History of GLOW
GLOW began under the name of "Joey to the World" with an idea of Ralph Dewey. Ralph, a world renown balloon sculpting artist, decided it would be a good idea for Christian clowns to get together and share ideas. Ralph has written many books, with instructions for everything from beginner to advanced ballooning as well as clown ministry. In 1993, Ralph asked the Jesters for Jesus at Sagemont Church in Houston if they would be interested in holding a clown rally. In 1994 the first rally was held with very little advertising. That year there were 91 in attendance. Each year thereafter God just kept increasing the numbers, and it wasn’t long before Joey was a full-fledged conference…not just a rally. Today GLOW is the top Creative Arts Conference where one can learn the art of gospel clowning, magic, comedy, drama, balloon sculpting, facepainting, story telling, and more...
After a few years, Ralph excused himself from the planning of the event and placed it in the hands of a core leadership committee of Kay Reed, Phyllis Bentley, John Sheffield, and Brenda Marshall. For many years, they worked tirelessly to make this conference the top Christian Clowning and Balloon Twisting conference in the nation. People from all over Texas and the whole USA came to learn from the best and the conference became a renowned and sought after yearly event.
After 18 years in Houston, the committee decided to give Joey to a new core committee in a new location. Moving to North Texas in 2013, JTTW will began holding the annual conference in the DFW area with a core committee consisting of Andy and Rhea Anderson and Brenda Marshall. The event was hosted at First Baptist Church of Hurst. During these years, the committee decided to begin including more creative arts and to start changing from a Christian Clown event into a Creative Ministry Event.
​
After the 2016 conference, the committee decided it was time to pass along the responsibility of organizing and leading the conference. The committee wanted to place this treasure in the hands of someone who loves the Lord and understands the importance of the ministry aspect of the conference. After some months of dialog and prayer, the committee chose Rafael Rondon "Bombín" who operates under the umbrella of Creative International Ministries, Inc. A recognized 501c3 non-profit ministry registered in the State of Texas.
Bombín, as most people know him, has been an active part of this conference for almost every year since 1999. He has taught hundreds of attendees with passion and love for the ministry. Rafael has served as a Creative Evangelist through clowning and magic for over 25 years across the USA and at least a dozen other countries internationally. In all of those places he has shared the good news of Jesus Christ with the use of creative arts.
​
After the 2017 conference. The board of CIM, Inc began to pray about a change that would help expand the reach of this event. In an effort to be inclusive of more creative arts, the board began to call the event a "creative arts conference" and chose GLOW as theme for the 2018 conference. GLOW (Go Light Our World) with the intention of slowly transitioning the name of the event from "Joey to the World" to "GLOW". This allowed for more effective branding and marketing in order to reach more people and more churches. Instead of an event that is exclusive for performers, it is now and event for people who seek to use creative arts in Christian Ministry.
​
For the 2019 conference, the new name of GLOW began to be announced and used fully. This conference has always been viewed as a ministry building endeavor. With that in mind, the cost to attend GLOW has remained affordable enough for anyone interested to be able to attend. GLOW does not seek to be a for profit event, but a ministry training event. we however, seek to have a very high standard of quality and professionalism in every aspect of our conference.
​
Over the years, all of those producing this conference have been committed to inviting some of the top Christian Entertainers in the USA to lecture and/or perform at the conference. Creative International Ministries plans to continue the commitment to quality education for those using creative ministries in their home churches and around the world.
