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Youth Ministry Parenting

Rooted Conference Workshops

Past Rooted Workshops

More details on Rooted 2026 workshops are coming soon—we will be updating this page weekly with more details on speakers and topics. Our workshop topics and speakers are chosen by Rooted’s Steering Committees, two diverse groups of youth pastors and parents from different contexts and parts of the country. We encourage you to download the Rooted App and subscribe to the Rooted Conference Podcast in order to hear past workshops or purchase Rooted 2025 Virtual Access to listen to all the workshops from last year’s conference.

2026 Workshops

  • Ben Birdsong – Building a Discipleship Process: Creating Systems and Structures for Students to Grow in Their Faith

    Most youth workers let discipleship be dictated by their purchased curriculum rather than having a strategic plan to reach and disciple their students. In this workshop, Dr. Ben Birdsong helps us to define discipleship for our student ministry and presents an intentional process to help your students move from seekers to attenders to disciples. Youth workers will be equipped to design their own strategic discipleship path for their ministry context to lead their students to more faithfully walk with Jesus.

  • Dr. Bradley Blaylock – Building Resilient Faith
  • Dr. Carol Kaminski – Learn the Redemptive Story of the Old Testament and Be Equipped to Teach It
    The Bible is central to youth ministry, as leaders and parents seek to teach teenagers about Jesus so that they might become His disciples. But how often do we teach the Old Testament so that students can grasp the whole Bible? In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to the redemptive story of the whole Bible, using the memorable acronym CASKET EMPTY, which points to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the center of the biblical narrative. Two workshops on the Old Testament (part 1 and part 2) will trace the story of redemption through six key periods (Creation, Abraham, Sinai, Kings, Exile, and Temple) so that you will be equipped to teach the Old Testament to youth, using the new Student Edition in the Casket Empty Bible Series. Note: This workshop will be divided into two workshop slots. Part 1 will trace the story of redemption in the Old Testament from Creation to Sinai, and Part 2 will trace the story of redemption in the Old Testament from Kings to Temple.
  • Curtis Dunlap – Swipe Right Theology: Teaching Students God’s Design for Sex in a Digital Age

    In today’s digital world, students are being shaped long before they ever step foot into our ministries. With a swipe, scroll, or click, they are constantly absorbing messages about sex, identity, and relationships. These messages are often loud, distorted, and disconnected from God’s design. If we’re not intentional, culture will disciple them before we ever get the chance to.

    This workshop will help leaders move beyond awkward conversations and surface-level teaching to intentionally form students with a biblical vision for sex that is rooted in Scripture and relevant to their everyday lives. Rather than simply telling students what to avoid, we’ll focus on helping them understand what God created sex for, how it connects to their identity in Christ, and why His design leads to true freedom and flourishing. Together, we’ll explore practical ways to engage topics like pornography, dating, and digital influence while creating a discipleship culture where students feel safe to be honest and are challenged to live set apart.

  • Joey Turner- Faithful, not Flashy: A Realistic Vision for Partnering with Parents
    We talk a lot about “partnering with parents,” but many youth and family ministry leaders quietly feel unsure, ineffective, or just worn out by the idea. Parents are busy. Leaders are stretched thin. And with barely an hour a week with students, parent partnership can feel either unrealistically daunting or unnecessary. This workshop meets ministry leaders right there. Instead of offering another program to manage or strategy to master, this session reframes parent partnership through the lens of the gospel. Together we’ll explore what faithful partnership actually looks like when time is limited, expectations are unclear, and results are hard to measure. You’ll be reminded why parents matter deeply in God’s design for discipleship, how the gospel reshapes our posture toward them, and what it looks like to encourage, not replace, them over the long haul. This session is for ministry leaders who want to stop carrying guilt, lower unrealistic expectations, and grow in humble, hopeful, gospel‑shaped faithfulness with the parents God has entrusted to their ministry.
  • Melanie Beasley- Kids Ministry Builds the Whole Church

    Children’s ministry isn’t best kept behind closed classroom doors. When best practiced, it cultivates spiritual formation and encouragement for all ages.

  • Michael Goldstein – Gospel Centrality to a Place That is Post-Christian
  • Nate Evans- Bringing Kids Comfort Through the Gospel
  • Skyler Flowers – Are You Ready for the AI Apocalypse?

    AI is revealing and remaking our world before our eyes. From education to work, companionship, death, and art, AI’s powerful influence is transforming and uncovering (apokalypsis) how we conceive of the most important aspects of human life. And it’s only just begun. Progress in AI will skyrocket over the next months and years, with each day advancing further into the unknown.

    This breakout session will help you navigate the world of AI with wisdom and clarity while also showing how the gospel provides a better fulfillment for the promises of AI. The approach you’ll find here isn’t Christianity against the machine. Instead, you’ll see a turn toward the mirror as we consider the image AI is making humans into, and how the gospel offers us a better path for image bearers—being remade into the image of Christ. We will explore the range of human life—self, community, work, death, and more—uncovering the artificial ideas that threaten to malform us then declaring how the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Christian gospel might reform us.

  • Steve Eatmon – 10 Mistakes I Made in Youth Ministry
  • Stewart Swain – Preparing Students for College

    Are college students adults or are they still kids? What could our relationships be with them, and who could they become in college and beyond?

  • Terence Chatmon- Invigorate Your Family Discipleship Ministry
    Strengthen the roots of your church by equipping families to grow in faith—together. Victorious Family is designed to empower families and faith communities. The movement focuses on families, pastors, ministry leaders, volunteers, and faith-based organizations, addressing concerns about children’s spiritual development. A sustainable and scalable Training of Trainers (ToT) model will create a network of leaders who support congregations and households in effective family discipleship. For parents and grandparents, Terence Chatmon will share a proven family discipleship model to help your family to flourish by being rooted in the gospel message intentionally.

Pre-Conference Options

Join us for extra fellowship and teaching for specific groups of people, whether new to youth ministry, working in an Asian-American church, or those interested in becoming Rooted Writers.

  • Claim your spot! Asian American Pre-Conference

    Join us for extra fellowship and teaching for people specifically working in an Asian-American context.

    Date: Thursday, October 22nd
    Time: 11:30am – 3:00pm

    Cost: $35

    Join us for our 9th annual Asian American Preconference, as we are offering a preconference specifically for volunteers, pastors, and youth leaders in the Asian American church. This year’s preconference theme will be “Doing Emotionally Healthy Ministry” and will be held on Thursday, October 22nd from 11:30am – 3pm. Lunch will be included.

    Our speakers for this year’s preconference are Drew Hyun, Executive Director of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (pioneered by Pete & Geri Scazzero), an organization that aims to transform church culture through the multiplication of deeply changed pastors and leaders, as well as a panel of experienced practitioners, for this preconference experience, designed to encourage us to “press forward in gospel-centered ministry for the Asian-American church.” Join us for this special fellowship and teaching for people working specifically in an Asian American context.

    If you forgot to register for the preconference during regular conference registration, please do so through this checkout page.