Videos
Gear Up 2024

Hot Trends in 2024. What do church leaders need to know about hot new trends and ideas in 2024? New trends are appearing across the nation … in staff changes, automation, generosity, giving and growth. Gear Up for how 2024 will impact you and your church.

Wednesday Sessions

The 4 Behind-the-Scenes Systems Needed for 2024 and Beyond for a Thriving Giving Culture

Brad Leeper
Executive Vice President,
Generis

Brad Leeper is the Executive Vice President of Generis Partners. His unique approach allows him to serve larger and growing churches with significant funding requirements. Brad has a strong understanding of the multi-site church strategy and other pioneering church movements. He is drawn to larger, innovative, growing churches and the challenges of helping them expand in the area of generosity practically and spiritually.

The 4 Behind-the-Scenes Systems Needed for 2024 and Beyond for a Thriving Giving Culture

Shifting Church Loan Environment—Why is it harder to get a loan today?

David Lee
Senior Relationship Manager
Thrivent Church Financing

David Lee is a Senior Relationship Manager at Thrivent Church Financing. David has over 30 years of banking experience in serving non-profit ministries (churches, Christian schools and parachurch ministries) with a focus on financing and treasury services. He’s served 25 years on pastoral staff at churches as well as on boards of non-profit organizations, seeing the unique challenges and needs of balancing ministry and business. Prior to joining Thrivent, he served 5 years as Director with Bank of the West in their Religious Institution Lending Division and 25 years with Evangelical Christian Credit Union in their Ministry Lending Division.

Shifting Church Loan Environment—Why is it harder to get a loan today?

Maximizing Community Impact

Andrew Beyea
Director of Design Mid-Atlantic
Michael Graves Architecture & Design

Andrew Beyea serves as Director of Design and Worship Facility Practice Leader at Michael Graves Architecture. He approaches every project with a thorough exploration of a client’s vision, program, and site to create a clear, well-crafted design tailored to each client. He looks for opportunities to create immersive experiences that inspire people to engage and participate. Andrew believes that design has the ability to solve (almost) anything and should be fun. Over the years, Andrew’s creative and client-centric process has led the firm to multiple regional and national design awards.

Maximizing Community Impact

First Look at ECFA’s Financial Outlook Research

Warren Bird
SVP of Research and Equipping
Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability

Warren Bird is the SVP of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Warren is an award-winning writer and researcher. His background includes pastoring and seminary teaching, and a 13-year run as research director at Leadership Network. Warren has authored or co-authored more than 30 books including Hero Maker with Dave Ferguson, How to Break Growth Barriers with Carl George and Unleashing the Word with Max McLean.

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The Changing Landscape of Church Giving: Exclusive Insights from the Data on Billions of Dollars Given

Brandon Swain
Account Executive, Tithe.ly

Brandon is a Christ follower, husband to the amazing Holly Swain, a proud dad of two. By day, he’s an Account Executive at Tithely, but by Sunday, you can catch him at Renovation Church proudly serving as a Deacon. He has a love for comics and video games in his spare time.

The Changing Landscape of Church Giving

What a Best-in-Class Digital Giving Experience Should Look Like in 2024

Jonathan Beck
CEO, WeGive

A son of a pastor, Jonathan is a seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, specializing in financial technology. His notable achievements include helping create the first robo-advisor platform and starting a payment company with a present valuation of nearly $2 billion.

Recognized as a prominent figure in the field of growth hacking, Jonathan has advised over 100 venture capital-funded technology enterprises in an official capacity. His expertise has also led him to become the resident growth advisor for the premier incubator and VC firm in Southern California.

Having escaped the San Francisco Bay Area, Jonathan currently resides in San Diego, California, with his lovely wife and two daughters, and attends Light Church Encinitas.

What a Best-in-Class Digital Giving Experience Should Look Like in 2024

Thursday Sessions

Succession

Matt Steen & Todd Rhoades
Co-Founders, Chemistry Staffing

Todd Rhoades has invested over 30 years in serving churches, having served as a worship pastor for over 15 years, a church elder for more than a decade, and in various ministry leadership roles in both the business and non-profit sectors. As the original founder and developer of ChurchStaffing.com, Todd fundamentally changed the way thousands of churches search for pastors and staff on the internet. Most recently, Todd’s work with Leadership Network has provided him exposure to the innovative trends in today’s church and inside knowledge of how healthy churches operate and uses it to help churches find a healthy, long-term fit for their next team member. A graduate of Cedarville University, Todd lives in Bryan, Ohio with his wife, Dawn.

