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BREAKOUTS

Nurturing Spiritual Curiosity

Teaching methods are increasingly focused on the individual learner’s natural ability and desire to explore a new environment or subject, focusing on their observation, experience, and unique inquisitiveness before introducing more complex structures or guidelines within a subject. Yet most spiritual formation efforts tend to begin with the endgame of institutional expression, or at the very least without affirming the value of the participant’s current spiritual experience.

This breakout will explore the possibility of spiritual formation that’s rooted first in the spiritual self-awareness of the young people involved, with the goal of equipping them to become healthy, capable, spiritual explorers—perhaps without a defined religious outcome as a necessary end.

Kevin Alton is a career youth worker, writer, editor, and speaker in Christian youth ministry. He’s a frequent contributor to denominational confirmation curricula and is currently completing a Masters of Psychology research program focused on spiritual formation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Helping Teens Pursue Their Scientific Careers

Far too many teens believe that pursuing a scientific career means abandoning their faith. As churches, we risk losing these teens when we create or let these myths perpetuate. In this workshop, we’ll explore a theology of vocation that acknowledges how God uniquely gifts, equips, and calls people into science-related fields. We’ll also look at concrete strategies for how the church can encourage interested students to go into science-related careers and support them when they do.

Jen Bradbury, an engineer turned youth pastor, serves as the director of youth ministry at Faith Lutheran Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Jen is the author of The Jesus Gap: What Teens Actually Believe about Jesus, The Real Jesus, Unleashing the Hidden Potential of Your Student Leaders, and the forthcoming A Mission That Matters. Her writing has also appeared in YouthWorker Journal and The Christian Century. Jen is also the Assistant Director of Arbor Research Group where she has led many national studies. When not doing ministry or research, she and her husband, Doug, and daughter, Hope, can be found traveling and enjoying life together.

Why Rituals Work: The Science Behind Ritual Formation in the Lives of Youth

Whether you know it or not, youth participate in rituals every day. These rituals shape young people’s beliefs and desires about God, themselves, and the world. Yet, not every ritual is in service of a flourishing life. This interactive workshop uses scientific evidence to explore the formative power of rituals, with hopes that people who work with adolescents become more discerning, intentional, and proactive about the rituals we enact in our ministries. By the end of the workshop, we will have an opportunity to reflect on rituals within our context and brainstorm possibilities for enriching the ritual experience of young people in our context.

Sarah Farmer is an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer at Yale Divinity School and helps direct the Adolescent Faith and Flourishing Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.  She teaches in the areas of practical theology, psychosocial identity and faith formation, community building, congregational studies, social change and transformative pedagogy. She has done extensive research on the concept of hope as it is operationalized in the lives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.

Re-enchantment (without supernaturalism) and the theological task of youth ministry

Too many ministers have theological laryngitis and are unable to speak with clarity and confidence about God. There’s plenty of reasons to be weary of God-talk, you know… science, pluralism, sexism, the bloody history of team God, and so on. Yet in our Secular Age the inability to talk about a real God who does real things in the world has significant consequences for our youth’s spiritual imagination. In this session we will look at the cultural disenchantment of the sacred, the 5 most popular challenges to the reality of God from youth (I did a survey of 500ish LA mainline protestants), and how to respond creating a community that ReEnchants their life together and God’s Creation.

Tripp Fuller is the founder and host of the Homebrewed Christianity podcast and the author of The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus.

STEMtastic ways to grow faith & science connections

Nature play! Hear stories of youth groups connecting vocational call and science strategies. Learn how to weave faith together with environment, science, technology, engineering and math (eSTEM) and your existing church curriculum or programming. Soil, land, air and water systems are the foundation as we do some hands-on nature play and wonder together about creation care.

Heidi Ferris gained over a decade of first-hand experience through teaching middle and high school level science courses and curriculum writing for classrooms, faith-based groups and secular non-profits. She’s worked with teachers and students from preschool to high school from Minnesota to Hawaii using eSTEM (environment, science, technology, engineering, and math) to empower youth in leadership. She is the author of 6 children’s books the bridge faith and science. For Growing Green Hearts educators, teaching is an opportunity to engage the learner in their problem-solving skills and unique talents through a real-world scientific lens.

