Believe Speaker Summitt 1.0

This past Wednesday we held the first Jr. High Believe Speaker Summit. Johnny, Josh Walker, and myself met with Scott Rubin, Jason Raitz (both from Willow Creek), Steve Carter (from Mars Hill in Grand Rapids) and Nate Head (from Southland in Lexington) to discuss the next tour's theme, sessions topics messages, etc. The only speaker who was not able to be there was Kurt Johnston (from Saddleback). All of those guys spoke on the tour last year, and one thing we wanted to do this year to improve the program is gather them all before the tour to help give direction to the tour.

One thing all of them asked for - we were able to give them feedback on last year - things that went well, things that didn't, things that helped them as speakers, and ways they can improve and be more effective in communicating the messages.

Next tour's theme is "Speak" and it is primarily based on Jeremiah 1 and the life of Jeremiah. I know everything is not set in stone, but after that meeting the sessions and the topics/main points for the messages were all but done. Also, we made incredible progress on what "the call" for the students was going to be next tour.

Getting 4 of the 5 tour communicators together was valuable beyond words. All of them have been in junior high ministry for a good amount of time, so bouncing ideas off them on what a junior high student needs and how a junior high student will react was also important to the program. It also gave Johnny a chance to explain to them all the elements involved and what the purpose is behind all the different elements.

After the meeting I personally became more excited to see what God has in store for next tour.