Last March we launched the Renew Student Conference, a local discipleship event hosted at Brandywine Valley Baptist Church, with two goals; (1) to get young people from all over the region in the same space worshiping and learning together, and (2) to see it led by voices from leaders from a variety of churches and student ministries.

Our first year was a big roll of the dice. The goal was to see if we could 150 people to come out; that felt like the threshold for pulling the trigger on future years. We brought in Illijam, a hip hop artist, and the Skit Guys, as well as invited four local youth workers to teach and two local student worship bands to lead worship.

We were blown away by the response; 19 churches participated! 320 students and youth leaders came out! We had an amazing two days … and learned a LOT about how to organize a conference event and where we could improve.

The 2020 Renew Student Conference is going to be March 6-7. It’s still five months away, but I’m starting to get really excited. We’ve added breakouts this year which opens the door to getting a lot more local youth workers leading, as well as more opportunities for teens from different churches to connect. With Andrew Stanley coming to do a comedy set and Propaganda (!!!) coming to do a concert and be one of our speakers, it’s shaping up to be an even more amazing year. I can’t wait to see how it comes together!