TRAINING TO HELP YOUR CHURCH REACH MORE YOUNG PEOPLE LIKE NEVER BEFORE
Reach & Engage Young People | Learn from Ministry Experts
|Build a Legacy that Outlasts You
Does it feel like everything around you is changing?
- You are quietly losing members, relevance, momentum, and vitality.
- Your church used to have young people, and you wonder where they’ve all gone.
- You have had to make radical shifts because of the pandemic and you are uncertain where to go next.
- You’re tired of feeling stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed.
- You keep guessing, or hoping you’re focusing your church’s energy in the right places.
- Your community is changing and you don’t know how to reach your new neighbors.
You’re not alone.
All churches grow old, but strategic churches are growing young.

Introducing Growing Young in a Changing World
A nine-month digital cohort experience that will help you unleash the potential of your congregation and apply the Growing Young core commitments to today’s realities, including:
How can you adapt to a changing ministry landscape?
How can your church navigate the complexities of intercultural ministry with care?
How can your ministry walk with young people struggling with anxiety?
Your Plan to Grow a Thriving Church
1. Join
Register for our 2020-21 digital cohort.
2. Grow
Learn from ministry experts and receive personalized coaching.
3. Reach
Put your strategy in action to engage young people like never before.
Ministry experts and keynote speakers include:
Kara Powell
Executive Director
Dr. Kara Powell is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. Named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women You Should Know,” Kara serves as a Youth and Family Strategist for Orange, and also speaks regularly at parenting and leadership conferences. Kara is the author or coauthor of a number of books, including Growing Young, Growing With, The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family, Sticky Faith Curriculum, Can I Ask That?, Deep Justice Journeys, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum.
Soong-Chan Rah
Associate Professor of Church Growth
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary and the author of Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church. He is formerly the founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. He has extensive experience in cross-cultural preaching as well as on numerous college campuses. Soong-Chan, lives in Chicago with his wife, Sue, and their two children.
Brad Griffin
Senior Director of Content
Brad M. Griffin is the Senior Director of Content for the Fuller Youth Institute, where he develops research-based training for youth workers and parents. A speaker, blogger, and volunteer youth pastor, Brad is the coauthor of Growing Young, several Sticky Faith books, Right Click: Parenting Your Teenager in a Digital Media World, and the series Can I Ask That?: 8 Hard Questions about God and Faith. Brad and his family live in Southern California.
Jennifer Guerra Aldana
Manager of Multicultural Initiatives
Jennifer A. Guerra Aldana, originally from Guatemala, grew up in Southern California as the daughter of church planters. Jennifer received her B.A in Social Work from Point Loma Nazarene University and served as a youth pastor and social worker in San Diego county. She serves as a pastor of La Fuente Ministries- a bilingual, intercultural ministry of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene and graduated with her MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary. Her passions include leadership training, intercultural youth spiritual formation and bilingual ministries.
Teesha Hadra
Chaplain at University Medical Center
Teesha Hadra earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Florida. She practiced law for nearly seven years before leaving to begin full time ministry in 2013 at Buckhead Church, an urban campus of North Point Community Church in Atlanta. Teesha received an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary and is ordained in the Anglican Church in North America. She previously served as the Executive Pastor at Church of the Resurrection, an Anglican parish in Los Angeles. Teesha and her husband live in New Orleans where she serves as a Chaplain at University Medical Center. She recently co-authored Black & White: Disrupting Racism One Friendship at a Time with her friend, John Hambrick.
Jake Mulder
Senior Director of Strategy
Jake Mulder is the Senior Director of Strategy at the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), where he oversees business administration, coordinates new research, develops resources, and helps the team think strategically. He is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Western Michigan University (BA Business Admin and Finance) and is pursuing a PhD at Fuller. Passionate about helping individuals and organizations achieve their full potential, he is the coauthor of Growing Young. Jake has 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.
Dwight Radcliff
Assistant Professor of Mission, Theology, and Culture
Rev. Dr. Dwight Radcliff is the Assistant Provost for the William E. Pannell Center for African American Church Studies and Assistant Professor of Mission, Theology, and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has over twenty years of pastoral experience and is a leading voice in topics ranging from urban church planting, culture, theology, preaching, social justice, millennials, and evangelism. Dwight continues to pastor alongside his wife at The Message Center Church in Gardena, CA, a church he founded in 2006.
Aaron Rosales
Co-founder and Director of Mental Health at Brio
Aaron Rosales is a co-founder of Brio, a non-profit that designs and launches mental health solutions in vulnerable communities through local partnerships. He also is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University Counseling and Psychological Services. Aaron has a wealth of expertise in clinical and research psychology honed through working with universities, churches, community organizations, humanitarian aid workers, clergy, police departments, and victims of violent crimes. He is passionate about promoting mental health in populations with a wide gap between need and resources.
Tommy Nixon
Chief Executive Officer, Urban Youth Workers Institute
Tommy Nixon is the Chief Executive Officer at the Urban Youth Workers Institute. Before coming to UYWI, he founded Solidarity, a community development organization that serves Latinx and immigrant families in Fullerton, CA. Tommy has a passion for helping urban leaders lead from a place of depth with God while having a dynamic impact in the Kingdom. Currently, Tommy is the lead pastor at One Life City Church in Fullerton, CA where he lives with his wife and five children.
