Training Opportunities

Exploration

If you're into trying new things and thinking outside the box, you'll find that the seminars here will encourage you to go to the edge of youth ministry thinking and practices.

Schedule

Responsive Shifts: New Approaches for Impacting Your City, Your Chruch and Your Students

Brock Morgan

Seminar Series #6

Sacramento - Oct 13 9:00 AM-10:30 AM

Have you felt the frustration of current youth ministry models and structures? Have you sensed that they’re keeping you from having a true and lasting impact? This seminar will challenge the current models and provide a new way to think about youth programs, discipleship, evangelism, and service. The goal of this seminar is to spark and inspire an outward-faced movement and empower youth workers to incarnational ministry that will change our students, our churches, and our cities. How do we move students from attending church to actually being the church? How can we disciple our students and impact our city at the same time? If students are dying for a life worth living, what are we offering them? In this seminar we’ll examine innovative ways for reaching our cities and empowering our students to join us. Bring your pen and notepad and get ready to hear some exciting new ideas for your youth ministry.

Widening the Lens of Youth Ministry

Seth McCoy

Seminar Series #6

Sacramento - Oct 13 9:00 AM-10:30 AM

In our session we’ll explore moving from using Christian education models in youth ministry to a community-forming model. With societal roles changing in emerging adults, what’s the calling of those who are trying to shepherd and equip them to follow Jesus? With God’s story as a framework for our lives, we’ll explore how stages of social development can help us serve as spiritual guides for students and young adults while creating the kinds of ministries and experiences that can transform individuals and communities.

Teaching Through the Art of Fictional Storytelling

Jon Huckins

Seminar Series #5

Sacramento - Oct 12 3:30 PM-5:00 PM

Everyone wants to be part of a story. And we live in a culture that is saturated by stories. There are movies, books, and short stories; and we all have our own stories that we share with people every day. In this seminar we’re going to look at a mode of communication that uses the art of storytelling as a medium for engaging students with real-life issues, and then relates these topics to the ultimate story that’s centered in the way of Jesus. This seminar will be a time of conversation, questions, and instruction on why and how we can engage our students through this method of storytelling. We’ll get very specific about how to create our own stories (fiction and nonfiction) using plot, characters, and setting to communicate a specific topic.

A New Kind of Apologetics: The Emerging Questions of Today's Youth

Dale Fincher

Seminar Series #4

Sacramento - Oct 12 1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Today’s teen epidemic is silent soul-suffering. Many students are looking for answers to hard questions, but they’re afraid to ask for fear of looking stupid or finding no answer available. Many teens long to follow Jesus, but have a hard time reconciling his love with Christian “rules,” the Christian culture, or even the hypocrisy in the Christian lives of their friends. Drawing from more than 7,000 questions gathered over three years from teenagers around the country, we’ll explore ways to answer some of the hotter questions of the day, including those that are gaining popularity, such as “Why did God make hell permanent?” “Why is Christianity intolerant of other faiths?” “If God is near, then why can’t I feel him?” Come listen to the ways we’re all working through these questions, and please bring questions that your own students are asking. We’ll discuss and form the answers together. You’ll walk away with encouragement, refreshed perspectives, and some more tools in providing hope and companionship for your students.

Exploring a Missional Approach to Nurturing Adolescents

Chris Folmsbee

Seminar Series #3 - Super Seminars

Sacramento - Oct 11 2:00 PM-4:30 PM

None of us would say we aren’t interested in the spiritual formation of students. However, we often struggle to find the words to identify a strategic approach to accomplish our goal of helping students become more like Jesus. This seminar will provide you with an intentional process and plan, a common language in which to train and equip others, and a means for the evaluation of the spiritual growth and development of your students.

Building Bridges with Gay and Lesbian Youth

Andrew Marin

Seminar Series #2

Sacramento - Oct 11 8:00 AM-9:30 AM

This workshop will cover the broader mindset of teenagers who have same-sex attraction by entering into their unique filtration system and thought processes toward God and Christianity, all with a focus on sexuality. We’ll then work our way through The Marin Foundation’s practical applications on how to productively build a bridge from an evangelical perspective. The purpose is to be able to immediately turn around and implement these constructs and applications into your ministry, so as to make a significant impact in these gay and lesbian students’ lives.

Dreaming Big: Starting a City-Wide Movement Through Connected Churches

Jim Britts

Seminar Series #1

Sacramento - Oct 10 4:00 PM-5:30 PM

Are the other youth workers in your city your friends, the competition, or simply unknown? What if God has called you not only to your church, but also to your entire city? We’ll talk about how to partner with other churches and youth organizations to bring about a city-wide movement where you live.