Breakout A
Featured
A001
Scot McKnight — Rethinking How You Read the Bible
We can trot comfortably along with our Bible reading until we're shocked by the presence of passages that remind us how often we ignore certain parts and include others. In this Featured Breakout, Scot McKnight will look at how we read the Bible and how the idea of Story can open up the whole Bible to us in a new way.
Scot McKnight
Scot McKnight is a widely recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois, where he is also the Department Chair and the Director of the College of Christian Life and Thought.
General
A002
Ginny Olson — Sexy Too Soon
Have adolescent girls really gone wild when it comes to their sexuality? In this breakout, Ginny Olson will look at some of the current trends and research as well as the implications for teenage girls. Some of the topics she'll investigate include: friends with benefits ("FWB"), hooking up, and same sex attraction.
Ginny Olson
Ginny Olson is co-director of North Park University's Center for Youth Ministry Studies in Chicago, Illinois where she works with both undergraduate and seminary students. She has been involved in hands-on youth ministry for over 20 years at various churches and camps, including serving on staff in the junior high ministry at Willow Creek Community Church. She is the author of numerous books, including Teenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them.
A003
Mark Matlock — Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Youth Culture
Trends come and trends go, but every now and then a shift occurs that alters the way we think, live, and relate to God and to others. This breakout will help you understand what indicators to look for and will teach you how to build scenarios that allow you to "rehearse the future" as you minister in the ever-changing world of teens.
Mark Matlock
Mark Matlock is the president and founder of WisdomWorks Ministries and the nationwide Planet Wisdom Student Conferences. For nearly two decades, he has ministered to youth pastors, students, and their parents. Focusing on transferring Biblical wisdom, Mark is the author of the recent six-book series Wisdom On..., as well as What Does God Want From Me?, Don't Buy the Lie, and Freshman. In Fall 2008, Mark launched the Real World Parents initiative, aimed at reclaiming the Biblical role for families across the country.
A004
Walt Mueller — Helping Students Think Critically About Marketing
In today's world there is no greater influencer of students and their worldviews than marketing—and it's all by design. Marketing shapes their reasons for getting out of bed in the morning and guides them on how to live their lives throughout the day. In this breakout, Walt Mueller will guide us into an understanding of this student life-shaper, while challenging and equipping us to help students navigate the marketing maze intentionally, thoughtfully, and Christianly.
Walt Mueller
Walt Mueller is the founder and President of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (CPYU) and has been working with young people and families for 32 years. As a result of his work with CPYU, Walt has become an internationally recognized speaker and author on contemporary youth culture. He has written extensively on youth culture and family issues and is the author of many books, including his most recent, Opie Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Where Faith, Family, and Culture Collide.
A005
Jason Raitz — Communicating to Junior High Students
Do you speak at students or do you speak with students? Don't know? Well, there is a big difference and it's one of the keys to really engaging with them. Speaking with students takes humility, a desire to really know your students, scripture and the ability to not just tell stories but to make them come alive. It's vital for communicators to keep learning and growing—this breakout will help you identify the areas you need to improve and it will encourage you to really engage with your students.
Jason Raitz
Jason Raitz is a part of the Elevate staff team at Willow Creek Church and has been a youth pastor since 1995. He's been speaking with students for over a dozen years and still remembers giving his first talk to a couple of kids way back then. He loves to talk about teaching and the greatest baseball hitter of all time—Ted Williams. He and his wife Tracie have been married since 1997 and have four amazingly active and energetic kids.
A006
Bo Boshers — The Be-With Factor: Mentoring Students in Everyday Life
We all want to see students live and love like Jesus. The most effective way to accomplish this is through mentoring relationships. In this breakout you will learn how to: choose a student that is ready to be mentored, model and teach real life lessons that students want to learn, recruit volunteers to mentor students in your ministry, and set safe boundaries with high integrity and trust for both the mentor and the student.
Bo Boshers
Bo Boshers is the Executive Director of Student Ministries at the Willow Creek Association. For almost a decade, Bo was the Director of Student Impact, the high school ministry of Willow Creek Community Church. Bo's current role allows him to focus extensively on his passion area of training, encouraging and mentoring students and ministry leaders from around the world.