Matt Steen has served the local church for over two decades as a youth pastor, church planter, and executive pastor. Originally from Baltimore, Matt currently lives in the Orlando, FL area with his wife Theresa, and has a B.S. in Youth Ministry from Nyack College and an M.Div. and MBA from Baylor University. Certified as an Urban Church Planter Coach by Redeemer City to City and as a StratOp facilitator by the Paterson Center, Matt has made a career of helping churches thrive through intentionality, clarity, and creating healthy cultures. He is convinced that a healthy church is led by a healthy team with great chemistry, and loves partnering with Chemistry’s churches to do great things for the Kingdom.

Succession in the Local Church

3 Money Mistakes Ministers Make

Jamison Davis
Financial Advisor, Guardian Wealth Management

Jamison has spent more than 20 years as a financial advisor and 10 years in bi-vocational ministry. These experiences have equipped him with a unique perspective and a wealth of knowledge to serve ministers and churches well. Jamison lives in Phoenix with his wife, three kids, and one St. Berdoodle.

Automating Humanity: What To Automate in Your Church and What not to Automate

Matt Lombardi
Founder & CEO, Share Talent

Matt Lombardi is the Founder & CEO of Share Talent.

Automating Humanity

How to Find, Support & Develop the Next Generation of Leaders

Dave Miller
Co-Founder, Leadership Pathway

Dave Miller is the Co-Founder of Leadership Pathway. He has served as a Worship and Creative Arts Pastor at churches in Las Vegas, central Kentucky, and western Michigan. He has also spent the last fifteen years on the go helping churches on a variety of topics from strategy to technology to staffing. Dave’s most passionate about helping young leaders take their healthiest first steps into ministry. Interested in learning more about how Leadership Pathway helps churches build customized residency programs? Contact Sean, [email protected], to find out more about building a leadership pipeline in your church that produces consistent results.

People Should Be at the Core of Everything We Do

Nick Cooper, Mark Ashcraft & Dennis Richards
Parkhill Architects

Mark Ashcraft is a Senior Architectural Project Manager in Parkhill’s Community Sector. During his 21-year career, Mark has cultivated his belief in a collaborative approach to design that helps ensure a project’s successful completion with design excellence. He is passionate about sharing the strategic thinking behind the design, how it shapes the user experience and the importance of being mission (impact) driven in those efforts. Coupled with his passion for creating spaces to connect people together, Mark quickly discerns the client’s needs and transforms them into conceptual designs for inspiring and impactful spaces consistent with the Owner’s intended vision and desired impact.

Nick Cooper is Parkhill’s Faith-Based Practice Leader and an Associate with the Community Sector at Parkhill. His unique 17-year history in vocational ministry and background in construction gives a different approach to our church sector. He has a tremendous understanding of church dynamics and a drive to affect the church for tomorrow’s generation. Nick has been preaching, teaching, and consulting with churches and organizations such as the BGCT for over 10 years on topics ranging from reaching millennials to church design and construction.

Bonus Material

Be the Unicorn

William Vanderbloemen
CEO & Founder, Vanderbloemen

William Vanderbloemen was a pastor for 15 years and is now CEO & Founder of Vanderbloemen, an executive search firm. William started Vanderbloemen because he understands that when your team isn’t whole it disrupts your mission. He has combined his ministry experience as a Senior Pastor with the best practices of executive search to provide churches with a unique offering: a deep understanding of local church work with the very best knowledge and practices of professional executive search to complete your team. Vanderbloemen has staffed over 2,500 missions of faith.

William is the author of Next: Pastoral Succession That Works, Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook, and Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an Irresistible Workplace. He is also a regular contributor to several major publications including Forbes where he covers topics about having a strong faith and building a business, Fortune, and Outreach Magazine. He has also been published through Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Inc.