Tetherball and Floodlights: Remembering Allows Faith to Flourish

Recent research in adolescent development reminds us how crucial the biblical authors’ call to remember really is.  Young people will benefit when, alongside Snapchat’s fleeting digital appearances, they are part of a deeply-rooted story.  Remembering the Christian story informs identity and purpose and equips young people to navigate faith and life.

Sharon Galgay Ketcham is an associate professor of theology and Christian ministries at Gordon College in Massachusetts. She earned her Ph.D. in theology and education from Boston College. Sharon’s two decades of experience in ministry include serving the local church, researching, writing, teaching, and mentoring. She is the author of Reciprocal Church: Becoming a community where faith flourishes beyond high school (Fall 2018, InterVarsity Press). Sharon lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two children.

EVO 101

If evolution is true, what kinds of things would we expect to find in the natural world?
What would we expect to see (and not see) in the fossil record? What would we expect to find in body architecture and genetics of living things? We will look at the evidence and explore what evolution is – and is not.

Janet Ray, Ph.D.teaches biology to non-science majors at the University of North Texas. Janet is an enthusiastic explainer of science. Natural history museums are her favorite travel destinations, especially ones with pterosaurs. She is married to Mark, a dermatologist, and they have two adult kids. Janet blogs about science, faith, and culture at JanetKRay.com.

Make Us Like Trees: Connecting Youth to the Earth

Youth are integrated into technology more than any other generation I’ve witnessed.  Recent studies have shown that youth are in front of screens, including cell phones, computers, or TVs, for up to eleven hours a day. The vision for technology was in the hope that society would be a more connected or informed force in the world. However, as we look around at our communities, colleagues, and churches, we see that we have become significantly less connected to one another or ourselves, as well as misinformed about who we are and whose we are. Join with me, as we dream together how youth might become more aware and grounded as we invite them back to the dust which we are made of.

Rev. Marcy Rudins is currently apart of the Albany Synod Fellowship Program as a ministry fellow at Delmar Reformed Church in Delmar, New York. A part of my calling and passion is to offer spaces for people of all ages, races, ethnicities, sexualities, and backgrounds to experience their identity as the Beloved. This often looks like preaching, offering spiritual direction and pastoral care, or leading retreats. I am an avid writer; I enjoy writing blog posts, devotionals, as well as poetry. I would describe myself as a contemplative, advocate, a wannabe foodie, kayaker, poet, and belly laugher.

The Scientific Method as a Tool for Faith Formation

How might our faith and the faith of our young people be different if we engaged in critical inquiry and lived life as an experiment meant to reveal foundational truths, values and ways of being that changed us for the better? “The duty of humanity who investigates the writings of the faith – if learning the truth is the goal – is to make themselves critical of all that is read, heard, and experienced, and… examine it from every side. They should also reflect on their experiences and their heart, even as they perform their critical examination of what they read, so that they may avoid falling into complacency or prejudice.” Using this modified quote by Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham, let’s consider how a Scientific Method of Faith formation that includes questioning, experimentation, analysis, critique, reflection and practice can nurture a bold, deep, consequential faith in Jesus.

Rozella Haydee White is a life and leadership coach accompanying people as they figure out how to live their most meaningful life. As a writer, teacher, preacher, and public theologian, Rozella is a known presence on social media, boldly engaging issues of faith, justice, mental illness, and the radical and transformative love of God as embodied in the person of Jesus. She is committed to the pursuit of justice and is a co-founder of #ResistHouston, a community of connection, empowerment, and support for resistance against injustice. Rozella is desperately seeking justice, mercy, humility, and love. She believes that everyone is gifted and has the power to transform themselves, their communities, and the world when they tap into their most authentic self. Connect with Rozella at www.rozellahwhite.com.