly clear: I love Orlando. I love the palm trees and the fountains and the flowers. I love the theme parks with their manufactured adventures and one-of-a-kind experiences. I love the restaurants and the shops and the souvenirs. So when I heard the North American Christian Convention was meeting in Orlando this year, I became an instant advocate. “We”re going to Orlando for the NACC,” I told my wife and anyone else who would listen. And no possible objection has fazed me. “It will be

February 27, 2012

Christian Standard

An “˜Incredible Group” for an Important Mission

By Mark A. Taylor In just under 48 hours each year our contributing editors meet in an annual retreat to consider the future of this magazine. We discuss a wide range of issues””from the lofty (“How should young leaders in our fellowship view it?”) to the specific (“What should a Christian Standard app contain?”). All of it is aimed at improving Christian Standard”s service””its content, its appearance, even its means of distribution. The group suggests topics the church needs to consider and writers who have something to say about them. They critique our past year”s product and react to future

August 26, 2007

Christian Standard

A Christian Church Opportunity

By Paul S. Williams It was my recent pleasure to receive a coffee-table book that had a picture of every Christian church in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. John Eldon Cornett, the author of In Search of Heaven on Earth in Kentucky, considered the task a labor of love.* As I looked through the pages I was taken by how aggressively our forefathers planted churches almost 200 years ago in what was then one of the fastest-growing areas in America. Christian churches sprouted all across the Midwest, South, and West as America pursued its “Manifest Destiny.” As a result, the Restoration

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