Training Opportunities

Professional & Ministry Development

Focusing on skills, perspectives, approaches, and models that will expand or deepen your youth ministry or your skills as a youth worker, these seminars take you beyond the basics.

Schedule

How to Begin and Implement a Successful Teen Mentoring Ministry

Grant Byrd

Seminar Series #6

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

Everyone talks about mentoring, but sometimes the struggle isn’t about finding students who want to be mentored—it’s about finding capable mentors who are willing to work with them. What would you say if someone told you there’s an army of capable but untrained mentors right under your nose? This seminar will look at a simple process of training older teenagers to mentor the younger ones. And both the mentors and the mentorees will grow and be blessed! Join us as we discover how mentoring can be multiplied in your area of ministry.

Getting Grounded: Helping Your Students Relate to Their Friends of Other Faiths In Truth and Love

Jan Ingerson

Seminar Series #6

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

The smorgasbord of faith choices seems endless! Christian students are often challenged in their faith by friends of different faiths. This seminar offers an exciting and loving look at how youth leaders can help students discern truth, understand differences, value friendships, receive answers, and share their Christian faith. Focusing on Mormonism, yet applying transferable principles to other faiths, you’ll be equipped to teach your students relational evangelism.

Deep Justice in a Broken World: Helping Students Serve Others and Right the Wrongs Around Them

Chap Clark

Seminar Series #6

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

Seminar description coming soon.

How to Productively Answer the Tough Questions About Sexual Identity

Andrew Marin

Seminar Series #5

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

When a teenager tells you he or she is dealing with same-sex attraction and then asks you questions like: “Do you think my thoughts and feelings are a sin? What if I don’t act on them? What if I do because I feel like I’m gay? Was I born this way? I believe I was born different, and I don’t want to change. The Bible says I’m an abomination and I should be put to death. Why?” These are serious questions, and they can definitively affect how a student lives the rest of his or her life. This workshop will go through each of those questions and how to productively answer them so as to build a bridge for eternity.

Thinking Outside the Box: Working with ADD and ADHD Students

Jeannine Liebmann

Seminar Series #5

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

If you’re frustrated with your ADHD students and wonder how to reach them, this workshop will provide you with a new approach to connect with them. Drawing on recent research from the medical, counseling, and educational fields, this seminar redefines ADHD as a gift, not a disorder. We’ll explore how these kids learn and perceive their world and how their experiences with peers and adults impact their self-image. We’ll also identify ways to nurture them and become their advocates and cheerleaders.

Get Dramatic: Taking Drama and Skits to the Next Level in Your Ministry

Tommy Woodard, Eddie James

Seminar Series #4

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

You’ve got a drama group together and going…but you just can’t figure out what to do next. The Skit Guys will give you practical tools to jump-start your drama team and principles to help you create great moments through skits, comedy, and drama.

Smash-Mouth Youth Ministry: Building a Youth Ministry That Appeals to Teen Boys

Mark Helsel

Seminar Series #4

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

Is your ministry GIRLY? Do boys give up on it? Maybe it needs a shot of testosterone! Come learn how to jack up your ministry to teenage boys! We’ll look at programs, methods, and teaching styles that appeal to the roughness of guys. Strap on your helmet and join us. Both guys and girls are welcome—but no wimps allowed!

Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online

Anastasia Goodstein

Seminar Series #4

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

Reaching today’s teenagers means understanding the role that technology plays in their wired lives. From social networking to virtual worlds and cell phones for tweens, Goodstein will offer insight into how teens are using technology and, more importantly, how to reach them in ways that are authentic and meaningful.

Mentoring Toward Maturity: Fostering Wisdom in Young Heroes

Mark Matlock

Seminar Series #3 - Super Seminars

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

Every student is a hero on a journey to maturity in Christ. Along the way we act as mentors, Yodas, Gandalfs, and Mr. Miyagis, if you will, to these young heroes who are beginning their epic quests. This interactive seminar will help you develop your mentoring skills, and it will also provide tools for developing wisdom in the students you’re bringing to maturity in Christ.

