Donald Norman and Sidney Dockery of the Tri-County Church in Jackson, Mississippi looked at a map one day and realized there were more than 10 sister churches less than a seven-hour drive away. The wheels started turning as they dreamed of their 15-person church hosting a conference for these small churches. All of these churches are under 100 members, but the congregation in Jackson is by far the smallest. This didn’t stop them from having faith that God could use their small but mighty group to create an opportunity to encourage and inspire small churches to do big things for God.
Sidney reached out to leaders from the churches and a planning team was born. Most of these churches don’t have full-time staff but they were willing to devote the extra time to create a place to equip and encourage their groups to grow their small churches. The dates were picked (August 28-31), speakers were lined up and Giant Cow, an exciting children’s ministry program, was hired to teach and entertain the children so parents could attend classes at no extra cost to them.
The title of the conference is Build. The themes for each day are Build Faith, Build Fruit, Build Family and Build Forever. There is still room for disciples from larger churches, small churches and anything in between to join in on the fun, faith and fellowship. There is something for everyone. More information can be found here: build2025.org. So grateful for this small group of disciples who had it on their heart to build up others!
