The BCTC is Coming!!!

The Biblical Counseling Training Conference is coming up fast at Faith. Our team is working hard to ensure an enjoyable learning experience for our guests that allow them to focus on their walk with the Lord so that they can help others who are hurting. We are blessed at Faith to have over 1550 folks from all over the world attending an event in Lafayette, IN in February to learn about the Bible’s sufficiency.

As you know the weather in Indiana in February is often less than ideal. Anyone remember the blizzard of 2007? I think that one will go down in conference history. We had radar loops showing on all the screens so folks could track the storm progress.

I’m often asked what’s new in the tech realm so here are some things we are excited about and are working on.

1. If our friends at UPS come through for us we will have a new pulpit and video monitor stand in the auditorium. We have been working on this for a while due to an earlier blog post I wrote about the pulpit catching on fire during a Sunday morning service. This week we are replacing the pulpit itself and the video monitor next to it. After the conference we will begin working on the whole up-and-down part.
2. Our wireless network coverage has been increased. We were hoping to have additional bandwidth available but construction delays have that part on hold until the week after the conference.
3. In the Community Center we have made some functional improvements to 2 of our sound systems.
4. We use 10 laptops for the various conference sessions and tracks. We typically rent those and they arrived today so our team is working hard and getting them imaged and pre-loaded with many PowerPoint files, drivers, video codec’s, and other teaching resources.
5. We have added another LCD announcement board in the school wing of the building and are planning to use that to communicate announcements and other upcoming events.
6. We go through a lot of CD’s during the conference as folks take media home with them. We have increased our duplication capacity so we can get as many orders completed before the end of the BCTC as possible.
7. We run 12 full audio/visual systems during the conference. While our gear inventory has increased over the years we still rent some of the equipment. That arrives Friday afternoon. We begin setup on Saturday morning and complete it Sunday afternoon after our morning services.

Another new thing I’m excited about is the use of Twitter to submit questions during the 2 Q&A sessions in Track 1. This is something new for us and if it goes well will probably be expanded. More details about this will be provided in Track 1 and I’ll be there as the Twitter moderator.

My thanks to the many of you who have inquired about my grandfather and have been praying for him. His recovery is going well and he is back to his schedule as it was before he fell. He’s excited that he will be able to participate in the BCTC as he originally planned.

As for the Super Bowl where the Indianapolis Colts are going to beat the New Orleans Saints, I know the BCTC and the Super Bowl are on the same night.  That happens every so often depending on how the calendar falls but since we all know the Colts are going to win anyway it really doesn't matter if you see the first half of the game.  One year I taught a session on Super Bowl night and would periodically update folks with the score from my cell phone.  Even though the Saints' Drew Brees is a former Purdue QB, a fine institution of which I am an alum, I'm still rooting for the Colts.

For those coming next week I look forward to seeing/meeting you. I'm usually running around but I can be found making the announcements in the lunch room in the Community Center so be sure to stop and say 'hey'. For those who are not coming please be praying that God would be at work in all our lives.