GUEST SPEAKERS

SESSION 1: Repairing Distorted Defaults

Those who attend, and lead, churches have default assumptions about others, themselves, and the world. These defaults shape—differently—how we feel, what we think, how we pay attention to, and how we interpret relational experiences.

In this session, we will explore how these distorted and distorting defaults are being repaired to God's good design so that can become churches of faith, hope, and love. 

Cyd & Geoff Holsclaw

Spiritual Director & Professor, Pastors & Authors

Geoff (PhD) is an author of multiple books, affiliate professor of theology at Northern Seminary, and co-host of the Embodied Faith podcast, which offers a neuroscience-informed spiritual formation.

Cyd is an author, spiritual director, and pastor. She is also a trauma-informed, Jesus-centered, integrative coach (PCC) focused on embodied practices and building a secure attachment to God.

Together, they co-host the Attaching to God podcast (formerly Embodied Faith podcast), which offers a neuroscience-informed spiritual formation. They are co-authors of Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With You and recently submitted their latest manuscript for their next book.

BREAKOUT: It’s In the In Between: Rethinking Church Health in Ways That Protect Communities & Prevent Abuse

Many have sought to answer the question: “what makes a healthy church?” Unfortunately corporate views of success have infiltrated our pursuit of health resulting in a continuous counting of attendance and an overriding attempt to protect the organization over the individual.

Our attempts at “church health” have often ended in some of the most catastrophic casualties as we witness many being harmed by the seemingly “healthiest” churches. Perhaps the problem lies within our very definition of church health.

This workshop is an invitation to return to relational definitions of church health. Using scriptural frameworks for church and relationships as well sociological and psychological studies in relational anthropology, this workshop seeks to help pastors begin to rethink how they can lead their churches to health by caring most for the in between spaces.

Kayleigh Clark

Pastor, Consultant

As a pastor and pastor’s kid, Kayleigh is intimately acquainted with the mess of beauty, pain, joy, and heartache that exists within the church. It is her unrelenting hope that the church is the community though which God seeks to restore the world that fuels her in ministry and led her to start Restor(y).

As a ThD Candidate, her dissertation work focuses on congregational collective trauma and paths towards healing and restoration. Her desire is to use this research to bring healing to the church that it might be the bride of Christ it was created to be.

When she’s not nerding out about the interplay between psychology and theology, you can find her with her husband and son exploring the outdoors and hunting for the best local chai latte everywhere she goes.

SESSION 2: Beyond Suppression: Building a Safe and Trustworthy Church

There is a framework for how the world suppresses. Unfortunately, it has made its way into many systems and churches. Pastor Steve Carter will walk you through a biblical framework for not just how the world works but how God longs to work as well. 

If we are to move forward as a safe, consistent and trustworthy space as a church we must:

• be aware of this framework
• be willing to do our own work, and
• offer up a more compelling Jesus-way kind of framework as church leaders. 

Steve Carter

Pastor, Author

Steve is the bestselling author of The Thing Beneath the Thing, and the newly-released Grieve, Breathe, Receive, and hosts Craft and Character, a podcast devoted to empowering pastors and church communicators who want to work on their craft while learning to lead with character.

Pastorally, his passion is to bring the way of Jesus into everything he does. He describes his work as humbling and vulnerable—a soul-baring process that keeps him dependent, expectant, and grounded in Christ.

Steve serves as a teaching pastor at Forest City Church and regularly teaches at churches, conferences, and various businesses worldwide. He lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with his wife and two kids.