Speakers

Featured Speaker (2007) – Robert Guerrero
Robert Guerrero is the founding and senior pastor of Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana, an independent evangelical church in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic. This church follows the holistic ministry model – with seeker services, small group Bible studies, a gymnasium, a music academy, and seamstress school to minister to the local people.

Robert is also the general coordinator of the Del Camino Network for Integral Mission in Latin America, with networks in Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. ICC plays host to short-term mission teams every year engaged in multifaceted ministry opportunities.

Pre-Conference

Pre-Conference workshops are designed as extensive two-day seminars for specialized selected topics. Participants are expected to attend all of the same workshop topic.

• • Short-Term Missions in an Era of Global AIDSMany consider global AIDS the most important problem in the world today. The response of churches to AIDS either attracts people to Jesus or repels them. Yet many Christians around the world don’t know the facts about HIV, what the Bible says about those affected, and simple things they could do to help others. Regardless of their age or professions, short-termers can make a long-term difference if they get prepared, understand their roles, and do their homework.Dr. Carolyn Klaus began caring for AIDS patients in 1989 at a clinic she founded in Latino North Philadelphia. With mentoring from an international agency, she also learned how to do community development, both in that community and in the Amazon jungle. Several years ago she founded Hope In View, which now helps people around the world address the AIDS crisis in a biblical and compassionate way. Carolyn has taught courses on AIDS for people of many cultures and educational levels, and has led short-term mission teams on four continents. She is a pastor’s wife, mother of two grown children, and proud grandmother of four.

 

 

Experiential Spiritual Formation

There is no doubt that short term missions provide a powerful, life impacting experience. However, if we were to ask different questions, could those powerful life experiences prepare individuals for a life time of spiritual development? In this workshop, participants will consider how to think about their programs not just as powerful events, but as the learning lab where participants can learn the skills and mindset of spiritual formation. In the session, participants will consider what is the end that spiritual formation seeks to attain, how do individuals and groups truly learn to change, how to create an infrastructure that will both prepare and sustain the spiritual growth that is facilitated during their short term missions and finally how to be a facilitative leader who compassionately and effectively brings people to crossroad life points where the important questions of life get asked.

 

• • Dr. Greg Robinson is currently President of Challenge Quest, LLC in Pryor, Oklahoma. Previous to coming to Challenge Quest, Greg spent 10 years in youth ministry, 4 years in college ministry and 5 years with Williams in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a Managing Organization Development Consultant. During his time in ministry, Greg has led various short term mission experiences.Greg has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from The Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also has a M.S. in Counseling from John Brown University.Greg�s professional career has concentrated in the areas of team development, leadership development, facilitation and consulting with organizational change efforts. He is the author of Teams for a New Generation: An Introduction to Collective Learning and A Leadership Paradox: Influencing Others by Defining Yourself.

    Greg currently resides with his wife Jeannie, his daughter Keely and son Kobe in Pryor, Oklahoma.

 

• Standards Introductory WorkshopThis NSTMC pre-con option is actually a requirement for key STM personnel from U.S. Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission (SOE) Provisional Member organizations�churches, agencies and schools which are members of the SOE. This SIW will help you understand how to achieve all seven standards, and how to form and manage your own peer review teams. The workshop will be interactive, using case studies, small group discussions, several presenters, and will provide training in MISTM theory to help you proceed to SOE Covenant Member status. A lotta good stuff in one day�and a lotta fun together, helping you achieve excellence in all your short-term mission work!Rev. Roger Peterson is the Executive Director of STEM Int�l, an international short-term mission organization that seeks to glorify God through partnerships for excellence in short-term mission teams, training and publications. STEM works to mobilize and increase mission activity among Christian churches in North America through the development and implementation of cross-cultural mission programs in more than a dozen nations around the world. Roger has administrated, organized, trained, and/or led more than 5,000 short-term volunteers since his first short-term mission experience to Haiti in 1980.Roger is the chairman of The Alliance for Excellence in Short-Term Mission (AESTM), chairman of the U.S. Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission (SOE), author of several short-term mission publications including “Maximum Impact Short-Term Mission“, and publisher of Mission Maker Magazine. Roger is also a semi-professional keyboard musician on piano, synthesizer, and pipe organ.

  Roger is married to Melanie and they have two children, Rachel and Matthew. The Petersons live in Brooklyn Center, MN where they attend Lutheran Church of the Master.

Devotional Speaker – Adele Calhoun
Adele�s heart and life has been given to ministry for over thirty-five years in one ministry capacity or another. She served in campus ministry with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in South East Asia and the Mid-East, and with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New England, and as a ministry director at Park Street Church, Boston. Missions represents one of her great loves; she has been leading short term mission teams to Latin America, Europe, Africa and China the past sixteen years.

Currently Adele works at Christ Church of Oak Brook, IL, as the Pastor of Spiritual Formation. She also has taught as adjunct faculty at Wheaton College and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a trained spiritual director. Adele authored a very helpful companion for anyone on the spiritual journey entitled Handbook of Spiritual Disciplines: Practices that Transform Us.

Worship Leader

Our worship band will be from the NewSong Church representing a diverse ethnic background and seeking to reach the emerging generations for Christ. As the National Short Term Mission Conference continues to look to the future needs of the church as it reaches out to its neighbors, we are excited to have these partners�not only in worship, but also in mission. Their pastors and leaders have been attending our conference for several years.

About NewSong: �We are a dynamic and growing multi-ethnic and multi-site church. We have at least 15 different races represented in our congregation. The Asian population is the largest in our church but the White, Hispanic and African-American crowd is growing every year. Moreover, the Asian crowd is very diverse. When you get even a Korean and a Japanese person together that is like crossing the African-American and White barriers. We are intentional and committed to being a church that represents the beauty, mystery and diversity found in God.�

Their Focus: �We’re looking at becoming a church that releases our community to impact the world through the arts, relevant and holistic ministry to the poor, technology, business, media, church planting and leadership development. We are hoping to catalyze a host of ministries to address local and global concerns in a holistic and strategic way. We are serious about being an advocate of the poor and promoting justice among all humankind. There are plans for inner city development, new churches and arts/technology centers here in our backyard and around the world. We just don’t want to play church. We desire to be the church! We like to say this “Ain’t Your Mama’s Church?” Which means, while the truth of God may not change, each generation must construct it’s own language and style to connect with God and with the real world.�

http://newsong.net