- It’s Hard to be Like Jesus
Worship is awkward. Serving the poor is awkward. Not conforming is awkward. Silent prayer in a room is awkward. Waiting for and giving room for the Spirit to work and speak is awkward. And, they are also the stuff of faith and they are totally essential to the development of young disciples. This session will empower youth leaders to saddle the awkward and ride it instead of avoiding it and filling in all the gaps.
Chris Henderson, Youth Pastor, Mountain Park Community Church
- Bulletproof: Becoming a Youth Worker Parents Trust and Students Need
Join us to explore these themes:
- Next-level planning – program integrity
- Real-world ministry – reconciling God’s gracious sovereignty and liability considerations
- Recruiting the reputable – volunteers you’ll never fire
- Partnering with – not combating against – families
Jon and Janelle Furman, Grace Chapel
- The Inner Life in an Age of Speed
As leaders and pastors who minister among students, we know that cultivating the inner life is critical to our message and ministry. Yet for most of us there is nothing so challenged as our place of intimacy with the Holy Spirit and our personal healthy rhythms. In this interactive workshop we will explore life-giving patterns, the art of saying no, spiritual friendship, retreat and advance – all in the context of a world moving fast. This workshop is for those who desire a fresh look at a way of ministry life that empowers rather than overwhelms.
Sarah Thomas Baldwin, Campus Pastor & Director of Campus Ministries, George Fox University
- Away With the Noise of Your Songs: Why Doxology and Deed, Worship and Action Need to Play in the Same Key
Have you ever wondered why the psalmist would say, “It is good to praise the Lord and make music to Your name, O Most High,” (Ps. 92:1) while the prophet Amos says, “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps”? (Amos 5:23) What? Really, God? You don’t like our music? Are we singing in the wrong key? Is it too loud? The wrong songs perhaps? ... “No,” says God, “you’re living in the wrong key.” In this session Mark and Aaron will have a discussion on the need for balance in our communities between what we sing and what we do. We will also touch on practical matters like how to engage your students in creative worship planning, making space for artists, and songwriting.
Mark Benjamin, Director of Discipleship & Worship Arts at George Fox, and
Aaron Strumpel, Worship Songwriter and Artist
- Discipling a Godly Student Living in an Ungodly Home Environment
Do you have students in your ministry whose parents do drugs; parents who are preoccupied with their own lives, or who are absent? Come and hear how we encourage students and give them strategies to thrive while living in difficult environments.
Judy Glanz, Instructor, Multnomah Bible College
- Come Follow Me: Inviting Seekers to be Servants
Ministry is often thought to be the final step in the discipleship process. What if it were the first? And what if we kept it simple enough so that it didn't have to be a grand administrative production every time we wanted to serve? Come explore these questions and join an idea swap meet for keeping service simple and creative.
Josh Reid, Pastor of Youth Ministries, Newberg Friends Church
- Home Is Where The Start Is
Gary will share the five-step plan used with the 2,000 to 3,000 homeless youth at Transitional Youth in the Portland/Vancouver area.
- Home Outreach – where youth who are ready to turn their lives around are identified.
- Home on the Range – a rural residential facility where kids can go from the streets to learn life skills and self respect in a caring, Christ-honoring environment.
- Homes in the Suburbs – two homes where youth with full-time house parents receive the guidance, structure, education and work opportunities to progress.
- Town Homes – independent living with accountability and a safety net.
- Home Sweet Home – assistance with the down-payment on a home of their own.
Gary Gorsuch, Transitional Youth Executive Director
- The Slow Fade: Bringing Resolution to the Detachment of College-age People
If you’re like most youth ministries, over half of your graduating seniors pick up their diplomas and almost immediately detach from Christian community. Why is that? We can call high school people to a radical lifestyle, but if they detach when they graduate it’s all in vain. For those graduates who remain connected and truly live a life devoted to following Christ, what is it that makes the difference? Specific questions we’ll address include: How might you be subtly contributing to this epidemic of detachment – without knowing and despite your best intentions? How should you alter your teaching philosophies for high school juniors and seniors or college-age people to help them live a life of radical Christ-like living?
Chuck Bomar, Founding Pastor of Colossae, in Portland Ore.
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- Discipling Students in a Hook-up Culture
How can youth be part of an irresistible revolution if they can’t resist the influence of the hook-up culture? This session will provide perspectives from recent research on adolescents and sexuality.
Ron Marrs, Assistant Professor of Youth and Pastoral Ministries, Western Seminary
- Slowing Down in a Fast-Paced World: Learning to Breathe Again
Do you race right through life in your effort to do ministry, missing the meaning along the way? What things are you choosing these days to care for your soul, your heart, your mind, and your body? This will not be a session that washes all of your cares away and massages your stress into sanity. It will be a time to explore some choices we can make to slow down some of the fast-paced race and choose to live whole and completely – learning to make room for life.
Jeff VandenHoek, Director, MBA Executive Track Program, George Fox University
- Love, Sex, and Shame: Journeying with a Female Student
We will talk about the current issues that our female students are struggling with in regard to love and sexual issues (i.e. love addiction, fantasy, pornography, sex and masturbation) and how we journey with them to help them develop an understanding of real intimacy and healthy boundaries. This session is appropriate for both men and women.
Andrea Crenshaw, Director of Outreach and Service, Campus Ministries, George Fox University
- The Whole Gospel
For most of the 20th Century, the Church tended to view "the Gospel" as either personal salvation or working for societal good. We were either "Evangelicals" or supporters of "The Social Gospel." This seminar will discuss the idea that A. 21st Century post-modern young people may reject that dichotomy and want a Gospel message that integrates the two and that B. this may actually be the Biblical Gospel after all. Not either/or, but both/and. We will discuss Biblical texts, cultural contexts and applications for ministry.
Steve Sherwood, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, George Fox University, Regional Training Associate with Young Life in Oregon
- Women in Ministry – A Time for Risking
Women in ministry face unique challenges of denominational theology and gender stereotyping that can collide with their ministry calling. How do we have informative and restorative conversations with our colleagues, overseers, and even students who have difficulty understanding the role of women in ministry?
Elizabeth Sherwood, Young Lives of Yamhill County Mentoring Teen Parents, and Administrative Pastor, Newberg Friends Church
- Creating Thin Places
This session will look at the biblical criteria for creating modern-day “thin places” where we live, work, and minister – and how to help young people create and experience their own thin places. In his book Punkmonk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing, Andy Freeman wrote the following about “thin places”: “The holy places of the Celts were sometimes called ‘thin places’ because they believed that the seen elements of Earth and the unseen dimensions of heaven were more closely connected in such locations. The designation of certain places as sacred was not rooted in pantheistic impulse to worship the location itself, but rather in a desire for a personal encounter with God in particular environments.”
Mike Higgs, Executive Director, Portland Youth Foundation
President, LINC Ministries
- Hangin’ @ the Margins: Empowering Youth to Embrace “the Least of These”
In this session we will look at moving from entertaining youth to empowering them. We will look at the margins of society and ask who are the “least among us,” and what is our response to them? What does it mean to empower youth? Through telling stories from his life’s journey, Chris Lahr hopes to lay out some practical suggestions that will lead to an irresistible revolution of faith and love.
Chris Lahr, Academic Director/Regional Recruiter, Mission Year
- The Story
Every young person, every family, every neighborhood, and every city has a story. In a shift from program-driven ministry, we are seeing a dramatic response to the power of story. Looking forward, our ability to engage each story holistically will determine our impact. Come hear Young Life’s story from its ministry in the city and take some of our practices back to your community.
Ben Sands, Young Life Area Director
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