Originally from Australia, Darren Whitehead serves as a Teaching Pastor, regularly speaking to over 20,000 people at Willow Creek Community Church. He also leads the Next Gen Ministries and the Creative Arts Departments. Willow Creek’s innovative, multi-site ministries have made it one of the most attended churches in North America. Prior to Willow, Darren served as Teaching Pastor and Director of Student Ministries at The People’s Church in Nashville. TN. Darren lives with his wife Brandy and their two half Aussie, half American daughters just outside of Chicago, IL.
www.willowcreek.org
www.elev8world.com
www.studentimpact.com
www.generationaxis.com
www.iyouthministry.com
(Friday 2:00pm-3:15pm)
The astounding rate of churched students who fall away from the faith after graduating from high school:
Five out of ten teenagers attend church, but by age 30 more than half of those have left and never returned. As leaders, we must be concerned about building leaders—men and women who love Jesus and His church as much as we do. In this session, Darren issues a challenge for helping this generation build an enduring faith, and offers his insights for “making church stick.
(Sunday 8:30am-9:45am)
The art of teaching teenagers and some creative approaches we have taken over the last several years at Willow Creek Community Church.
(Professional Development Seminar with Ross Savill, Tash Bengston and John Thorpe)
(Thursday 12:30pm-2:00pm, 2:30pm-4:00pm, 4:30pm-6:00pm, Friday 8:30am-10:am)
These four youth workers will each give you an inside look at their youth ministries, and share their philosophy of youth ministry, strategies, best ideas, biggest failures, what worked and what didn’t. We’re not pretending any of these 4 are perfect or are “the” model of youth ministry. The idea is not that you copy any of these models, but instead use their stories and reasoning to re-analyse your own situation and see where God is calling you and your team. We hope that you will be inspired by their stories, will learn from their mistakes and will come away with fresh ideas for your own ministry.
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