Download a printable Conference Packet with Schedule, Speakers, Breakouts, and Sponsors.
Meet Our Keynote Speakers
Christina Embree
Intergenerational By Design
Programs may gather people, but God designed the Church to be connected in much deeper ways. From the very beginning, humanity was created to flourish in relationship—with God and with one another—and the Church was designed to reflect that same reality across generations. In this welcoming keynote address, Christina lays the biblical foundation for the conference by exploring how intergenerational community is not simply a ministry strategy, but God's intentional design for His people. Together, we will gain a clearer vision for becoming communities where every generation belongs, contributes, and grows as we follow Christ together.
Christina Embree is the founder and director of ReFocus Ministry. She holds a doctorate in spiritual formation with a focus on age segregation and intergenerational ministry and a masters in ministry focused on Children, Youth, and Family Ministry. In addition to coaching churches of multiple denominations and traditions all around the globe, she is widely recognized as a speaker and author in the areas of generational discipleship, intergenerational ministry, and family ministry. Christina also serves as the Minister of Generational Discipleship for the Great Lakes Conference of the Brethren in Christ and as NextGen pastor at Open Door Church in Lexington, Kentucky.
Natalie Frisk
Where Generations Meet
Consider this: every gathering, class, and worship service can become a place where generations genuinely meet—and yet we often miss the opportunities already in front of us. In this workshop, you'll discover practical ways to reshape what you're already doing by building in conversation, shared experiences, storytelling, prayer, and serving together. Leave with simple, adaptable ideas you can use in any of your ministry settings and in whole-church gatherings to help people of every age grow in faith together.
Natalie Frisk is the Director of Curriculum at RaiseUpFaith and an enthusiastic board member of the Children’s Spirituality Summit. She is the author of Raising Disciples: How to Make Faith Matter for Our Kids and a few children’s books. Natalie worked in pastoral ministry with youth, children, and families for 15 years. She regularly speaks to churches, ministry leaders, and parents about helping the next generation develop a meaningful and lasting faith. She lives in Brantford, Ontario, with her husband, Sam, and their teenager, Erin.
Matt Irvine & Kirsten Hitchcock
Better Together
Churches thrive when generations grow in faith together. Where are the spaces and places where meaningful relationships can flourish between children, youth, and adults in your context? Intergenerational experiences help nurture faith, build belonging, and create a stronger church community. Gain practical ideas for fostering connections across generations in worship, learning, and everyday church life.
Matt Irvine is an Editor of Discipleship Resources for David C Cook, with an emphasis on Intergenerational Discipleship. He has been deeply involved in local church ministry for 15+ years as a licensed and ordained pastor in The Wesleyan Church. Matt has been privileged to serve in the ministry areas of 5th and 6th grade, Middle and High School, College and Young Adult, Adult Discipleship, Visitation and Care, local school outreach and partnership, pre-marital counseling and weddings, end-of-life care, funerals and grief counseling, pastoral preparation and training. This broad range of ministry experience shaped Matt’s desire to champion Intergenerational Discipleship. Matt lives with his wife and two children in the Upstate of South Carolina.
Kirsten Hitchcock is the director of children’s discipleship resources at David C Cook and is the children’s pastor at The Practice Church in South Barrington, Illinois. She has a spiritual formation degree from Wheaton College Graduate School and desires to help all generations discover God’s wonder in their everyday lives.
Seth Crissman
Holy Surprise: The Story of The Soil & The Seed Project
Since 2021, The Soil and The Seed Project (TSATSP) grew from making beautiful faith formation resources for 300 families to sharing 10,000+ copies in 2026 -- all while giving everything away for free. The project has partnered with 100+ musicians, artists and writers from around the world to create resources that are really beautiful that help anyone who picks them up to engage scripture and faith in new ways as they follow Jesus. Come and hear some of the stories of Holy Surprise: memorizing hundreds of verses of scripture, Thai artists, pancakes, airport chaplains, and a million dollar grant.
Seth Thomas Crissman loves helping the church imagine new ways to cultivate, live out, and share faith in Jesus Christ. He is the Executive Director of The Soil and The Seed Project, a non-profit music and art collaborative ministry based in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He has spent the last 20 years helping churches, groups and organizations live out what they say they believe. Seth is married to Theresa, and they have 4 young children.
Click HERE for Schedule and Breakout Descriptions
Stephanie Peterson, With Wonder Workshop
Steph Peterson (Creator/Illustrator of With Wonder Workshop, Pastor of Children’s Discipleship for the Brethren in Christ U.S. Great Lakes Conference) is a Jesus-following, dinosaur-loving, mac and cheese-eating mom, wife, artist and children’s minister who lives and works in Wilmore, Kentucky. She currently creates children and toddler formation curricula while also working with parents and kiddos through Asbury Seminary’s Student Life and Formation Dept, The Brethren in Christ G.L.C. and beyond!
