History

Our ministry began with an annual Children’s Pastors’ Conference held in 1980 in Denver, Colorado. Approximately 35 people attended. The following year, the Conference met in Houston, Texas and grew to 60 attendees.
   
For a couple of years the Children’s Pastors’ Conference was housed in the facilities of First Church of the Nazarene in Denver, Colorado. As more publishers and suppliers of ministry resources desired to attend the Conference as Resource Providers, the Conference moved to a Denver hotel and kept expanding each year to larger facilities. In 1992 a second Children’s Pastors’ Conference in Nashville, Tennessee was added and in 2002 a third site was added. In 2004 there were nearly 5,000 that attended the three CPC’s. Today the ministry of International Network of Children’s Ministry has grown to include a full-time staff, a board of directors and an ever growing ministry portfolio. Early 2010 saw the release of It Worked for Us – Best Practices for Ministry with Children and Families, a joint project with Abingdon Press and some 40 children’s and family ministry leaders from around the country sharing success stories in ministry.
   
INCM has continued to expand its conference training over the years. In 1994 the national Children’s Ministry Seminar was launched and conducted in over 50 cities throughout the United States and Canada in the fall while the Children’s Ministry Idea Explosion was held in 8-10 cities in the spring. As training needs in the local church have evolved, so have the options offered by INCM. Today we offer Children’s Ministry Training (CMT), Start with the Heart Parenting Seminar (SWTH) as well as Religion in Public Schools (RPS).