Events

Speakers Information + Topics for 2020 Conference

Caesar Kalinowski (USA)

Caesar is a spiritual entrepreneur and an avid storyteller. He loves to help those with a high commitment to intentional living in the areas of their family, faith and discipleship acquire the leadership skills and tools necessary to succeed and leave a lasting legacy. He is a master missional strategist and coach who has helped numerous church planters start, grow and multiply new churches. Caesar authored the best selling The Gospel Primer and Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian. His latest book, Bigger Gospel, was recently published by Missio Publishing. He and his wife of 36 years, Tina, live near Seattle

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TOPICS: 

1. Becoming a Family on Mission - best practices and tools, along with stories of success (and failure), to get you started and heading in the right direction.

2. Discipleship is the only mission that Jesus gave his Church, and therefore must
be lived out in every day, real- life ways. Discipleship is always happening and God has already
given you and everyone you know natural rhythms in life that are perfectly suited
for discipleship!

Joe Azzopardi (AUS) 

Joe Azzopardi has a PhD from Avondale University College in New South Wales, Australia. He has also completed a MA in Youth and Young Adult Ministry from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI. Early on, Joe spent ten years as teacher, mostly at the high school level though he has taught as young as kindergarten. He has pastored rural senior congregations, an urban young adult congregation, as well as experience as a school chaplain. Currently, Joe serves as an associate pastor at Springwood Adventist Church in Brisbane, Australia. This broad background with various age groups, as well as a passion for practical Christianity lead Joe to research how discipleship, well-being, and intergenerational relations intersect. His mission is to equip Christian leaders as not only ministers but as teachers and facilitators so that disciples, not merely members are reproduced. As of the publication of this book, Joe has been married to his love Jodine for 17 years, and have three children.

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TOPIC: The Five Factors of Intergenerationality: Characteristics that make your Church Friendly to all ages.

Don MacLafferty (Canada)

Don MacLafferty has worked with children and teens for over twenty years.  He lives in Alberta, Canada, with his wife April and their three children.  Don is a Pastor and is the founder and director of Kids In Discipleship, a ministry equipping parents and caregivers to mentor kids as empowered disciples of Jesus NOW He believes that the best discipleship occurs when the home and church collaborate across intergenerational connections. Don enjoys hiking, backpacking, cooking and canoeing 

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TOPIC: Families in Discipleship. Why are families important in the Discipleship journey? Exploring home and Church connections. 

Louise Bartlett / Beth Jackson (Aus)

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Beth Jackson is the Pastor of St Ives Baptist Church in Sydney. She has served in cross-cultural mission with youth and children, in cross-cultural ministry amongst refugees, in a denominational office and a lecture room, from a small, rural village church to a large, urban multi-cultural one, from sole pastor to associate pastor to lead pastor. Beth loves nothing more than journeying through the ups and downs of life with a faith community, trying to make sense of God’s story in the midst of our own. 

Louise Bartlett has been the Children and Family Ministries Facilitator for Baptist NSW since 2014. For many years Louise has been involved in children’s and families ministries in the local church and with para-church organisations. Louise is an advocate for children to be welcomed as fellow disciples and longs to see all people find belonging in a local faith community.

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TOPIC: Intergenerational Preaching - embracing the possiblitiies and avoiding the pitfalls. 

Tammy Tolman (AUS)

Tammy Tolman is the founding Pastor of an Intergenerational Creative Arts community in Australia. Tammy has been actively involved in Ministry to children and their families for 31 years. She and husband of 31 years have two adult children. Tammy is a trained teacher and has a Degree In Theology from ACOM and is currently doing her Ph.D. in Intergenerational Ministry at Cardiff University in Wales.  She has written two books, curriculum, worship music for kids and families. Tammy speaks at Conferences throughout Australia, NZ, USA, Lebanon, UK, Asia and Cambodia. She is passionate to see the “family of God” be empowered to grow and walk the life long journey of faith together. 

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TOPIC: "Faith Community" Momentum when confined to small spaces.

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Duane Major (NZ)

Duane Major is one of the pastors at SouthWest Baptist Church, Christchurch.  He is involved in leading the collaboration of local communities, local mission initiatives, the ministries of the church and independent trusts.    He is passionate about taking the biblical truths he knows and loves and turning 'the church' inside out, putting legs on what "being church" 24/7, in the community, around us, across all ages looks like.  His wealth of experience and knowledge will inspire and resource you

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TOPIC: What can "Intergenerational" look like in a large Church ?

Christina Embree (USA) 

Christina's blogs on intergenerational ministry through her website Refocus Ministry are read around the world. Christina is wife to Luke. She is a current doctoral student at Wesley Seminary. She serves as the Minister of Generational Discipleship for the Great Lakes Conference of the Brethren in Christ church (US). Mother to three wonderful kids. Church Planter and Next Gen Coordinator at Plowshares BIC. Masters of Arts in Ministry, Children, Youth and Family. 