Toddlers can be noisy, messy and wiggly. Perhaps there is more to toddler ministry then donated toys and passed down pack’n plays. Maybe there are better ways we can shepherd even the littlest worshippers to encounter Jesus through play. Steph will explore how we can make our sanctuaries and sacred spaces a more accommodating place for tiny ones and their parents.
Tanya Yuen, CBOQ Kids
Rev. Tanya Yuen serves as the Children and Family Ministries Associate for the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec. She has served in children, youth, and family ministry for more than two decades and is passionate about helping churches cultivate vibrant, intergenerational communities where children can flourish in faith. Tanya equips ministry leaders with practical tools and theological foundations for creating environments that nurture lifelong discipleship across generations. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Practical Theology at McMaster Divinity College, where her research explores the spiritual formation of children within the life of the local church.
Every ministry practice reflects beliefs about who children are, how faith is formed, and what it means to belong. Before changing our programs, we need to examine the theology already shaping them. Drawing on emerging doctoral research, this workshop introduces a practical framework for discerning the assumptions beneath our ministry practices and reimagining them in light of a richer theology of children and the church.
Katharine Rose, Eternal Echoes
Katharine Rose is the founder of Eternal Echoes Ministry, a nonprofit dedicated to collecting and sharing faith-filled wisdom from older generations of Christians to encourage and equip younger believers. A writer and speaker, Katharine is passionate about honoring the biblical call to respect elders and promoting foundational Christian values like integrity, personal discipline, and moral clarity. Originally from New Hampshire, she now lives in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
In a culture that idolizes youth, growing older is often viewed as something to resist rather than embrace. Yet throughout Scripture, God consistently honors older generations as essential to the spiritual formation of His people. This session will explore how the Church can reclaim a biblical vision of aging—one that sees older adults not as spectators or retirees from ministry, but as mentors, disciple makers, and carriers of wisdom
Johannah Myers, Messy Church USA
Dr. Johannah Myers (M.Div Duke Divinity School, D.Min Wesley Theological Seminary) is Executive Director of Messy Church USA, the national network supporting churches across the US as they create welcoming, Christ-centered, intergenerational communities. She also serves as Director of Discipleship for Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Passionate about helping churches rethink discipleship for today’s world, Johannah is a frequent speaker, trainer, and writer on all things Messy Church, intergenerational ministry and faith formation.
Many of our churches were designed around a simple pattern: an expert teaches while everyone else listens. While that model can communicate information, it often struggles to cultivate lasting discipleship. What if intergenerational ministry invited us to imagine a different shape?
This workshop explores how discipleship is formed through participation, practice, and relationships rather than information alone. Drawing on lessons from Messy Church and real-life ministry experiences, we’ll explore how churches can create environments where people of every age learn with—and from—one another. Let’s consider together what it means to design spaces that move beyond age-segregated instruction toward communities where everyone contributes, everyone belongs, and faith is practiced together.
Wilson McCoy, Gen On Ministries
Wilson McCoy serves as the Training Coordinator for Intergenerational Ministry with GenOn Ministries. Wilson has worked in congregational ministry for more than 20 years in Tennessee, Texas, and Australia. His Doctorate of Ministry project focused on intergenerational spiritual formation in communities of faith, and he continues to write, speak, and consult on this topic. He recently released a book with ACU Press, Imagining All Generations: A Renewed Vision for an Intergenerational Church, that grows out of his role on the Leadership Team of the InterGenerate conference. Wilson also serves as Director of the Rural & Small-Town Church Initiative with Lipscomb University in Nashville. You can find out more about his work and writing at drwilsonmccoy.com.
GenOn Ministries is an organization that has been nurturing Christ-centered intergenerational relationships for over sixty years. This breakout session will explore some of the things we have learned in our work about intergenerational ministry and offer some of the best resources we have developed towards forming faithful relationships between the generations.
Joy Wendling, Center for Faith and Children
Joy Wendling serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Faith and Children at Taylor University, helping ministry leaders reimagine church where a child’s faith flourishes.Drawing on over 20 years of ministry experience and a Master’s from Fuller Theological Seminary, she is now pursuing her PhD in Educational Ministry Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, with a passion for play as a spiritual practice that invites joy and freedom into faith across generations. Joy lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s just as likely to be found playing with her five daughters and husband as she is studying or writing.
Every person, child, teen, and adult, has a unique way of playing, and understanding it unlocks a fresh doorway into faith. In this breakout, participants will explore Stuart Brown’s eight play personalities and discover how each one reflects something of who God made us to enjoy him. Come ready to laugh, reflect, and leave with practical tools for inviting joy and freedom into faith across generations.
