“… refined by fire …”
1 Peter 1:7

Last year, we hosted our first Refined Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a small group of attendees, five amazing speakers, and several of our team members present. It was a beautiful day of easy conversations, precious encouragement and worship, and true community. When all was said and done, we were not certain there would be another Refined Conference—God called us to do it once and we held that with open hands.

At the start of this calendar year, there were many internal discussions within our team regarding repeating the conference and what that would need to look like if we did it again. God continued to lay the next step in front of us and to guide our planning efforts, and the 2024 two-day event began to take shape.

We knew there were pillars to the conference that we could not lose, such as the worship and faith focus of the event. In fact, we even closed out our time together both years saying just that—we can offer education and inspiration, but without His presence, none of it matters. We give our hopes and dreams to Him and wait to see what He does with it.

Living Out Our Calling

The Refined Conference, held September 13-14, was intentionally designed to welcome in faith-based creatives from all phases and stages in their writing and business journeys and create space for genuine community and opportunity for support. We hosted published and aspiring authors, bloggers, experienced and brand new speakers, small business and nonprofit owners, with the simple hope of providing encouragement and education in tangible action steps. The overarching theme in our hearts as we planned was “Living Out Your Calling”, whatever that calling is or whatever it might look like.

The Speakers & General Sessions

Much like last year, as we began to pray through the potential speakers for Refined, God ordered those steps and directed us to a fantastic lineup of leaders who truly understand and represent the heart of MRM and Refined. Some of the “yeses” surprised us, if we’re honest, given the size and nature of our event, but as the two days unfolded, it was abundantly clear that He was in every single detail—including the people in the room and the words to be shared.

One of our favorite authors and speakers, Jenn Hand, kicked off the conference with a stirring call to “put your YES on the table”, to bring the “I am ‘nots’ to the Great I AM”. This session truly set the tone for the entire weekend, challenging each of us to step out on faith and move past the fear stops in our way. Rebecca George encouraged us to “choose the hard rights over the easy wrongs” and to know who it is that we are serving as we focus on Kingdom wins as we foster community in our callings.

At our add-on VIP dinner on Friday evening, the amazing ladies from The Christian Business Breakdown, Sarah Jacobson and Lisa Lord, led us through a special workshop titled “You said yes. Now what?” In this thought provoking session, we dug deep into our personal values and priorities, and how those details inform how we do business and serve others. A key takeaway from the VIP was “Living out my calling inspires others.” Sarah and Lisa also opened up day two of the conference with a powerful general session titled “Inviting God into Your Business” that perfectly continued the conversation and theme of the weekend. We talked about finding the right biz bestie to partner with, putting our business or goals on the altar of God, and all the amazing ways true Kingdom-driven community was happening right in the room.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith encouraged us to get comfortable with the uncomfortable as we step into God’s calling on our lives. She discussed the refining and the instability that continue as we stay in a place of surrender, and how a life lived in the spirit will never feel stable. Choosing our best life means choosing a life fully surrendered, raw and unfiltered, and authentic.

That’s how we truly live out our calling for the Kingdom.

Community Time

No one understands conference overwhelm or information overload better than our team, except maybe for those we serve. Understanding the common struggles post-conference, we worked to intentionally create margin in the schedule of the event, to build in time for conversations and questions and opportunities to break down the information in actionable steps. For this year’s agenda, that included small group “roundtable discussions” on specific topics relevant to our attendees and audience. We asked colleagues and peers to lead these discussions as mini workshops, giving participants practical tools and takeaways from each one. Having two days allowed us to create two “tracks” for these discussions, focusing on topics relevant to both business and writing.

The afternoon schedule for both days also included a quick time of Q/A, where we opened the floor to questions relevant to the table and session topics, as one final attempt to ensure no one left the conference with unanswered questions or instructions that felt too big to act on.

Throughout both days, we also designated times for guests to casually interact and to shop our vendors’ and sponsors’ tables, including our Market Refined Publishing books and tees. It was so fun to see the attendees engaging with each of the sponsors and vendors, offering support to so many ministries and outreaches as well as taking home some fantastic merch!

We’d love to share a final shoutout to the sponsors and vendors who participated in this year’s Refined Conference as well!

A very special thanks to Renee Fisher Photography and Rose Photography for capturing all of the memories for us! We are very grateful for your gifts!

Note from Our Team

We are abundantly grateful for each person who attended Refined Conference 2024, for every individual who gave of their time and talents to ensure the conference was a success, and for every answered prayer and filled gap before and during the event. Hosting the conference this year required we put our YES on the table in ways we were not expecting, and we are still reeling in amazement at all of the connections and blessings that came from that.

As Randi said, our hearts are to encourage, inspire, and support, and it was absolutely an honor and privilege to get to do that through Refined Conference.

Did you miss this year’s Refined Conference?

Stay tuned for more event news and opportunities!