A007
Keith Cote — The DNA of Effective Brainstorming and Planning
During this breakout session, you will learn clear, practical ways to create ownership in your ministry, bring clarity to your planning meetings, navigate change effectively, and engage/enlist the ideas of your entire team, moving those ideas to action with ownership, excellence and purpose.
Keith Cote
Keith Cote is a consultant in student ministries for the Willow Creek Association. With over 25 years of ministry experience, Keith teaches and trains ministry leaders and students all around the world how to build effective ministries within and around the local church. He consults on leadership and organizational development and is the author of Beyond the Game and Co-author of Vision Moments.
A008
Matt Wilkinson — Building a Student Ministry that Relationally Engages the Wired and Connected Generation
Is there anything good that can come from Facebook, MSN, MySpace, music videos, MTV, iTunes, video games, blogging, and podcasting? You bet! This workshop will explore how some of these interactive tools can be monumental in launching a highly relational and personal student ministry to both churched and unchurched youth. Through stepping into their world and speaking their language, we will see how focusing and interacting with a students' "digital identity" gives us insights and permission to walk with them in their spiritual and personal life.
Matt Wilkinson
Matt Wilkinson is the Cross-Regional Youth Pastor at The Meeting House, a multi-site church of over 4,000 in Ontario, Canada. Matt is a visionary who is passionate about releasing within youth and youth workers the potential to be influencers across their nation because of the love and grace of Jesus. With a huge heart for serving the local community and leadership development, Matt and his leadership team have seen the student ministry grow from 17 to over 500 students in the last 2 years, most of whom are unchurched.
A009
Brian Schwammlein — Impacting Families Through Youth Ministry, and Youth Through Family Ministry
Youth ministry is being bombarded with growing statistics of departing teens that are abandoning their faith. Studies repeatedly demonstrate that parents are the most significant influencers of the faith values and practices that are being adopted by the next generation. For years, most youth ministries have tolerated—even encouraged—a "drop off" mentality toward parents leaving teens' faith formation in the hands of "professional" youth ministries. Despite huge challenges, there are many steps we can take to rebuild the gap between youth ministry and families.
Brian Schwammlein
Brian Schwammlein has been serving as a youth pastor for 8 years. He is currently the Director of Middle School Ministry for Northwoods Community Church in Peoria, Illinois. Brian is passionate about helping teens experience and embrace an active faith in Jesus. He and his wife, Jen, have three kids aged 6, 3, and 1. Brian spent most of his school years in the countries of Singapore and Belgium.
A010
Chrissie Tofilon — Crisis in the Community
Crises strike, hijacking youth pastors' schedules around the country every day. You can't always hire a professional counselor or social worker, so how are you supposed to handle everything from ADHD to suicidal threats from the students you had plans to disciple? Students are divulging more than you ever wanted to know and parents are asking you for help—walk away from this session with specific solutions for managing the chaos clouding the spiritual development of your junior high and high school students, without sacrificing your personal life in the process.
Chrissie Tofilon
Chrissie Tofilon is a licensed counselor lending her expertise as the onsite Crisis Manger for Student Impact at Willow Creek with over 6 years of ministry experience as one of their House Group leaders and Uprising Campus Ministry coaches. Chrissie has offered consultation to hundreds of youth pastors and volunteers, has contributed to numerous articles and resources, and recently appeared as a teenage suicide prevention panelist on the Emmy award winning television program Different Drummers.
Experiences
A013
Lilly Lewin — Creating Sacred Space
Today we live in a culture that needs to engage the Story of God—since only 20% of our students learn best listening to the spoken word, it's time to develop skills to reach the other 80%! In this Breakout Experience, you'll learn how to move worship beyond singing and teaching beyond preaching. You'll look at what experiential worship is, specific ways to design and create worship experiences using art and interactive prayer, discuss how to develop a team, and you'll actually get to sample the experience yourself.
Lilly Lewin
As a worship consultant, Lilly is the curator of Thinplace, where she helps leaders think creatively about worship, teaching, and youth ministry. In Cincinnati, she started an experiential worship service called Sacred Space, which uses multi-sensory prayer, silence, art, discussion and multi media, integrating ancient and future forms of worship to bring liturgy new life. In 2004, she helped found Map Room—an ecumenical experiential worship community for college and post college adults in and around the University of Cincinnati. Lilly is the coauthor of the recent book Sacred Space.