Trevecca Okholm, Imagining Worship with Kids
Trevecca Okholm has served for several decades in professional children and family ministry. She taught practical theology and family ministry for Azusa Pacific University and currently serves on the Imagining Worship with Kids team through Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. Trevecca has authored two books: Kingdom Family: Re-Envisioning God’s Plan for Marriage and Family (Cascade, 2012), and The Grandparenting Effect:Bridging Generations One Story at a Time (Cascade, 2020); and co-edited Children’s Ministry and the Spiritual Child: Practical Formation-Focused Ministry (ACU, 2023).
Faith practices (habits/ disciplines) foster resilience in all ages, particularly manifested in Generation Alpha kids (b. 2010-2025). In this session we will briefly touch on recent research with this age demographic and explore several intergenerational faith practices that lend themselves to engaging all generations, especially given the felt needs of those in Generation Alpha.
Tammy Preston, Intergenerate Australia and New Zealand
Dr. Tammy Preston was the founding pastor of an Intergenerational faith community in Australia for 18 years and is a founding member of Intergenerate Australia/New Zealand. Tammy is a trained teacher, holds a degree in theology, and has a PhD in Intergenerational Ministry from Cardiff University in Wales. She has written two books and contributed to 5 other books on Intergenerational ministry. Tammy speaks and teaches internationally, passionate about seeing all ages empowered to grow and walk the lifelong journey of faith together.
In order to engage children, youth and adults all together requires a distinct approach to leadership. Yet many church leaders have been formed within systems that did not prepare them for this kind of adaptive, relational change. In 2026, I completed my doctoral project on intergenerational faith communities. I interviewed 114 people from fourteen faith communities in Australia and New Zealand that were on the journey toward becoming more intentionally intergenerational. This workshop reflects the collective voices of people of all ages who affirmed the value of being in community together. Their responses highlighted significant differences in leadership style among congregations committed to intergenerational life.
Renae Boehmer, Holy Playground
Rev. Renae Boehmer is an ELCA pastor and Director of the Holy Playground Initiative in the South Dakota Synod, helping congregations imagine worship and community life where all generations—especially the youngest children—are welcomed as full participants. Before this work, Renae served as pastor at Peace Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she had also spent five years in children’s ministry, nurturing spaces of belonging, wonder, and faith formation. She is the parent of three grown children and and believes the best ministry conversations include deep listening, honest questions, plenty of grace, and, whenever possible, a well-timed snack.
Receiving a grant can feel like being handed both an extraordinary gift and an enormous responsibility—and, at times, like being asked to build the plane while already flying it. Drawing on her experience directing the Holy Playground Initiative, Rev. Renae Boehmer will offer an honest look at the grant journey, from shaping and articulating a vision to managing the work, adapting as new learning emerges, reporting with integrity, and stewarding resources with imagination and care.
Tim Beilharz, Pastor & Author
Tim Beilharz is the Kids Pastor at Soul Revival Church, author of The Child In God’s Church, and co-host of both The Shock Absorber and the Cross Formed KidMin podcasts. Tim lives in the southern suburbs of Sydney with his family, where they don’t have much, but they do have books. You can follow Tim’s writing at timbeilharz.com
How do we help youth and young adults love Jesus, love his church, and love the lost? This session will explore the relational dynamics of community that young people need to explore and sustain their Christian faith through high school and beyond.
Valerie Grisson, Intergenerate
Rev. Dr. Valerie M. Grissom is Chair of InterGenerate and a Pastor (PC-USA), near Seattle, Washington. Valerie edited All Ages Becoming: Intergenerational Practice in the Formation of God/s People. Her ongoing research projects are the IYS Youth Story Project, and Lament with
Children and Youth in Worship and Daily Life. See valeriemgrissom.com.
Do you have an “intergenerational dream” to connect generations, but you don’t know where to begin? Or, maybe you’re already in the trenches of work, enacting your intergenerational dream? Either way, this breakout is for you! At InterGenerate, we regularly ask each other: “how are we going to bring people along with us on this journey?” It’s a simple but profound question; but this question enables us to practice a foundational value underlying what it means to be intergenerational. Forming intergenerational teams can be challenging, complicated, and messy, but they are essential if we want our work to become long-lasting and sustainable for generations to come. No matter your context, all will benefit from this practical workshop, where Valerie will equip you to form your own intergenerational dream team, offering a framework, next-step resources, and team-building exercises.
Rev. Breen Sipes & Mother Sylvia Miller-Mutia, Music that Makes Community
Join Mother Sylvia and Pastor Breen as we explore the possibilities of music as an asset in intergenerational worship. The first part of our time together will be a general overview of considerations for music in intergenerational spaces. Part two will be an introduction to Music that Makes Community’s practice of paperless singing for community building and inclusion of all ages and stages in the worship of God.