If you are looking for information on the Winter Conference for February 2021 - please check out the staff site

Winter Conference exists to turn followers of Christ into multiplying disciples who lead others and live on mission wherever they go.

This year's Returner Discount has closed. Click here to see a report on how the Lord used this year's Returner Discount!

In addition to our previously offered discounts, scholarship money is available to help students and new partnerships experience any Winter Conference or Field Strategy Conference.

This money is available to be used in one of three priority areas, with examples below of how the funds might be used.

• • • Ethnic Minority Students: Scholarship money could be given to help individual ethnic minority students or to match a local team’s existing scholarships for ethnic minority students to attend a conference.

    • New Locations: If students from a new campus or launch location fill their hotel room at a conference, they could potentially receive $100 off the conference. The desire is to see spiritual multipliers raised up at these new locations.

    • Partnership Leaders: If there is a pastor or leader in another organization interested in partnering with Cru, funds could be provided to cover their cost to attend a conference and experience a taste of Cru.

Keep in mind that these are just a few ideas for how the funds could be distributed in one of the three priority areas. We welcome additional creative ways to scholarship ethnic minority students, new locations, and partnership leaders!

If you’re interested in leveraging these strategic scholarships, please reach out to your Missions Director and they’d be happy to talk more!

For other ideas about how to leverage raised funds to enhance your promotion, please contact your local event, the Conference Strategy team, or the Winter Conference Director team.

To help every student take their next best step toward Jesus, we are implementing four Paths at each Winter Conference, so that students can tailor the conference to where they are on their spiritual journey. The Winter Conference locations that have implemented Paths before have seen students respond well and enjoy their experience. Paths are a more flexible type of conference track and we are excited to implement at all of our conferences! Below is a brief description of each of the 4 Paths that will be implemented:

• Explore: The Explore Path is designed for students who are curious about God. It is a safe space for students to share, ask questions, and engage with others as they explore what they believe.

• Inspire: The Inspire Path is the path for any follower of Jesus to focus on how to go deeper in their faith and learn how to connect with God in new ways.

• Multiply: The Multiply Path will help students make an impact on their campus and grow as a leader.

• Beyond: For students graduating in the next 12 months, the Beyond Path will help them prepare for life after graduation and discover how to discern where God is calling them.

We are very excited to offer Paths to each student!

Below are some of the KEY BENEFITS that Paths will offer:

• A unique, customized conference experience that personalizes the journey of the student. We’ve found in our research that students today love a personalized offering. This concept has resonated very well with students who have tried Paths at existing conferences.

• A way for students to envision themselves coming to Winter Conference more than once. In our student research, students often say something to the effect of, “Winter Conference is the same every year. You really only need to go once.” For the conferences that have already tried Paths, we see that students who have attended the Inspire Path as a sophomore, for example, often want to come back in following years so they can experience the other Paths.

• Paths offer a framework for personal invitation to the Winter Conference. When we invite students we can now say something like, “I know that you are graduating soon, I think that you would really benefit from being a part of the Beyond Path.” or “Next year you will be leading a Bible study in your dorm. The Multiply Path might be something to consider as a way to prepare you for that leadership responsibility.”

You may have some questions or concerns about implementing Paths. Please ask and voice your concerns via the Winter Conference Workplace Group. You can also email the Winter Conference Director Team, or contact your local conference director. We have a fuller description of the Paths and a FAQ Page you can check out here.

This year's conference website and student registration went live April 15! We opened registration in April to increase momentum among returning students and student leaders going into the fall, to serve existing teams and to better position us to reach church partners.

In late Spring, we delivered a messaging guide for Winter Conference and a Promotional Guide that will contain the how/what/ and when of inviting students to attend Winter Conference. In addition team leaders can now order everything they will need for the fall launch. Additionally, this Spring, local Winter Conference Director teams hosted a series of calls for LMDs that have teams attending their conference.

Pricing

We've simplified the registration pricing structure this year. The opening price for students for all 6 of 7 conferences will be $275. That price will remain until December 5th when it will increase to $310. The San Francisco Winter Conference is one day shorter than the rest and will open at $215 and will increase to $240 on December 5th.

This unified pricing structure will help us market clearly to students without multiple deadlines and multiple prices. Prices have gone up at some of our locations. This is mainly due to our attendance numbers dipping these last few years, while other fixed costs have remained steady.

In late March, we clarified National Leadership of Winter Conferences. Patrick Martin has been serving on our Winter Conference Leadership Team for the past year and a half, and we’ve asked him to step into the role of National Director of Winter Conferences. Joining him will be Tiffany Wooten serving as the WinterConf Creative Director, Karl Armentrout serving as the WinterConf Director of Program, Andy Brandt serving as the WinterConf Director of Operations, and Alyssa Boyd serving as WinterConf Director of Marketing & Communication! Please reach out to them directly with any questions or concerns that you may have!

Additionally, there have been some changes to the people serving in the Director roles for each of the 7 Winter Conference locations. You can see who is serving in each role for your conference here. We are grateful for all those who are willing to lead at our Winter Conferences. If you ever want to get more involved with leading a Winter Conference, please do not hesitate to contact Directors of Conference & Event Strategy, Emily John and David Daniel, or the Director Team by emailing WCDT@cru.org!

In early Spring, the Campus Ministry Executive Team approved the 2019 Conference Proposal a few weeks ago which addresses all of the conference offerings for the Campus Ministry. Many of you were involved in giving input to the Field Missions Reps, Laura Iamaio and Earle Chute and to the Field Strategies Rep, Sarah Kim. Your input was highly valued in the process and informed the writing of the proposal. There are three main points from the proposal that we would like to highlight:

• Establishing a greater connection with the Field: One of our goals is to establish a greater connection between the Field and each local Winter Conference. We have discussed this with each Winter Conference Director and are encouraging each director to have regular touchpoints with the LMDs that have teams attending their conference on a regular basis to share information about the upcoming conference as well as gather input.

• Conference Council: We are also implementing an Interdepartmental Conference Council to advise on the strategy of our conference offerings. You can read more about the structure and vision for the council in the proposal. There will be an Executive Director of Field Missions on the council to help bring more input from Field to all of our conference offerings.

• Conference Innovation: You can expect the Conference and Event Strategy team to develop new conference offerings in the years to come. We believe this will better serve Winter Conference by freeing it from the pressure to “be everything for everyone,” and allow it to fulfill its purpose of turning followers of Christ into multiplying disciples. We’ll be sure to keep you informed about plans for new conference and event offerings!