Brisbane Electives
AMPLIFY gathers the breadth of Christian denominations together, celebrating what unites us. Our keynote and electives speakers are selected to stimulate thinking and encourage action. Our hope is, that although not all speakers may express views that every denomination will affirm, they can provide opportunity for reflection and dialogue whilst keeping the main thing, the main thing.
The following legend indicates the ministry area each elective is most suited for :
C– Children Y– Youth F– Family L– Leadership A– All Ages CH– Church K– Culture RI– Religious Instruction
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Fiona Cran
C- Children
F- Family
RI- Religious Instruction
Bump up the Fun factor
You may leave this session wrapped in toilet roll [clean!] or soaked but you will learn how to make sure the word boring never describes your ministry. Packed with exciting, easy, low or no cost ideas on how to engage and connect your children so the message of the bible becomes alive and real and fun to them. Discover how to upgrade your story telling, memory verses, games, crazy quizzes and even behaviour management strategies sure to win your kids hearts. You will also leave with a booklet containing all the session ideas and more.
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Fiona Cran has a passion for young people recognising their God given worth and living an abundant life through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Her Ministry history has spanned over 2 decades during which time she has taught the bible to kids through RI, camped with kids with CYC, performed puppet shows to kids, served as a Kids Pastor and now serves in a Christian School as a Biblical Counsellor. She has spoken at many Christian conferences as a ministry trainer and loves to share and encourage others on their ministry journey.
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Lachie McLean
Y – Youth
Engaging Unchurched Youth
How do you engage unchurched youth? How do you preach the message of Jesus in a relevant way to those who have never been to church? In this elective, we will talk through practical ways that we can structure our youth ministries so that unchurched students would love to keep coming back.
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Lachie is a passionate youth worker who has a heart to reach unchurched youth. Currently, he is the chaplain at Grace Lutheran College and has leveraged this influence to pioneer a local youth ministry that aims to disciple those who wouldn’t normally find themselves in church. Additionally, Lachie has the privilege of coaching and equipping other youth pastors in the Australasia region through his role in the Irresistible Church Network.
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Kylie Hofer
C – Children
F – Family
Faith formation over faith education (on screen)
You don’t need to look far to see that before, during, and after this pandemic, young people are navigating unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, suicide. This seminar equips you with proven and practical answers to the pressing questions of why we’re seeing this surge in young people, and how your team and church can offer the hope and help young people and families need.
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Kylie Hofer is the Families Minster at Warnbro Community Church in Western Australia, the church she grew up in, and has been serving in for as long as she can remember.
Kylie was appointed to the Families Minister role in 2014, and has been faithfully serving her church, growing the ministry team, and journeying with families throughout this time. Her heart is to see her church community of all ages grow closer in their relationship with Christ, build in their service to Him and expand their faith to those around them. Raising disciples who make disciples. Passionate about encouraging, equipping and inspiring leaders, Kylie has built a team to run the Beyond Families Ministry Conference over the last 6 years.
Along with her husband and her 2 beautiful children, Kylie and her family seek to honour the Lord in every area of their lives.
Tim Beilharz
C – Children
F – Family
Y – Youth
CH- Church
Foundations of Intergenerational Ministry
Intergenerational Ministry is not just a new label for your existing Children’s or Youth ministry, and, it is much more than simply having different generations in the same space at the same time. This seminar will take you through the five key principles of IGM and how this holistic ministry paradigm can enrich faithful discipleship for all generations in your church.
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Tim Beilharz has been a Children’s Ministry Advisor in the Sydney Anglican Diocese for 10 years, after seven years as a children’s minister at Gymea Anglican Church. Tim coaches, consults, and trains Children’s Ministers and ministry teams and lectures in Children’s Ministry and Intergenerational Ministry at Youthworks College, Sydney.
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Tim Beilharz
C – Children
F– Family
Helping children own and share their faith
What does this faith look like? How is it expressed? How can children be equipped to share this faith with others? Helping Children Own and Share Their Faith gives you insight into child faith development and how you can help nurture the child in understanding, expressing and living their faith in the context of family, church and community.
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Tim Beilharz has been a Children’s Ministry Advisor in the Sydney Anglican Diocese for 10 years, after seven years as a children’s minister at Gymea Anglican Church. Tim coaches, consults, and trains Children’s Ministers and ministry teams and lectures in Children’s Ministry and Intergenerational Ministry at Youthworks College, Sydney.
