About

The Matthew Discipleship Conference has gone by a few different names over the years. Perhaps the most well known was "Leadership Conference". It was so called because the origins of this conference go back to when it was hosted by AIM Around the World, a national mime ministry with local teams planted across the nation and, at times, even around the world. The national ministry began hosting annual leadership conferences for the leadership teams of each of the local AIM teams to attend. The goal was to equip the leaders to be effective disciplers and keep their passion alive as they enjoy the encouragement of fellowship with other leaders doing the same kind of ministry in other parts of the country. These conferences were held in California a few times, but primarily took place in Branson, MO near the AIM headquarters.

 

When the national ministry of AIM closed its doors in 2015, the director of AIM met with three directors from local teams to pass on the baton of the leadership conferences. These were the directors of AIM Cheyenne (WY), Aim San Diego (CA), and DRAMA Ministry (PA).  Over the course of the next few years, these three directors rotated hosting the conference each year while brainstorming what the long term mission and vision of the continued conferences would be apart from the national ministry. Through their meetings the cooperative established the mission and vision that stands today, and has expanded the reach of the conference not just to mime teams, but to anyone in discipleship-minded ministries or seeking to become more discipleship-minded in their ministry. 

 

In 2021, after exploring the many uses of the word "discipleship" prevalent in the culture today, it was decided to rename the conference "The Matthew Discipleship Conference". This denotes that the way this conference defines discipleship is primarily based on how it is presented in the Gospel of Matthew.

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The conferences continue to rotate between a few mime teams to share the load of hosting and distribute the burden of traveling for each team or other attendees. There is no singular director or management team for the conference, but rather it continues to be the fruit of the collaborative efforts of the primary attending ministries. We hope that this website can help be a central location to find information about the conference and get in touch with the appropriate people about upcoming conferences.