Passing on the Faith to Children: Supporting Caregivers with the Process
This webinar will explore how congregations can better understand and support caregivers raising children aged 0–12 in a religious tradition. Drawing on national research, I will highlight how parents’ own religious upbringings, parenting styles, and relationships with congregational life shape their efforts to pass on faith to their children. We’ll examine how factors like emotional warmth, consistent engagement, and clear expectations—hallmarks of an authoritative parenting style—can enhance religious transmission. I’ll also discuss the practical and cultural reasons parents choose their congregations, what they hope those communities will provide (e.g., education, enjoyment, tradition), and how congregations can serve as trusted partners. […]
Addressing Childhood Trauma with Liberation Psychology and Theology
Trauma, ranging from interpersonal to intergenerational, can create severe dysregulation and psychic suffering. Trauma may disrupt the nervous system, identity, affect regulation, and relationship schemas. Traumatic events can also disconnect survivors from the various aspects of themselves as well as their community. Liberation psychology and theology can awaken conceptualizations and frameworks that center reclamation as a form of holistic healing and empowerment for child trauma survivors. While much of the individually-centered trauma literature focuses on skills-based psycho-education and cognitive-behavioral coping strategies, there has traditionally been less, although growing, attention paid to the diverse culturally-grounded, socio-political pathways for survivors to reclaim […]
The Meaningful Inclusion of Children in Worship: Theology and Practice
Corporate worship is the work and the joy of the people of God, and when the body of Christ gathers, we are incomplete without the active presence and meaningful participation of children and youth. What can this engagement look like (feel like, sound like, smell like, taste like) in liturgy, and why does it matter to the formation of people of all ages? Canon Wendy Claire Barrie will lead this webinar exploring the theological whys and practical hows of incorporating children and youth into congregational worship.
Storytelling with Spirituality
Through lecture, exercises, and discussion we will explore how both biblical and personal stories can become a “thin place” for encountering the Sacred and the depths of our human experience.
Context Matters: The Impact of Social Context on Emotional Growth
This presentation will give youth workers, parents and educators a chance to examine the context and environment within which our children are developing socially and emotionally. The goal of this seminar is to offer a framework for understanding the WHY so we can identify the WHAT and HOW when we are working to support youth today. Participants will also be invited to think about how their own context can show up in their interactions with youth and ways to be mindful of those impacts.
Social Media Smarts: Helping Youth Use New Media in Positive Ways for Good Mental & Spiritual Health
This webinar helps youth workers, parents, guardians, grandparents, and mentors of youth to realize they don’t have to be a social media guru to help the youth they love navigate the new media landscape well. Dr. Gorrell will explain how youth are spending their time online (according to them!), the most important possibilities and pressing challenges of new media, and concrete things adults can teach youth (specific do’s and don’ts for their mental well-being and living out their faith as they engage with technology).
Unmasking Racism in Anti-Racism Education: Youth Ministry
Despite ongoing anti-racism efforts in our nation racism continues to flourish. If most Americans align with a faith or tradition that upholds values of justice and equity why are we still “here” in this static space? Join us for three sessions as we answer this question by journeying back to our roots: digging up the racism that is embedded in our existing anti-racism frameworks. Together we will explore decolonizing methods and inventory the historical seeds that continue to sprout as intended: to stunt our growth.
Session 1:
We will explore the ways in which racism is embedded in the anti-racism frameworks consistently […]
Unmasking the Racism in Anti-Racism Education
Despite ongoing anti-racism efforts in our nation, racism continues to flourish. If most Americans align with a faith or tradition that upholds values of justice and equity, why are we still “here” in this static space?
Join us in this webinar as we answer this question by journeying back to our roots: digging up the racism that is embedded in our existing anti-racism frameworks. Together we will explore decolonizing methods, and inventory the historical seeds that continue to sprout as intended: to stunt our growth.
Breaking the Silence About Mental Health Challenges with Children and Teens
Join us for critical conversations about how the current mental health crisis is impacting youth and those serving in youth ministry. National mental health advocate and educator, Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund, author of Blessed Youth: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness with Children and Teens, will engaged, guide and inspire us in our time together as we reflect on what we are experiencing in own contexts as relates to the mental health crisis, conversations about what the best brain science is saying about the role of spirituality and mental health, and equipping us to prioritize our own mental health […]
Tending the Adolescent Soul: Offering Hope in an Age of Despair
You are invited to our in-person workshop for story-telling with Mark Yaconelli. The pandemic, climate change disasters, racism, political vitriol, misogyny, the erosion of rights and mass death is taking an overwhelming toll on American families, churches, and communities. Recent studies reveal an unprecedented rate of adolescent depression, anxiety, and loneliness leading to high rates of suicide and substance abuse. How do we minister among young people (and families) who no longer experience God’s peace in the world? How can we develop counter-cultural ministries that offer young people the rest and resiliency of Jesus? In a retreat-like atmosphere, author, youth […]
Teaching Holy Troublemaking: Resources for Progressive Christian Formation
These are holy troublemaking times, and our youth want to grapple with life’s big questions. Catching courage and hope from the stories we tell of beloved saints—both conventional and unconventional—who have faced challenges and managed to stay rooted in joy, justice, and the beloved community is enormously helpful. Stories are how we and the young people in our lives imagine how things could be, and discover what it takes to make positive change.
Join author Daneen Akers and Christian educator Wendy Claire Barrie as they talk about progressive faith formation especially through the lens of the middle-grades anthology […]
Developing Your Praxis for Building Diverse Youth Communities
In this interactive presentation and dialogue, we explore youth identity development from understanding the synergies between holding multiple identities, for example, Black, neurodivergent, LGBTQIA. Geared toward youth leaders, layperson, and youth ministers we develop approaches of how oppression, power, and privilege may operate across systems. The overall goal is to develop approaches of how to create safer spaces for youth in their relationships and community building efforts.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the relationship between oppression, power, and privilege
Review key findings from State of Mental Health of Youth of Color – Aakoma Project
Assess and understand developmental challenges of identity development in today’s social political […]