Racial Resilience: Anti-Racism as Spiritual Praxis
Do you find yourself profoundly moved by protests against racial injustice? Are you unsure of what structural racism is, or what it means to be anti-racist, or what role religion can play in this movement? This lecture and collection of conversations with Drs. Carter and Schoen can help you begin your journey.
Slides from the event are here: Racial Resilience: Anti-racism as Spiritual Praxis.
Fear, Isolation, and Anxiety: Understanding the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth
With schools closed in efforts to slow the spread of the Coronavirus, the pandemic has psychologically displaced 1.54 billion students across the globe who are forced to navigate an unprecedented and uncertain reality. The acute impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak are felt by many, if not all, but for youth, the impacts may be felt in a heightened and concentrated way.
How exactly are youth being impacted, and what helps to support their healthy development, even through a pandemic? As youth pastors and youth workers, what should we keep in mind when supporting youth through times of crises? This session will […]
Seeking Sanctuary
Rev. Dr. Debora Jackson presents on Realizing Effectiveness and Well-being by Seeking Sanctuary. This is an important topic for all who serve within their context, especially youth workers. It has been said that youth ministry is “burned out ministry.” Youth workers are always eager to learn how to help young people cope with stress, depression, anxiety, etc. However, how are we as leaders and ministers coping and caring for ourselves?
The Youth Minister as Cultural Diagnostician
The Rev. Dr. David C. Mahan delivers a lecture entitled, “The Youth Minister as [Cultural] Diagnostician.” The difficulties of connecting young people with faith requires every minister to become an able diagnostician of contemporary culture. With the glut of generational profiles, however, we often strain to figure out how to make that connection with the individuals in our churches and ministries. This talk will offer a different model, called “Faultlines,” that will help us not only to make faith relevant, but resonant with young people today.
Parents, The REAL Pastors
Professor Christian Smith delivers Yale Divinity School’s Ensign Lecture, entitled, “Parents, the REAL Pastors: The Absolute Centrality of Parenting in Passing on Religious Faith and Practice to the Next Generation.”
Sustainable Youth and Children’s Ministries
Rev. Mark DeVries delivers a lecture entitled, “Sustainable Youth and Children’s Ministries.” In the the world of youth and children’s ministry, there are a handful of constant factors that allow ministries to thrive over the long haul. This workshop introduces children’s workers, youth workers, and senior pastors to those patterns that notoriously keep ministries stuck and to systems and strategies most likely to result in culture change. The thorny challenge of building healthy and engaged volunteer teams will be used as a culture-change case study for participants to workshop.
Interpreting the Experience of Divorce
Dr. Andy Root delivers a lecture entitled, “The Children of Divorce: Interpreting the Experience of Divorce for Youth Ministry and the Church.” This presentation will explore the impact of divorce on young people. Usually (both in the church and culture) we have seen divorce as a painful occurrence that can nevertheless be overcome if the young person can be taught to think correctly about the divorce of his or her parents (“it isn’t your fault!”). Yet, such a perspective tends to distract us from larger realities. Divorce at it core thrusts young people into questioning their very existence, “if I […]
Mission Trips
YMI Director Rev. Jill Olds interviews Rev. Kevin Weikel about mission trips. This interview was conducted over Zoom (due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Organizing Mission Trips
YMI Director Rev. Jill Olds interviews Caroline Hughes about Mission Trips (remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Mission Trips
Rev. Sharell Shippen discusses mission trips in youth ministry.
You Are My Beloved Child
Dr. David F. Ford, Rev. Canon Chris Russell, Rev. Michael Bird and Shane Claiborne discuss God’s love for humankind.
Welcome and Surrender
Dr. David Anderson Hooker discusses grand hospitality and community focused critical consciousness.