An essential part of PCA Discipleship Ministries’ mission of “connecting people to people, and people to resources,” is providing discipleship training. This training usually takes place at in-person gatherings like its Women’s Ministry Training or the children’s ministry Lead Retreat.

But serving a denomination with nearly 1,600 churches means that sometimes CDM’s training must come to ministry leaders on their timetables and budgets. On August 2-3, CDM will livestream its Grow Virtual Conference, providing virtual leader and volunteer training when and where churches find it most convenient. The livestreamed material will be available through January 2025, and the conference price varies depending on the size of the viewing group.

Grow Virtual includes keynote messages by CDM Coordinator Stephen Estock and Andrew Park, lead pastor of Living Faith PCA in Los Angeles, along with seven workshops offered through the conference. The workshops will cover a range of topics like child safety, applying covenant theology to children’s ministry, teaching the children’s catechism, and outreach strategies.

But new this year will be the opportunity for participants who watch before September 15 to participate in interactive workshops held via Zoom in September and October.

Part of what makes Grow Virtual a useful tool for churches is how churches can bring the content directly to volunteers or even the entire church. The conference site offers suggestions for how churches could use the teaching videos, such as structuring a day for ministry leaders and volunteers to watch and discuss the material together, sending them to parents throughout the fall, or inviting all church members to join in the learning.

Though a virtual conference isn’t Katie Flores’ preference for teaching and training, the children’s ministry coordinator for CDM sees how the online training helps churches connect to important training and provides onramps for future in-person events. In the three years that CDM has offered Grow Virtual Conferences, Flores has seen virtual participants go on to join the CDM Children’s Ministry Facebook group, attend in-person leadership retreats, and enroll in CDM’s children’s ministry certification program.

“I’ve discovered that Grow Virtual is a wonderful training tool for so many churches as it brings connection that continues beyond this one event,” she said.To learn more and register, visit https://grow.pcacdm.org/.