CMN Conferences
Twice a year, delegates from CMN Member Churches and organisations gather together to share the latest news and information as well as explore important issues and themes in ministry amongst children as we continually seek ways to support each other in this vital area of work.
During these conferences, CMN Business Meetings give room for more formal discussions and decisions about ways forward. Members of the CMN Executive, elected by the CMN Business Meeting, also meet to discuss matters of strategy and logistics.
Upcoming Conferences
November 2025
Shallowford House, 19-20th Nov 2025.
Theme: Supporting Families who Foster & Adopt.
This November, CMN will meet once again for a time of discussion, sharing, support, and challenge. Our focus will be on how the church can, should, or could better support families who foster and adopt. Collectively, we will work on ways that we can make an impact on the Church as a whole.
As a member of CMN we would love you to join us to explore ways to make lasting change with and for families.
Book here: https://forms.gle/L5n2o8f6nVR1Uhb96
ECCE
A chance to get together with people from all over Europe. An online gathering will be taking place 5-7pm on June 17th 2025. The next in person gathering will be taking place June 8th to 12th in Switzerland in 2026. https://ecceconference.org/
Reflections from previous conferences
Supporting Families who Foster/Adopt
November 2025. Shallowford House Conference Centre. The conference was beautifully facilitated by Joy and Rosie, co-leads of Creative Calm https://www.facebook.com/p/Creative-Calm-61576083088661/ sharing their expertise and lived experience as foster and adoptive parents. Jackie Davies, a Methodist local church worker and adoptive parent lead our times of prayerful reflection. 107 children come into care every day (bearing…
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Working Together: Smarter not Harder
Arriving in Northumberland to the most glorious sunshine, I was looking forward to the theme of our time together, ‘Working Together: Smarter Not Harder’. CMN represents and achieves many good things through working together and I know we are all keen to see how we can develop this further. During our time together each denomination…
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Creating safe and healthy church cultures
As our media fills up with stories of abuse and coverups within religious organisations, it was very timely that children and family ministry denominational leaders met to discuss ‘Safeguarding’ at the Children’s Ministry Network Conference November gathering at High Leigh Conference centre. Justin Humphreys, CEO of thirtyone:eight, led us through the thorny landscape of spiritual…
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Meeting Ministry Essentials
As someone who has moved from Children’s Ministry into Family Ministry and having been a ‘sleeping partner’ in the CMN for the last 7 years, reading the emails ‘for information only’ but not responding to them, I was delighted to be invited by TSA’s formal representative Jonny Whitmore, to partner with them on the Network…
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Corrymeela
After an early start for many, everyone began arriving from numerous locations by ferry, plane, taxi, and car and started settling in at the Corrymeela Centre. The centre has long been a place of coming together from different places geographically, theologically, and philosophically for reconciliation and peace. Following a sandwich lunch in the gathered space,…
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ECCE 2023 – Deep Cries Out
From across Europe, delegates involved in Children’s Ministry and Religious (Christian) Education gathered together in May 2023 for a week of fellowship and sharing on the shores of Lake Balaton, Hungary. This was the three-yearly (four years, in the case of a pandemic!) European Conference on Christian Education (ECCE) Lorraine Webb, Programme Officer for Children’s…
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Wrestling the big world questions with children
This was my very first 24 hour time away with Children’s Ministry Network and whilst I knew one or two people who were going, I didn’t know many. However, they seemed to know me and we had fun working out how and when we’d met – this included in my changing the gender of Mel…
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A time for everything
There’s a time for everything, and this was the time for members of CMN from all four corners of the UK to gather at Shallowford House in Stone for our 48 hour conference and retreat day. There were a few newcomers and a few ‘old hands’ (a politer description than the one actually used!), together…
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Together again!
It was such a delight to gather in person at Shallowford House 20 months after having to cancel our previous conference on the day due to Covid. We welcomed a number of new members. We spent time reflecting on the challenging times we have been through and their impact on churches ministry among children. Some themes emerged:…
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What’s going on?
It felt a bit like coming home, arriving at Wallis House for another 24 hour conference with CMN. Familiar faces and newcomers assembled in the lounge area, sharing a hot cuppa on a cold day and waiting for the call to lunch and the announcement that bedrooms were finally ready for us. Seventeen denominations and…
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A Gendered Practice
How can CMN conference January 2019 be summed up? It was a relatively small number of us that gathered for the 24 hour conference at Selly Oak, coming from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island and representing a range of churches and other organisations; some new faces, some more familiar and some (like me) in…
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It’s Out There… What’s new and happening in Scotland?
Day 1 Glorious spring sunshine welcomed us as we arrived at St Mary’s Monastery and Retreat Centre on Kinnoull Hill on the outskirts of Perth for our 48 hour conference. We began with a two-course lunch and received a warm welcome from the Redemptorists Community who live and worship on the site. To find out…
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Who do we think we are?
Exploring the influence of culture and context on our ministry among children There are many good things about travelling to visit new places. It gives us an opportunity to step outside our normal working environment to see our ministry with new eyes. There is also the challenge and the blessing of meeting difference, always a…
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Ask and you will receive… research and you will find!
A record number of us gathered at the International Mission Centre in Birmingham this November for our first conference with a new logo and a new website! Our focus was on current research into children’s ministry training and the ongoing conversations around the family ministry research which our network co-sponsored last year. We were very…
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A time for listening and a time for speaking
When you bring together a group of professionals working with children and families, their shared passion and experience far outweigh any differences there may be among them. This has always been true for the Consultative Group for Ministry among Children, where those representing a diverse range of national organisations and denominations have an opportunity to…
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On Pilgrimage
The journey itself has always been as important to pilgrims as its destination. Conversations along the way, stories shared over meals, tales told by those joining the travellers, and moments of silence and song in each other’s company, all make a pilgrimage memorable and possibly life-changing. This year’s CGMC Spring conference contained all of these elements for…
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Working with children in a digital age
There was no doubting Dr. Bex Lewis’s enthusiasm for all things digital. She is not only an expert on the web and social media, she is a dedicated user! The CGMC Spring Conference this year had chosen to focus on how technology is impacting our ministry with children and families and, to borrow the subtitle from…
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Family Matters!
In recent years the word ‘family’ has hit our UK headlines for good and for bad. We hear from those who lament the loss of ‘traditional family values’ and complain of ‘family breakdown’. We are all too familiar with terms such as ‘fatherless families’, ‘one-parent families’ and ‘blended families’. And to this we could add many more, such as ‘displaced families’, ‘dispersed families’, ‘abusive families’ and ‘networked families’;…
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A telling question!?
In the lifetimes of most of us in CGMC, understandings of how and when children begin their own journey of faith have changed; and of course, not surprisingly, this is reflected in how the church as a whole has wrestled with what it means ‘to be converted’ and consequently how it also understands mission and outreach. Is…
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The Hidden Congregation
This was something new for CGMC, and indeed, as far as we know, no one else has tried to do something like this before! For a number of years now the idea had been brewing; over the past 18 months it took shape; and in November 2012 it came to fruition: namely, a day conference for…
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Children’s Ministry Network 