Jane Hong-Guzman de Leon
Project Coordinator & Content Advisor
Jane Hong-Guzman de Leon is the Project Coordinator for the Living a Better Story research project and a Content Advisor for the Ministry Innovations with Young Adults at Fuller Youth Institute. She holds her MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BA in English Literature from the University of California, San Diego. Jane has pastored for over a decade, from youth to adults, in two church plants that have large thriving ministries. Prior to becoming a pastor, she worked as a deputy probation counselor, junior high English teacher, and a professor at the International University in Mexico. In her free time she guest preaches, officiates weddings, serves at ISAAC (Innovative Space for Asian American Christianity) a non profit organization, cares for her family, and gathers with people around food and deep conversations. Jane is passionate about seeing diversity, justice, healing, and transformation in and out of the church.
What do I get when I join a cohort?

Nine months of personalized team training.
-
4 digital summits where you’ll learn from ministry experts
-
Regular training webinars with FYI researchers and leaders
-
Nine months of personalized coaching
-
Ministry self-assessment tools
-
Access to an exclusive community of fellow cohort churches
-
PLUS, you’ll have access to replay versions of ALL our videos and live events led by the FYI team. No need to worry about missing an event!
Total cost: $1,749
Registration is closed.
Fill out the contact form below to be placed on an interest list for next year’s cohort.
WHAT IS GROWING YOUNG, AND HOW CAN IT HELP MY CHURCH GROW?
If your church is like so many others in the US, you’re dedicated to leading and developing followers of Jesus—of all ages. But something’s missing.
Young people. Twentysomethings. Teenagers. Maybe they’re not completely absent, but there sure aren’t as many as you’d like to see filtering in the doors on Sunday.
If your church seems to be aging every year, you’re not alone. You’re actually part of an overwhelming trend.
While 18-29 year olds make up 17% of our overall population, they constitute only 10% of churchgoers. In fact, many churches across the United States are shrinking and aging overall, and even closing their doors. The stats just don’t lie.
Maybe you’re not sure what to do.
You know in your heart that your church longs for their presence. And you also know that they long for a place like your church.
Here’s the good news for churches across the nation.
We’ve studied over 250 of the nation’s leading congregations, developing groundbreaking research from intentional, healthy churches that are growing—spiritually, emotionally, missionally, and even numerically— and are lively with the passion of young people who are involved across a variety of ministries.
Let us share everything we learned with you.
Growing Young in a Changing World is a nine-month, fully digital church training experience that will help you unleash the potential of your congregation to engage the next generation.
Read More...
Over the past three years, the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) has taken our groundbreaking research from Growing Young and journeyed with over 500 diverse congregations to help them grow young in their context. We have helped these congregations engage younger generations in ways that breathe life and vitality into the whole church through six essential strategies.
Throughout the digital cohort, the FYI team will journey with you and help you focus on what’s most essential in helping young people discover and love your church. Our advanced training model brings together churches that are committed to growing young.
We know that you invest in resources carefully. Conferences can be encouraging, but too general. And seminars are often interesting, but too short. What your team really needs is:
- Research-based resources which bring proven results
- A coach to guide you
- Feedback from peer churches
- Extended time together
- Encouragement to turn ideas into strategies
- Accountability to follow through
- Space to discuss today’s most pressing conversations
When you join a Growing Young in a Changing World, you’ll stop guessing and grasping at trends and let our expert training lead you forward.
What are people saying?
The Growing Young Cohort was an eye-opening and heart-inspiring time for our team. It took away the blinders and gave us some needed space to dive into some uncharted conversations that have challenged us and helped us grow as a church leadership team. We now have some clear steps forward as we continue to seek to grow young as a church.
Bill, Fellowship Bible Church
Growing Young Cohort participant
Our senior leadership knows that we have to do something to engage with the next generation. And Growing Young has been a huge catalyst for giving us the data, showing us the research, and helping us understand how to have those conversations.
Vince, Rock Church
Growing Young Cohort participant
The cohort enabled us to create an initial plan to listen to what young adults are experiencing. As a result, we are bringing young people to the leadership table. They are working alongside other adults and being mentored as ministry team members. Growing Young is strengthening our mission to engage young people as leaders in our church, and it is helping us shape our worship, our serving, and our relationships.
Don, Nashville First Church of the Nazarene
Growing Young Cohort participant
You took a huge concept that can be pretty nebulous and broke it down into captivating vision and practical actions steps, which helped our smaller team have good starting points in our discussions.
Tara, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church
Growing Young Cohort participant
Not only did I get more resources, but the Growing Young Cohort provided a context for me to invite my Executive Pastor and other leaders to hear about how investing in young people can transform our church. In the last year we have seen more buy-in from senior leadership and trust in young people than ever before.
Griffin, Sandals Church
Growing Young Cohort participant
This training is not only valuable for youth pastors/workers but for anyone involved in church leadership, especially senior pastors. Make this a priority and you will not be disappointed!
Derek, Point Loma Nazarene University
Growing Young Cohort participant
Join Growing Young in a Changing World
Our 2020-21 DIGITAL Cohort is a nine-month church training model that will help you unleash the potential of your congregation to engage the next generation.
Let us walk hand-in-hand with your team, as our Growing Young research helps inform and transform your ministry.
Registration for the 2020-2021 Digital cohort is currently closed.
Fill out the form below to be placed on an interest list for next year’s cohort.