Terry Williams
CH – Church
L – Leadership
How to disagree productively in an increasingly polarised world
Whether it is politics, religion, gender, global warming or add any number of other emotive topics, it seems that public discourse is broken, and contempt has replaced conversation. The anonymity and ease of social media platforms all too easily contributes to a polarisation to opposing ends of a spectrum with little space for reasoned discussion. However, it is possible to hold strongly held views, have an opposing position with someone, engage in discourse and walk away as friends! Come and explore some building blocks for redeeming the art of conversation
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Terry trained and worked as a teacher in primary and secondary schools before joining the staff team of Scripture Union Queensland where he has worked for 39 years. Terry serves as a Family & Children’s Ministry Specialist with SU Australia and in the same role with the SU Global Team.
Natalie Kaiser
C – Children
F – Family
How to lead and care for neurodiverse children
Leading and caring for the children in our ministries that are neurodivergert (Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Tourettes’s syndrome) can be tricky at times. This workshop will look at practical strategies to assist in creating a caring and helpful environment to assist us as we lead our children to meet Jesus. This workshop will include strategies more for leaders who are ‘on the ground’.
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Natalie is a paediatric Occupational Therapist who works with children with a variety of special needs.
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Jake Mulder
L – Leadership
CH – Church
Leading Adaptive Change
As a leader, some of the changes you need to make are relatively straightforward. Other changes are more difficult – and tend to require changes in people’s attitudes, values, and behaviours. This session will address those more difficult changes and provide you with a framework, tools, and ideas to be more effective in leading adaptive changes in Ministry.
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Jake Mulder is the Fuller Seminary’s Executive Director of Leadership Formation Division and Senior Director of Strategy at the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI). As Senior Director of Strategy at FYI, he oversees Business Administration, coordinates new research, develops resources and trainings, and helps the team think strategically. Jake holds a BA in Business Administration in finance from Western Michigan University, an Mdiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Fuller. Passionate about helping individuals and organisations achieve their full potential, he is the co-author of Growing Young. Prior to joining the FYI Team, Jake worked in a variety of ministry and professional roles, including as a Financial Analyst, Youth Pastor in the Reformed Church of America, Ministry Director with Youth for Christ, and missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Europe and Asia. Jake and his family live in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Denise Powell
CH – Church
Supporting the spiritual journey of LGBT+ (2 part elective)
LGBT inclusion in the church is a hot button topic that has polarised the church. This elective is designed to be a safe place to hear from someone with skin in the game. Denise will share how she accidentally came to be pastoring in a mostly LGBTQ+ congregation and what she is learning from the experience. You’ll hear stories of those who are part of the congregation, the tension of being both Christian and one of the LGBTQIA letters, and some possible ways forward for leaders who want to explore this volatile space.
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Dr Denise Powell has had both pastoral and academic roles. She served as associate pastor at Arana Hills Church of Christ a very long time ago (BC: Before Children) and then again from 2011-2013. Always interested in Biblical Studies, Denise enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Qld and wrote her thesis on the Gospel of Luke. After completing her PhD, Denise taught New Testament studies at both Malyon Theological College (Baptist) and Trinity College Queensland (Uniting). While teaching, she accidentally found herself pastoring a mostly LGBTQ+ congregation (long story) and loved it so much, she decided to stay.
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Nikki Nisbet
C – Children
F – Family
Top 10 Tips for Leaders of Leaders
Ps Nikki shares her top 10 tips for those who are leading leaders in the Children’s Ministry area. These are aimed to equip and encourage you in your ministry area and in your leadership role as we look at different aspects of Children’s Ministry and experiences over the past 20 years.
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Ps Nikki has been involved in Children’s Ministry for 20 years and has a passion – to encourage young people in life and to help them discover that they are incredibly loved by God, created uniquely by Him, and that He has a plan and a purpose for their lives. She believes that if young people could grab hold of these truths then the world can be a much better place. Ps Nikki’s passion is not only for local vision, but for a global vision that will encourage young people to walk in these truths and reach out to those in their local communities and across the globe, to support and impact the lives of others too, for the Kingdom.
Andrea Eadie
C – Children
Y – Youth
Trauma Informed Ministry for Children and Young People
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Andrea Eadie
C – Children
F – Family
Y – Youth
Using games and activities to disciple kids and young people
How do we assist our kids and young people to embed Christian values in a way that leads to changed character and behaviour?
This practical session will equip you to use simple games and activities to help your groups understand and practise these values rather than just talk about them.
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Andrea has worked with children and young people for many years. She has taught secondary school, worked in counselling, and has been a school chaplain for 21 years.