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TOPIC: Intergenerational Community for the Children and families 

Dr. Holly Catterton Allen (USA)

Dr. Holly Catterton Allen (PhD, Talbot School of Theology) is professor of Christian ministries and family science at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Her most recent book is InterGenerate: Transforming Churches through Intergenerational Ministry (ACU Press, 2018); she also co-authored Intergenerational Christian Formation (InterVarsity Press, 2012). Dr. Allen directs two international, cross-denominational conferences: InterGenerate and the Children’s Spirituality Summit. Her first book, Nurturing Children’s Spirituality: Christian Perspectives and Best Practices (Cascade), an edited volume, was released in 2008. 

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TOPIC: Intergenerational Community for Adult Generations 

Liz Perraud (USA)

Liz Perraud serves as Executive Director of GenOn Ministries, a nonprofit organization that partners with churches to nurture and deepen intergenerational Christ-centered community through training, resources, youth conferences, and support. Liz has more than 30 years of experience in the field of Christian faith formation and frequently speaks and leads training on the topic of intergenerational ministry in particular.

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TOPIC: Faith Around the Table: Why and how Christ-centered intergenerational relationships deepen over a shared meal

John Roberto (USA) 

John Roberto is on the leadership team of Vibrant Faith Ministries where he coordinates Vibrant Faith Catalyst - an online community and resource center for pastors and faith formation leaders. John works as a consultant to churches and national organizations, teaches courses and conducts workshops in faith formation, and has authored books and program manuals in faith formation. John has a masters degree in religious education from Fordham University and graduate studies in sociology at Catholic University of America. John has been involved in Christian ministry and faith formation since 1969.

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TOPIC: Balancing the environments of faith formation: online/virtual and physical/gathered. How and when and where do we engage in intergenerational community and faith growth; and how do do we support that online at home. 

Cory Seibel (Canada)

Cory Seibel strives to be a thoughtful, passionate advocate for intergenerational ministry. His aim is to encourage and equip followers of Jesus to build extraordinary communities of faith where people of all generations share life together. He is committed to investing his skills as a researcher, writer, and presenter to advance a creative, constructive vision of intergenerational ministry in today’s church.

 He graduated with a Ph.D. in Practical Theology from the University of Pretoria in 2009. 

He currently serves as vice chair of the North American InterGenerate Conference planning team and is editing the book based upon presentations given at the 2019 InterGenerate gathering. He previously edited The Generative Church(Wipf & Stock, 2019) and contributed to InterGenerate(edited by Holly Allen; Abilene Christian University Press, 2018). 

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TOPIC: How "Intergenerational” connections really benefit a faith community and how do Pastors have the influence to lead and create environments to cultivate these connections?

Rachel Schilling (AUS)

Rachel works with the Grow Ministries team as a Congregation Coach. The work of Grow Ministries is to support, equip and inspire effective child, youth and family ministry within the congregations of the Lutheran Church of Australia. In short, this is simply doing God’s work with all people together! Using her teaching background, Rachel not only has a passion for culture change within the church, but also within each home – one of her greatest joys is researching, writing and providing practical ways for families to ‘do faith’ together. Most of this is begins as an experiment in her own home, on the Sunshine Coast, with her husband Pete and three children – Ethan, Anika and Pear

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TOPIC: The benefits of Growing Faith at Home and why would we do it! - How the rhythm of family life provides opportunities to grow in faith together.

Mark Griffiths (UK)

Mark Griffiths has worked for local churches of various denominations for the last thirty years covering everything from community evangelist and senior minister all the way up to children & family pastor.  he is now Dean for Discipleship at St Padarn’s Institute, the training arm of the Church in Wales where he is responsible for developing discipleship across Wales, training of Newly Licensed Ministers and children, young people & family ministry development.  His PhD is in Child Evangelism and Church Growth.  He has 10 published books, his latest, Lightbringers (a Freedom in Christ Children’s Resource) was released in August 2019.  He has three children and one very patient wife. 

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TOPIC: Understanding the importance of all ages in the faith community and the impact and influence that has on the faith of children?

Brett Ryan (AUS)

Brett Ryan is the CEO of Focus on the Family Australia. Prior to this role he was a Critical Care nurse for 15 years with majors in Accident and Emergency and Intensive Care. Brett was then offered the position as Children’s Pastor at CityLife Church in 2001 and remained in that role for 12 years. Brett commenced his role at Focus in July 2013. Kate and Brett have been married for 30 years and they have 3 young men, Taylor 26, Lachlan 23, Cameron 21 and one beautiful daughter in law, Sylvia and a grandson names Judah who is 5 months.  They love spending time with their family, all sports and barracks for Hawthorn. 

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TOPIC: Helping people understand the power of their families story for faith formation.

Stacey Wilson / Beck Finger (AUS) 

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Stacey Wilson is the non-artistic but still creative half of the Intergen team. She is deeply committed to inclusion in all its many forms. Right now she is probably sitting out on the deck of her house, missing her daily trip to the local café, worrying about her mum and enjoying having time to spend with her family. At some stage she will also finish her uni assignment.

Beck Finger is one of those arty creative types that is deeply unsettled by the status quo. She's committed to finding ways to make space for people to explore faith in creative ways. She's currently socially distancing in a house with her three kids, two dogs, and many, many house plants.

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TOPIC: Intergenerational bible engagement: this workshop will explore creative ways to open the bible together. It is an experiential learning space with practical tips on using and adapting Intergen resources in your contexts.