Darren Whitehead kicked off the SHIFT Conference. He is the Director of Student Impact, the High School Ministry at Willow Creek Community Church.

Here are some thoughts from his talk titled, “Where It Is, Where It’s Going, and What We Can Do About It”:

Churches are now irrelevant to mainstream culture, similar to the cultural phenomena called cultural freeze.

Gospel is timeless but our methods and strategies are time-sensitive.

Not just youth culture but the entire world has changed. We live in World 2.0 and we can’t do Youth Ministry in World 1.0, church for kids grown up in a church environment.

Here are some specific SHIFTS that they have implemented at Willow Creek:

1. Less Leader Generated Content to More User Generated Content.

• They are looking for less professional and more PERSONAL.
• They want to interact and participate.
• Teenagers are the experts on teen culture.

2. Less Travel Agent to More Tour Guide.

• Don’t tell them where to go, but go WITH them. Walk with them in life.

3. Less Imitation to More Imagination

• We’ve created a co-dependent spoon fed culture that is spiritually malnourished, starving themselves, but getting fed once a week.
• We have to stop limiting what following/serving Jesus looks like. We must free them in their personality to be themselves and who God called them to be.

Willow Creek is amazing. I am sitting in the auditorium right now and it looks great! Darren Whitehead and Donald Miller hit it hard. I will not post my thoughts until tonight, but feel free to read what they are talking about over at the SHIFT ONLINE EXPERIENCE. This is a great addition to the conference, especially for those who want to check out from afar! PEACE!!

I came across this link/page the other day. Cannot remember where I came across it, because I just left it up on my screen for a couple of days. Check this page out as it makes 5 Predictions about Youth Trends for 2007.

First paragraph reads: “Today’s generation of young students is causing concern among some youth leaders who see increasing fallout from the church and an increasingly secularized culture. Other leaders are just the opposite. They see a generation full of potential and passionately following Christ.”

I would fall in the camp of leaders who “see a generation FULL of potential to passionately follow Christ and make a difference in this generation!” (Italics and bold are my revisions).

It was an interesting read and thought provoking. Check out and let me know what you think.