Training Opportunities

Big Bucket

Includes a potpourri of seminars, with everything from women's issues to teen culture to parenting, and more.

Schedule

Where Is the Church Headed and What's Our Response?

Tom Sine

Seminar Series #6

Pittsburgh - Nov 3 9:00 AM-10:30 AM

Have you noticed the soaring gas and grocery prices? Overnight, we’ve moved into a highly volatile, new global economy and an increasingly uncertain future. Tom will enable you to identify some of the new challenges we’re facing in a rapidly changing world and church. More than that, he’ll invite you to ignite your imagination and join the new conspirators—young innovators and risk takers who are creating new expressions of church, entrepreneurial youth ministries, monastic communities, and urban cooperatives with the poor to engage these new challenges. Come discover the new ways that God can use your imagination and the students you work with to create the future—one mustard seed at a time. With leaders in the Veterans Cohort, we’ll start by soliciting your insights on challenges facing the church, the young, and those at the margins. Then we’ll invite you to spend the final hour in small creativity groups, creating imaginative new ways to address these challenges that you can then share and take away.

Secrets from the Other Side: What I Learned about Youth Ministry by Becoming a Lead Pastor

Tony Myles

Seminar Series #6

Pittsburgh - Nov 3 9:00 AM-10:30 AM

Imagine how different your approach to youth ministry could look if your foresight was more accurate. There’s perhaps no greater gift that this new vision could give your journey with God and what he’s asked of you as it fleshes out in your personal life, professional relationships, mentoring of servant-leaders, and investments into students. And not only that, but you just might understand the heart and mind of your senior pastor more clearly. (Yes, this IS possible!) While this seminar can’t give you 20/20 vision, it will certainly offer you some well-needed lenses to help you better understand some common blind spots in youth ministry. Utilizing God’s Word, real-life case studies, practical research, interactive discussion, and the personal lessons learned by a veteran youth worker turned lead pastor, you’ll be able to create a healthier approach to youth ministry that better integrates itself into the body of Christ at large.

Confident Parenting for Youth Workers

Jim Burns, Cathy Burns

Seminar Series #1

Pittsburgh - Oct 31 4:00 PM-5:30 PM

The title of this seminar is a bit of an oxymoron. Some of the least confident parents are often those who work in the church on either a volunteer or paid basis. Parenting isn’t easy, yet there are some important principles youth workers must look at to become more effective parents ourselves. Here are a few of the topics we’ll cover: • Finding Replenishment for Overcrowded Lives • Overcoming Negative Family Patterns • Creating a Grace-Filled Home While Providing Healthy Discipline • Teaching Our Own Children a Healthy Sexuality • Developing an Atmosphere of Affection, Warmth, and Encouragement in the Midst of a Ministry-Oriented Family Jim and Cathy promise no easy answers, but if you’ve ever felt humbled by the task of raising your kids to become responsible adults who love God, then this session may be for you.