Conclave encourages church leaders to invest relationally in the next generation

More than 900 children, youth, college ministers and pastors from across Texas and beyond gathered in Arlington, October 6-7, to attend Conclave NextGen for a time of worship, breakout sessions, training and networking, learning how to invest in and win the next generation for Christ.

“Your ultimate calling is to be a disciple of Jesus” 

Shane Pruitt, National Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), opened the conference with a message titled “What I Have Learned in 20+ Years of NextGen Ministry.” 

Pruitt gave attendees seven lessons he learned in ministry to encourage, empower and remind attendees of their calling: “Never get over the power of the gospel in your life,” “Always focus on the depth of ministry,” “Never stop being a servant,” “Good leaders need good friends,” “Sometimes, fruit surprises you,” “You can say ‘no’ and let people walk away,” and “Let the thornes lead you to the throne.” 

“Your ultimate calling is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ,” said Pruitt. “We’re striving to be obedient, to sit at the feet of Jesus… [and] you can't shortcut that. The only way to build godly character and integrity is by sitting at the feet of Jesus through spiritual disciplines, because at the end of the day, we don't want our gifts and talents to outpace our character and integrity [for ministry].” 

Pruitt encouraged attendees that “God doesn’t need any of us, but yet he chooses to use us.” 

“This is why we do what we do, because we believe no young person is too lost for Jesus to find [and] no young person is too sinful for Jesus to save,” 

The role of the lead pastor in a disciple-making church

Over the two days, attendees had the opportunity to attend more than 40 unique breakout sessions on topics such as family ministry, evangelism, mental health, empowering volunteers, navigating current trends and more. A specialized “Pastor’s Track” was offered for senior church leaders to learn from and form community with other pastors.

Rick Howerton, former Small Group and Discipleship specialist at LifeWay, led a “Pastor’s Track” breakout session on the first day titled “The Role of the Lead Pastor in a Disciple-Making Church.” He gave pastors four roles they should take in disciple-making: leader, resource provider, doctrine protector and model. 

Howerton encouraged pastors to lead by solidifying the small group or discipleship group systems, establish groups as a core value and expectation, promote and protect the group ministry and set realistic goals with accountability.

“God has given you the role of primary influencer in your church, and it is not a lack of humility for you to use your influence to move your ministry forward. It is a necessity for you to use your influence to move the ministry forward,” said Howerton. 

Howerton concluded his breakout session by challenging pastors to model the importance of small groups by leading a group or being part of a group and sharing their story with the church.

“I would suggest to you all before you leave here: If you're not in a group, you find a way to be in one,” said Howerton. 

Rob Jones, pastor at First Baptist Church Port Neches, said Howerton’s expertise “was a confirmation that the focus that we've been putting on groups [in our church]... is on track.” 

“[Discipleship groups have] been very beneficial in developing ministry leaders in all areas, preschool through adults, and hearing the little tidbits of information on how we can improve in a lot of areas is always beneficial,” said Jones. 

Jones said it was important for him to come to Conclave with his staff to model “being learners.” 

“I'm always telling our ministry team that we have to be learners, and if I'm not modeling that for them, then there's no incentive for them to do it,” said Jones. “I started coming to Conclave over 20 years ago as a student minister and saw the immediate benefit that it had on my ministry. So, I want to make sure that they are part of this community and that they're building relationships, [too].”

Offering authentic relationships to the next generation 

Chris Trent, NextGen catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, also led a breakout session on the first day titled “Current Trends and the Next Generation.” 

He gave attendees six general observations of current trends to encourage and prepare them for ministering to the next generation: “This generation needs and can be reached with the gospel,” “We will never retain or disciple them well by entertaining them,” “Smart phones, social media and AI will continue to have major impact in the lives of teenagers,” “Youth workers that are maintaining relationships with students into their college years are making a huge impact,” “Don’t underestimate the power of prayer,” and “You don’t have to be a NextGen trend expert, but you do have to keep an eye on [the trends].” 

 ”We're not going to out-AI, AI, but what we can do, more so now than ever before, is we can offer authentic [relationships and] real-life people that are checking up on you because they know you and they're calling you… and I think the future of youth ministry has to be there,” said Trent.

Abigayle Jonse, second-time attendee and youth ministry volunteer at Holly Brook Baptist Church in Hawkins, said Trent’s emphasis on being relational caused her to reflect on a church leader who poured into her own life and is still mentoring her today. 

“[During this breakout], I was really thinking about one of my leaders at my church that I grew up in. She moved me into my college dorm and still texts me… She poured into me so much, and she continued to pour into me even when I moved churches, even when I moved towns and even after I got married, she's still someone that I know I can talk to,” said Jonse. 

She said she is encouraged to be a mentor to girls in her youth ministry.

“I was able to think about implementing it in our church, because I know a lot of the kids at our church don't have very big role models in their lives and in their families, so that's something I'm wanting to work on after hearing this [presentation],” said Jonse.

“Behind every statistic is a story” 

David Kinnaman, CEO of Barna Group, concluded the first day with a message about “what it looks like to prepare for the current harvest.” He gave attendees four ways they could do this: “We can prepare for spiritual openness,” “We need to prepare for the next generation for digital Babylon,” “We can prepare ourselves for hard questions,” and “We can pursue evidence-based discipleship.” 

Kinnaman said, “Behind every statistic is a story.” He challenged attendees, “Are you preparing the conditions for growing relationally deep discipleship?”

