‘True Love Waits’ leaders, Louie Giglio highlight SWBTS youth event

FORT WORTH, Texas (SWBTS)—When Louie Giglio preached at a “One Day” event in Sherman, Texas, last year, 30,000 young people turned out to hear the message. Giglio, director of Passion Conferences and The Passion Network, is coming back to North Texas for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s annual Youth Ministry Lab April 8-9.

The event, sponsored by the student ministry department at Southwestern Seminary, is a one-of-a-kind conference which provides ministry training for youth ministers, parents of youth, youth leaders and future youth ministers. College students who are interested in serving in student ministry programs are also invited.

Special guests this year include Richard Ross, a principal architect of the global True Love Waits sexual abstinence campaign and a professor of student ministry at Southwestern Seminary, and Mark Matlock, founder of Wisdom Works Ministries. Both men will lead sessions for the parents of youth. Ross said that the goal of the parenting sessions is to reconnect young people and their parents.

“For faith to flow from one generation to the next, the hearts of parents and their children have to turn toward each other,” Ross said. “Faith flows from parent to child, from generation to generation through this pipeline, and if it is lost, a large number of families don’t know how to get it back. Most young people will live at a distant level on into adulthood. That shouldn’t be so.”

Other speakers at the conference include Wes Black, also professor of student ministry at the seminary, Allen Jackson, professor of student ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Matt Chandler, lead pastor of Village Church in Highland Village, Texas.

Open registration for Youth Ministry Lab begins at 2 p.m. April 8. The conference begins at 6 p.m. For more information on registration costs, log onto http://www.sbcstudents.com/faq.asp?Category=27.