Regional Training

As I've traveled around the country over the past few years, I've sensed a growing need for student ministry leaders and volunteers to gather together regionally for practical training and encouragement on reaching this generation for Christ.

We at Shift–the student ministries segment of the Willow Creek Association–have been dreaming and praying about how to meet this need, and we're so excited to invite you to our first regional training events, beginning this weekend.

Join other youth pastors and volunteer youth leaders in your area for a dynamic half day of training, designed to help you discover ways to develop a "Be With Community"–a student ministry where every leader understands and practices the value of coaching and mentoring students to become complete followers of Jesus Christ.

We'll also spend time talking about practical ways you can develop a "Be With Lifestyle"–a life centered around practical mentoring tools helping students in the spiritual formation process.

We've worked to make this training as affordable as possible, and are really pleased to offer the entire half-day of training for only $29!

The training, led by seasoned youth ministry veterans that I personally believe in from the LEAD222 network, could be just what you and your student ministry team need as you begin a new ministry season this fall.

For more info, check out the regional training section of the web site.

Did You Know Video

Since the Shift conference, we've gotten a lot of questions about where to find the Did You Know 2.0 video from session one.

The video we showed at Shift was a shortened version of a media presentation created by educators Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod with design by XPlane.

You can now view the video, along with session highlights from the conference, by clicking here to go to the video section of the web site. There's also a high-resolution version available for download here.

The video is licensed by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and XPlane under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. You are free to copy, distribute, remix and transmit the presentation as long as you give proper attribution to the original creators and share the resulting work under the same license. You may not use Did You Know? for commercial purposes without permission from the creators.

Med Packs Update

Back in April, many of you who attended Shift 2008 took part in Thursday night's Bright Hope Med Pack Experience. Student ministries from across the country assembled hundreds of medical supply kits for under-resourced villages in Uganda. Recently, Bright Hope announced that the Med Packs had been delivered!

Over on Bright Hope's web site, you can read all about the delivery, as well as see photos and video of an entire town lined up to receive the packs.

Thanks to all of you who served as the hands and feet of Jesus, and helped make these medical supplies available to those who so badly needed them.

Conference Podcasts

In case you didn't catch them over on Out of Ur, we've now posted the three podcasts recorded at Shift 2008 a few weeks back , including interviews with Mark Yaconelli, Mark Miller, and Drew & Jerome from Switchfoot.

Check 'em out in the Podcasts section of the site.

"Center" and Re-Centering

I’m actually typing this little blog post outside. Those of you who came to Shift traveled to Chicago a week too early - it’s 71 degrees outside right now!

Even though the weather was less than desirable last week, I felt like I was able to leave behind some of the clouds that have been hovering over my heart recently. I was able to “re-center” my soul with God and my calling as a youth-worker.

The first day of sessions were crazy intense for me. And from the vibe in the room I could tell that many of you were sitting with the weight of the work that we have ahead of us. From Brian McLaren’s opening charge to live out the kingdom of God right now in this broken world – to Mark Yaconelli’s simple, honest reflections on spiritual formation in students – to Shane Claiborne’s unashamed fire for justice ... it was enough to make even the most complacent of us sit on the edge of our seats.

That first day set the tone for the rest of our time together. I could feel it in the air. And I hope that you could feel it too. You and I have a very important calling on our lives. As we sang the song “Center” together on Friday morning ... I was struck once again with the reminder that we must re-center our lives on Christ every day. And in that moment, in those last hours, I felt that hundreds of us were united with Christ and his call to return to our communities and live a re-centered life.

I hope that your time with us was energizing and inspiring. I’m really looking forward to the days ahead. See ya next year.

[Brandon Grissom is worship leader at Elevate, Willow Creek's Junior High Ministry. brandongrissom.net]

Shift 2008 Recap

We had a great time, how about you?

Thanks to everybody (that’s you!) who made Shift 2008 what it was.
From main sessions to breakouts, Cups of Coffee to the Thursday Night Experiences, we feel like this year’s event would truly have been different without each and every one of you there.

If you weren’t a part of Shift, check out the rundown of the event over at Out of Ur, who covered our 2 1/2 days together from start to finish.

If you were there, we’d love to hear from you. What was a highlight? Any session, speaker, idea, artist, or experience stand out?

The Shift experience is definitely continuing beyond last week (see Bo’s previous post here). Let’s keep the conversation going...

[Thanks to Gavin for the photo. Check out his amazing Shift 2008 flickr photostream here.]