Big Ideas

It’s hard to be a teen these days, and we know many kids are struggling with depression and anxiety these days. Whether your house is ground zero for crises, or things are just trucking along, there’s always more to learn about encouraging resilience and health in our young people. In this workshop we’ll dip into some of the neuroscience behind mental health and lift up practical tips for how to encourage positive flourishing, led by a pastor and mama who’s been there and has the battle scars to prove it.

Join Dan for a discussion of “Light in the midst of the tunnel: The shared journey of parents and teenagers during times of transition.” A graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, TN, Dan earned a Master of Divinity from Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY before working at Camp Rockmont from 1994 – 2021. After working in many facets of the program, he was hired as the camp’s Director. Dan is the founder and lead mentor at Animate Mentoring.

CelebrateCalm.com Founder and Calm Parenting Podcast host Kirk Martin has shown almost 1,000,000 parents how to stop the yelling, defiance, and power struggles with the most strong-willed children. Kirk is known for very practical strategies and scripts delivered with humor and compassion. Learn how to get your kids to listen the first time while building a close, trusting relationship.

We live amid anxious days, and that anxiety impacts parents, children, and all who interact with them. How can we manage our own anxiety in that process? Join us for an exploration of emotional triangles, and how we can function in the healthiest ways with our children, their teachers, our spouses, our church leaders, and all the other people we find ourselves triangled with in children’s lives.

How do you pray when words become barriers rather than possibilities? When thinking in sentences is too linear to express a rainbow of emotions.

Sybil MacBeth was struggling with how to pray. She created a faith practice, Praying in Color, that she will guide us through. Sybil will give us some new prayerful and sacred practices to use with our families during advent.

Understand the power of Parental Controls, and how having them set can prevent your child from the dangers of the internet: Inappropriate content, strangers, games, privacy concerns, and more.

We’ll also go in depth about specific app/website recommendations and which ones to look out for.

Does your young person have LGBTQIA+ friends? Do you have an LGBTQIA+ child? Do you want to know more about walking alongside LGBTQIA+ teenagers?

We hope to take some of the intimidation out of terminology and come to a better understanding of how you can support LGBTQIA+ teenagers in your communities.

How do we as parents cultivate hope in our kids, given the challenges they face as they make their way in the world? How do we parent faithfully through the pressures of middle and high school?

In a hectic world with busy schedules how can parents provide their children with opportunities to serve others and instill the values of loving their neighbors?

We’ll discuss the purposes of Christian mission and community outreach and consider how everyday life can be oriented toward knowing, serving, and loving our neighbors.

Our youth leaders spend countless hours with our youth and have a vantage point of seeing our young people that we do not. They will share about the differences they see between Gen Z and Gen Alpha that just started in youth group this year.

A highlight of this workshop will be suggestions for parents that our youth leaders have based on years of perspective as it relates to faith formation, practical traditions, discipline, celebrations, and so much more.