Faith Community Church hosting first annual Southwest Iowa Men’s Conference March 7

A local church organization is hosting the first of what they hope will be many annual conferences boosting faith and worship.
Men of the Upward Call, organized by members Alex Burton, Curt Farquhar, Mike Urash, and Ivan Craig, is hosting a Southwest Iowa Men’s conference on March 7 at Faith Community Church at 2701 N. 8th St. in Red Oak. Member Alex Burton said the group was started after he and the other three members found that God was calling to them in different ways.
“I had noticed that in recent years there wasn’t really a men’s ministry and there wasn’t an event or an activity that men were getting together for on a regular basis. Just men, so we started doing a men’s breakfast once a month on a Saturday at the church. We’ve done around 14 so far,” Burton said.
While they thought that was a great start, one of the things that they identified is that there isn’t something that’s reaching greater Southwest Iowa.
“A few men in the church that were saying things about going to great conferences, but they were in Colorado or other distant places. There was a huge distance to find a speaker talking specifically to men, so that’s what led us to deciding we needed to hold a men’s conference specifically for those in Southwest Iowa. This conference isn’t just for the men in our church, and it’s not just for the men in Red Oak,” advised Burton.
While the conference will begin at Faith Community Church, Burton and the other members of Upward Call are hoping that it will expand to other locations.
“We don’t want the conference to be limited to just our church or focus on one particular denomination. Our goal is that there will be leaders from other churches that will see how we’re doing it and take it up next year. Maybe it’s held in a building at the fairgrounds, or maybe it’s held in a different community altogether, such as Clarinda or Shenandoah. We want the meeting to serve all Southwest Iowa men of all the types of denominations. We don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t be in attendance because they’re not with our church or maybe they worship from a different denomination or have no denomination at all. It would be a wonderful outcome for me if I organized the event this year, and then next year it’s held by someone and someplace entirely different, and I’m simply a volunteer rather than an organizer,” Burton stated.
The theme for the conference is “All In-No Compromise.” Burton said they discussed many different categories and themes, but felt that What God is calling them to do requires that they’re all in.
“That could mean in your daily life. It could mean that all-in is prioritizing prayer and time reading the Bible before you get to the other stuff in your day, or other examples like that. It’s putting it in the right order and making sure that your top priority is your relationship with Christ and making sure that it’s the first step because a lot of times building that close relationship is the first step to the rest of your day going better. For me, personally, my day goes a lot better if I actually have the time to pray.  Not a quick rushed prayer, but actually pray. If I can then get in some time reading the Bible then typically the day goes better as opposed to putting it off,” Burton commented.
Burton said one of the reasons they settled on March 7 was to allow for participation from men in the farming community.
“We specifically wanted to make sure that anybody that deals with farming or agriculture has the opportunity to come. There’s not a lot of other activities and hopefully we’re far enough into late winter and early spring that there’s a reduced likelihood for bad weather that will prevent people from being able to attend,” advised Burton.
While men of all ages are encouraged to attend, Burton said there are some age minimums that parents should be aware of.
“The minimum age that we have listed on the flyer is 14, but fathers and uncles know the maturity of their own sons or nephews or whoever so if they’re 12 and you feel like they’re mature enough to attend, then definitely bring them. The reason we suggested a minimum age for attendance is because there is a potential that we would be talking about topics that maybe aren’t perfectly age-appropriate for children, be that lust or other topics, so ultimately attendance is up to the discretion of whoever’s registering those youth.”
The keynote speaker of the event is Kent Sovine, who has ties to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Faith Community Church’s denomination.
“Kent has been a resource that we could lean on and someone close to us, though in the future, we’re not going to expect or demand that the keynote speaker be tied to a particular denomination or church, Kent serves as the district superintendent for our district, based out of Omaha, but he covers a lot of the other CMA churches in the area, such as Citylight Southwest Iowa in Emerson. He’s a pretty dynamic speaker and he does a really good job of speaking to his audience. We doubt that anyone is going to fall asleep when he’s speaking,” Burton joked.
The conference will start in the morning and continue on until the late afternoon.
“We plan to start with coffee and doughnuts at 8 in the morning and then we’ll do a little bit of worship and have worship music from The Silo, a group of local Southwest Iowa guys with a passion to make good music and bring great vibes. They’re a rock-based group. Then we’ll move into our first session with Kent speaking, then we’ll head into lunch, which is going to be catered by the Classic Cafe in Malvern, I’m pretty excited about that. Following lunch, we’ll have a couple of afternoon sessions, and we’ll wrap up by 4, so after the breakfast, we’re anticipating the conference itself running from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We decided on a late afternoon end time so that if people drive from a little farther away, say even if they’re an hour and a half away, they still have time to get there in the morning without rushing and get home before it’s too late on a Saturday,” explained Burton.
While pre-registrations are preferred, Burton said they won’t be turning people away.
“We’d certainly like to know by March 6, but by no means are we setting that as a hard deadline. Even if there’s somebody last minute that’s showing up in person the day, we’ve prepared for that. For those that can pre-register, they can do so at subspla.sh/5r4q99f and that will help us in establishing a head count. Our cost is $35 for the whole conference, and as part of that cost they get lunch and we also have a custom engraved journal that we’re giving to each attendee.”
Burton also noted that if $35 was too much for someone to afford to attend, they have another option.
“We actually have a scholarship program, and all they have to do is reach out to the church directly at 623-3472, email Curt at curtnwanda@hotmail.com or call him at 712-310-7671, and we can coordinate getting it covered for the cost if that’s a burden for somebody. As for the fee, we’re primarily just trying to offset the cost because one of the things we identified is as we move forward, if we pass this baton on to leaders from various churches, we don’t want cost to be a burden for them. We’re mainly offsetting expenses but also making sure that it’s not so expensive that we or another church or organization can’t do a second annual event,” Burton stated.
Burton added that there’s a different kind of fellowship that can happen between fathers, husbands, grandfathers, and even business leaders
“I think there’s a lot of men in the area that don’t have that connection with other Christian men and with this conference, ultimately our goal is that we’re strengthening our relationship with Christ and we’re also strengthening our relationship with each other because that’s a huge part of it. No matter what you’re doing, the more you can lean on a brother or have fellowship with somebody else the better off you’re going to be, because sometimes you just can’t do it on your own,” Burton said.
For those men in the area that are lacking in a place of worship, Burton encouraged them to come out to the conference and give Faith Community Church a try.
“If you don’t have a church that you call home, this would be a great opportunity to come in and see what Faith Community would look like, as well as build your strength or build your faith or begin that journey,” Burton commented.
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