“We end up counting how many people come in… but we don't always measure what matters, which is our people actually growing through their connectedness relationally with other Christians,” said Kinnaman. “I think there's spiritual power in hearing other people tell how Jesus has changed them, and we need to help expose young people to those powerful stories.” 

Kinnaman encouraged attendees that “the work you’re doing to help people place their lives with confidence on the gospel matters.” 

“This is the opportunity that I believe that we have, to use this kind of rich, relational moment, this openness, to prepare ourselves, to look at this generation with compassion because they're like sheep without a shepherd,” said Kinnaman. “But the moment is ripe. This generation is ready for us to know them, for us to help them understand their gifts and their giftedness and for us to prepare them to flourish even in suffering.” 

Storing up to share out

Kicking off day two, Bobby Contreras, pastor of Alamo Heights Baptist Church in San Antonio, shared a message from Proverbs 6:6-8. He gave attendees three things to do to keep pointing people to Jesus in their ministry: “Store up,” “Share out,” and “Don’t slow down.”

“It's time to store up [the Word of God in our hearts]. We don't know what… January 2026 will bring yet. We must be ready for the sake of our marriages. We must be ready for the sake of [everyone in our ministries],” said Contreras. “We store up [God’s word] only to share out… Even if it's bringing to memory what students, parents, family members [and] church community already know… I've heard it often said, ‘God doesn't yell, he repeats himself.’” 

Contreras encouraged attendees to “fix our eyes on Jesus,” so that others may do the same. 

“Conclave, there’s an invitation that we would be people [who]… point people young and old to fix their eyes on Jesus because nothing else will sustain them or us,” said Contreras. “Would we not take for granted the stirring that God has given us in our hearts? Would we not take for granted the race marked out for us, and would we run from here?” 

Winning the next generation for Christ

Jana Magruder, Strategic Initiatives director at Lifeway NextGen, led a breakout session on the second day titled “Serving Every Generation from the Kids' Minister Seat.” She explained the cultural and leadership differences between generations. She said children’s ministers are in a role to strategically reach all generations in their church. 

“Think about the heart of what you do, that being children's, student ministry. But then think about who else you're ministering to, when you take into account their families… you are influencing several generations,” said Magruder. “What you’re doing right now is really All-Gen ministry.”

She gave children’s ministers seven key takeaways for doing “All-Gen ministry”: prioritize in-person gatherings, incorporate intergenerational discipleship, contextualize your communication and training, support spiritual gifts and continue to develop, mobilize around mission, generate urgency around ministry to Gen Z and Gen Alpha and reconnect and reach through relationships. 

“[Film writer and actor] Alex Kendrick said, ‘Whoever wants the next generation the most will win them.’ So my question for all of us is, ‘Does the church want them the most?’” said Magruder. “It's going to take the whole church rallying around [them]... [and] every generation pouring into all generations [to win the next generation].”

John Strappazon, a Trajectory, College Ministry and Leadership coach from Fort Worth, also led a breakout session on the second day titled “Strapp's Secret Sauce for Success in College Ministry.” 

Drawing from Colossians 1:28-29, he explained that the ultimate goal of college ministry is “for people to be mature in Christ.”

“We have to move people forward. The goal in ministry, I believe, is progress, not perfection… to move them forward into a relationship with the Lord,” said Strappazon. 

He gave attendees a tool he called the “Ministry Focus Funnel,” which has five steps: community, crowd, consumers, committed and communicators. The purpose of the funnel is to help college ministers build their ministry from a crowd to “communicators,” who are sharing the gospel and growing the ministry.

He challenged attendees to consider, “What are you doing to call all [students] to a deeper level of commitment to Jesus?”

“Pray that God will give you some students for your ministry and begin to invest in them… [then] when God changes lives, [the students you invested in] will tell people about it,” said Strappazon. 

Reaching Generation Alpha

Shelly Melia, associate dean for the Graduate School of Ministry, program director for Master of Arts in Children’s Ministry and in Family Ministry at Dallas Baptist University, concluded the conference with a message titled “The changing landscape of Generation Alpha.” 

In her message, she answered three questions: “Who are they?” “What kind of world are they growing up in?” “What do they need from us?” 

She explained that Generation Alpha needs ministers to be relationship-focused, which creates belonging; Bible-saturated, which roots them in truth; and prioritizing parents, which will provide them with Godly influence. 

“We need to talk to them about what it's really like to love and serve the Lord, but still have hard things happen in our lives so that it's not a faith they grow out of, but a faith they grow into,” said Melia. “Despite all of these challenges that we have [to reach Gen Alpha], God’s word is still sufficient. It’s never changing in an ever-changing world.” 

Melia encouraged attendees to examine, “Which of these [three things] do we do well and keep on doing those? Which of these might we need to tweak or to do better… to be able to reach Generation Alpha?”

“[Conclave] is my family” 

Attendee Jeffri Foster, children’s minister at Liberty Christian School in Argyle and lay leader at Valley Ridge Church in Lewisville, said her favorite parts of Conclave are the community and the resources she receives from exhibitors, keynote and breakout sessions. 

“I feel like [Conclave] is my family… [and] I always leave Conclave with ideas that I can practically implement immediately into ministry,” said Foster. 

Conclave NextGen 2026 is scheduled to take place on October 5-6 at First Baptist Church Bryan. The annual two-day event is made possible by faithful giving through the Texas Baptists Cooperative Program and support from the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation and the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions.

To learn more about Conclave NextGen, visit txb.org/conclave.