Our heart behind everything we do at Word of Life NZ is to ultimately see “every young person in our nation impacted by the Gospel through a friend” and our annual Leadership Conference is a way we can equip local church youth ministries with the tools to encourage this vision amongst their youth communities.

This year in March, we hosted our annual Leadership Conference in Cambridge, with additional watch parties in the North Shore, Nelson, and Christchurch. In total, we reached over 100 youth leaders from 20 different local churches.

The theme for this year's conference was "Multiply", focusing on discipling teens to reach their friends with the life changing message of the Gospel. Our heart was to see leadership teams excited to disciple their young people, and equip them to reach their friends for Christ! Our keynote speaker, Kris Stout, the Vice President of International Ministries for Word of Life, travelled from the USA to share his insights and show the biblical principles of multiplication and discipleship. In addition to the keynote sessions, we also had seminar speakers at each of our locations speaking on topics like “How to Run Effective Small Groups” and “Ministry in Light of Eternity”. These seminars allowed for hands-on learning and provided leadership teams with actionable insights they could immediately implement within their local ministries.

It was encouraging to see leadership teams sitting down after each session and talking about how they would strategically implement what they learned. One key leader in Cambridge mentioned that this was the first time that some of their leaders were challenged to critically think about the ‘why?’ of youth ministry and discipleship! This years Leadership Conference was a huge encouragement and we are excited to witness the ongoing impact as youth ministries put these tools into action.

As we look ahead to 2025 we are excited to announce that our theme for leadership conference will be “Follow the Leader”. This theme has been chosen because we firmly believe that as leaders embrace and model Gospel advancement in their own lives, young people will be impacted and follow suit. Please pray with us that many youth leaders from around New Zealand would commit to joining us on March 1st and be both encouraged and strengthened in their ministry with young people.

Lance Robinson
Local Church Ministries, South Island