Creative Juices: Tapping Into the Creativity in You and Your Team

Les Christie

Seminar Series #3 - Super Seminars

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

You’ll discover how very creative you are in this fast-paced, media-driven seminar. You’ll also find out what hinders you from releasing not only your creativity, but also the creativity of your team. You’ll learn how to remove the five stumbling blocks to being the creative person God designed you to be. You’ll become skilled at the nine tricks of the trade that imaginative people use. You’ll discover the eight catalysts that trigger inventiveness. And you’ll leave this seminar feeling confident and enthused about how original, clever, and resourceful you are in God’s creation.

Loving and Leading Girls Through Adolescent Chaos

Jeanne Stevens

Seminar Series #2

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

Walking girls through their adolescent years can sometimes feel like you’re lost in a jungle without a map. Navigating through the terrain of body image issues, morphing identities, difficult friendships, shifting spiritual perspectives, the exploration of sexuality, family tensions, and so much more can be overwhelming. This seminar is designed to encourage, equip, and empower those of us who work with adolescent girls to know how to better love them and lead them through their adolescent years. • Professional & Ministry Development Seminar—Sacramento, Pittsburgh, and Nashville, Saturday, October 11, November 1, and November 22, 8:00am

From One Generation to the Next: Helping Parents Pass on Their Faith to Their Kids

Wayne Rice

Seminar Series #2

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

While many parents want to become more involved in the spiritual formation of their kids, they simply don’t know what to do. This seminar will present a framework for teaching parents how they can pass their faith on to their kids and help them grow spiritually in the normal routines of family life.

Expanding Your Creativity for Kingdom Purposes

Mark Matlock

Seminar Series #2

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

How can we accurately assess the spiritual development of students? This has been a perennial challenge for youth leaders. In this seminar Mark will lift the hood on a new assessment tool—“The Wisdom Index”—used for assisting in the discipleship of teens, and allow you to be a part of developing the measure and applying it in your youth ministry. Be a part of developing a tool that can help youth workers disciple teens across the nation.

On The Grid: A Dialogue About Power in Leadership

Denise Van Eck

Seminar Series #1

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

Power is a very important commodity in leadership, though rarely talked about in honest ways. In this breakout session, we’ll explore issues of power, including how women find and use their own power, how power is shared or withheld, and how power in systems affects leadership.

Transformational Leadership

Dan Webster

Seminar Series #1

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

We all long to see real life changes in the students we serve. Why doesn’t it happen more? Often it’s because our lives aren’t a living catalyst that inspires change in our students. Every effective student ministry leader I know lives in the caldron of being personally transformed by God. This reality grants them a powerful authority as they lead students. Staying in the change process personally unleashes a movement that ripples throughout their ministries. In this session we’ll address how to become this type of transformational leader.

Speaking Technique: An Advanced Workshop in Speaking to Teenagers

Duffy Robbins

Seminar Series #1

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

Okay, so you've been speaking to teenagers and you have a pretty good sense of how to develop and structure your message. But,most of us can still use some work in the area of delivery. How do we maximize the words we speak for greatest impact? This seminar will will focus on three key areas: gestures, face and voice.

I Am Woman-How Do I Roar? Exploring the Blessings, Benefits and Barriers that Women Face in Youth Ministry

Jeanne Stevens

Early-Bird Seminars

Sacramento - Oct 10 10:00 AM-11:30 AM

Seminar description coming soon.

It's a Hard Knock Life: Learnings About and From Adolescent Girls

April Diaz

Early-Bird Seminars

Sacramento - Oct 10 10:00 AM-11:30 AM

We thought we had it bad as teenage girls! The life of an adolescent girl is increasingly complex, with body issues, societal issues, school issues, family issues, and global issues consuming their underdeveloped bodies and minds. (Just reading that last sentence makes me tired!) If you found it difficult to move from being a little girl to a blossoming woman, then you’ll relate to this beautifully intricate group of girls and feel primed to minister to them. I’ll share some of what I’ve learned from adolescent girls and move all of us into discovering the implications for our ministries. Join with me as we knock through the issues our teenage girls face and get more in touch with God’s heart for them.