This is only the second year pastor Fred D. Moore has held a leadership conference at his Demopolis church.

But, as with every annual event, changes were made to improve the program at Christian Chapel Baptist Church.

“Last year our focus was primarily on pastors, minister and preachers,” Moore said,

“This year, we’ve added classes for lay people to teach them about using music in the church, how to be a deacon, ushering and developing a children’s church. It’s a way of expanding the conference and taking it to another level.”

With morning and evening classes and an intermission of worship services between the two, the week-long conference is guaranteed to send church leaders back to their place of worship with some new ideas.

Each night at 6:30 p.m. the groups also participates in revival services.

This year’s conference theme was “Come let us reason together,” and Moore said his goal was to reach out to any church leaders as opposed to just pastors and ministers.

The change in program didn’t just add more classes to the conference, but it also brought more attendees to the yearly event.

Last year, only 22 people were registered for the conference, however, this year the participation more almost doubled with 40 registered participants and it’s still not too late for people to attend.

“This year we reached out and around to about a 50 mile radius,” Moore said.

“I believe the furthest participants came from Selma, but we have people from most of the Black Belt.”

Moore said the conference features new classes such as “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” which focuses on helping leaders who have fallen in the ministry and need help re-establishing themselves.

This year, the conference also features a class called “When it’s tie for a change,” which helps church leaders know when it’s time to make a move, whether it be to another position or physical location.

“We use the book ‘Who Moved my Cheese?’ to help teach it,” Moore smiled.

Another new class is “Understanding the book of Revelation,” which is self-explanatory.

Next year, Moore said he has plans to tweak the program once again by adding classes that deal with more facets of the church.

“In a sense, I want to provide education for not just the leaders, but for the followers in various auxiliaries as well,” he said. “I also want to add classes that equip deacons to serve.”

After almost 20 years at Christian Chapel, Moore began brainstorming for the leadership conference about five years ago and said he will continue to host the event at his church.

“There was, is and remains a need for equipping leaders in our church,” he said. “Many church leaders in out area don’t have the resources to travel to the largess conferences in Birmingham or Montgomery, so this is my way of bringing those conferences to them.”