Featuring five co-located conferences, CFX 2025 aims to equip church leaders with a spectrum of much-needed skills and resources
Conference Director
CFX
Church Executive: First things first: you’ve merged with Church Production Magazine and the Capture Summit for this year’s conference. Tell me more about these partnerships and how they’ll benefit CFX attendees.
Jim Wagner: One reason we merged is database-related. We don’t have a lot of overlap in our audiences: less than 5 percent, in fact. So, it’s truly a good opportunity for audience development.
Church Production does really, really well in and around its Capture event, including all aspects of video filmmaking and content creation. That’s not a strength for CFX. By bringing them in, it allows us to grow the audience in an innovative part of the market.
CE: Why is the location for this year’s CFX — Chattanooga, Tenn. — a great place to be?
Stephanie Lippi: We’re excited to return to Chattanooga again this year for a few reasons!
Vice President
CFX
First, the venue itself is really easy to navigate.
Second, we have discounted rooms in the hotel attached to the Convention Center. People can walk from their rooms straight to the event without leaving the building.
Finally, the city is just charming. There’s not a single restaurant I’ve been to yet that I haven’t enjoyed. And I’ve heard there’s a fantastic aquarium, and also some ruby mines nearby that are breathtaking. Chattanooga has lots of really great, family-friendly experiences to offer.
CE: What keynote addresses and sessions will senior and executive pastors find most beneficial?
Lippi: We have Annie Meehan and Michael Allison speaking. The whole premise behind their messaging is how easy it is to get stuck in ministry by losing the joy in serving, whether it’s due to the pressures of life or the pressures of ministry. So, that’s really exciting to offer new insights on how to overcome this challenge.
CE: CFX is focused on educating church teams. Can you talk about the highlights?
Lippi: We have five conferences this year to support our CFX Community:
Our TECH ARTS CONFERENCE focuses heavily on live production — audio, video, lighting, and so on. We’ve also got some education on strategic tech leadership and AVL system designs.
This conference is great for the worship tech team and tech leader.
The CAPTURE SUMMIT focuses mostly on video storytelling, digital streaming, digital social media communications, and media content creation. This conference is great for the communications team, the video team, or the creative arts director.
Our FACILITY STEWARDSHIP CONFERENCE is geared towards the person who oversees the day-to-day operations and management of the building and grounds themselves. This could be an executive pastor, facility manager, or director of operations. It’s a good one if you want to focus on how to steward your building and grounds better, how to put policies and procedures in place, and conduct facility assessments.
The CHURCH SAFETY CONFERENCE takes a holistic approach to safety and security; while we recognize that we need to be prepared for an act of violence, we also focus on other aspects of safety and security that most churches experience: medical emergencies, children and youth safety, and preparing for natural disasters, for example.
Finally, there’s our CHURCH BUILDING PROJECTS CONFERENCE, which is probably most enticing for your particular audience, especially if they’re planning a building project or seeing a lot of growth and wondering how their buildings will grow with the congregational growth. This year, we’re also delving more into multi-site expansion — how to do that well.
CE: Is there anything else our readers should know about this year’s CFX?
Lippi: With our keynote sessions, we’re bringing back worship services, so that’s super exciting.
We’ll also have our networking reception, where we encourage everybody to come and eat good food and have fun. We’ve also got some prize giveaways at the reception that will be exciting for the lucky winners to take home!
Something else that might be interesting to your readers is our Leadership Collectives, which are a pre-conference add-on opportunity. We have one geared towards pastors and executive pastors, one for facility managers and safety directors, and one for worship and tech leaders. Essentially, those are intended to help attendees tackle specific challenges and leave with an action plan.
— Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh
