Presenter Helps

We thank you for the important role you will play at the 2024 Mission Leaders Conference and the Church Mission Leaders Conference – two conferences – one event. It is a hybrid event with both in-person and virtual attendees. This page was created to provide you with helpful information you will need to know as a presenter.

The Mission Leaders Conference will be held at The Galt House in Louisville, Kentucy starting at 2pm on Wednesday, the 11th and concluding at 12 noon on Friday, the 13th. Pre-conference sessions will be held Wednesday morning from 8:30am to 12:30pm.

Mission Leaders Conference

The Mission Leaders Conference primarily focuses on the needs of mission agency leadership. The target audience for this conference is missions organization leadership and staff. In addition to plenary sessions
and networking events, workshops are offered in 12 focused tracks. They include:

• Communications
• Development
• Executive Leadership
• Finance Administration & Legal
• Global Strategies
• Human Resources
• Information Technology
• Mobilization
• People Care & Development
• Short-Term Missions
• Special Topics
• Training

Church Mission Leaders Conference

The Church Mission Leaders Conference is focused on the needs of church mission leadership. The target
audience is mission pastors and primary leaders in the local church for global missions. There are two workshop tracks:

• Local Church Missions Essentials
• Local Church Missions Advanced

About Our Theme

Priority – Progress – Prospects and the Panta ta Ethne

The unreached people group paradigm has been the strategic core of the global missions movement for 50 years. What has happened since it was introduced? How do missiologists understand it now? What does the future hold for this theological paradigm?

Ralph Winter introduced the concept of unreached people groups at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974. He argued that instead of focusing on political boundaries, mission efforts should focus on distinct ethnic groups, or people groups, who lack a viable indigenous community of believing Christians able to engage in church planting. This concept has since been widely adopted by many mission organizations and has influenced mission strategies. It has also highlighted the need for increased sending of missionaries from the Global South and has forced us to consider the ramifications of a diminishing missionary force from the Global North.

The concept of unreached people groups has been subject to some critiques. One critique is that the terms “reached” and “unreached” imply a binary categorization that does not accurately reflect the wide spectrum of faith, belief, and practice that exists within any given group. Another critique is that the focus on the quantity of Christians in a group, rather than the quality of church life, can lead to an overemphasis on numerical growth at the expense of other important factors. Some have also argued that the concept of people groups is outdated and does not adequately account for the complexities of ethnicity and cultural variation.

Join us as we wrestle with these ideas at Priority, the 2024 Mission Leaders Conference and National Church Mission Leaders Conference.

Speaker Resource Center

In March, all presenters will receive an email invitation to visit the online Speaker Resource Center. Once logged in, presenters will see different options on the top menu tab including My Tasks, My Sessions, My Profile, and so on.

It is important for presenters to complete the assigned tasks in a timely manner. Once completed, please mark each task complete to avoid receiving reminders. Tasks included instructions for registering, booking your hotel room, and more.

Workshops

Each Track includes 5 – 75-minute workshops – 1 in each workshop set. All workshops will be recorded and made available in the Attendee Hub and on the Missio Nexus website.

• Set 1 | Wednesday | 3:45pm – 5:00pm
• Set 2 | Thursday | 8:30am – 9:45am
• Set 3 | Thursday | 1:45pm – 3:00pm
• Set 4 | Thursday | 3:45pm – 5:00pm
• Set 5 | Friday | 9:00am – 10:15am

Each year, we hear great comments on the workshops and the caliber of the presenters. Unfortunately, we do hear a few common criticisms. So please, as you prepare for your workshop, keep in mind the following:

• Avoid reading your presentation from a script
• Keep your presentation interactive and engaging
• Save at least 10 minutes at the end for Q&A
• During Q&A, remember to repeat questions into the mic before answering to capture on the recording
• There will be a very small virtual audience – those who have purchased a “Viewing Pass”.
• Consider including your name and email address on the final slide for interested attendees
• If your workshop includes discussion time around the tables, state that for the virtual audience

Workshop Presentation and Handouts

All presenters should upload their presentation in the Speaker Resource Center. Additional handouts can be uploaded as well. Once uploaded, they will display on the Speaker Record and the Session Record in the conference app and the Attendee Hub. The deadline to upload these materials is Friday, August 26.

Note: If you are presenting in the following workshop tracks, uploading your presentation is mandatory due to CPE Credit restrictions.

Finance Administration & Legal | Development | Information Technology

If you wish attendees to have a hard copy of your handout you will need to provide it. In order to know how many to bring, request an approximate registration number from your contact person. The conference will not provide hard copies nor be able to duplicate copies.

Workshop Room Set Up

Wherever space allows, workshop rooms will be set with round tables and chairs to allow for interaction during workshops. In addition, each room will be equipped with a podium, microphone, screen, projector, webcam & sound system connected to a computer run by a tech volunteer. Please plan to bring any adaptors needed for your computer. If you require anything additional, please use the Workshop Setup Request Form to submit these requests no later than Monday, August 6th. 

Conference Registration

Conference Registration begins March 19. Every person presenting at Priority must be registered for the conference. Instructions for registering are included in the Speaker Resource Center. Your conference registration does not include any pre-conference or add-on sessions. If you are presenting in a pre-conference session, you do not need to add this to your registration. It will be added for you automatically. Conference registration does not include your hotel accommodations. You are responsible to book your own accommodations. You may do so here.

Conference Bookstore

The 2024 Mission Leaders Conference will include an online bookstore. If you are an author and would like to offer your book for sale at the conference bookstore, contact Events@MissioNexus.org.

Hotel Venue

The venue for the 2024 Mission Leaders Conference is The Galt House.

The Galt House | 140 N. Fourth Street | Louisville, Kentucky 40202