Surge had Renee Worcester Speak at the All surge event this podcast is a recap and a recreation of the event. Renee is a Spiritual Coach and has a heart for developing people and cultures. She is a retreat speaker and mentor to men and women in leadership positions.

On January 11, 2023 Robert Guerrero shared a powerful message to our all Surge event.  It was speaking to the power of the spirit to confront the powers of this world.  Asking How do we do life and mission in the midst of the powers of this world?

This episode is the recording from our All-Region gathering in the first week of May 2022 when Dr. Christina Edmondson shared with us on Disciplining the Church: The Bottom Up Perspective of Accountability. Christina holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Tennessee State University, an M.S. degree from the University of Rochester in Family Therapy, and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Hampton University.  "For many, Church Discipline is too often an avoided, misapplied, misunderstood, and feared topic. This is likely because the necessary components of power-sharing, protection of the vulnerable, and restorative justice are absent in practice. Together, we will reimagine church discipline with a holy imagination as a witness to the safety and inclusion of Christ's Church."  Dr. Edmondson

Winn Collier from the Eugene Peterson Center The road before us is beautiful, yet treacherous. Though there will be many joys and graces, we will inevitably face vexing questions, oppressive enemies, and unexpected seductions. We will be assaulted by suffocating shame and hidden fears---and when things go well, we will tangle with oversized ego and the allure of success. What words do we need for this arduous journey? What words did Jesus need? Winn Collier, a pastor for 25 years, was the founding pastor of All Souls in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is now the director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. Winn is the author of multiple books, including Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small town Church and A Burning in My Bones, the biography of Eugene Peterson.

Our world has been torn asunder by racial, ethnic, and ideological differences. It is seen in our politics, felt in our families, and ingrained in our theology. Sadly, the church has often reinforced these ethnic and racial divides. To cast off the ugliness of disunity and heal our fractured humanity, we must cultivate spiritual practices that help us pursue beautiful community. In this webinar, Rev. Irwyn Ince will unpack the reasons for our divisions while gently guiding us toward our true hope for wholeness and reconciliation. The gospel imperative to pursue the beautiful community—unity in diversity across lines of difference—is rooted in reflecting the beautiful community of our triune God.   Rev. Dr. Irwyn Ince serves as a pastor at Grace DC Presbyterian Church and Director of the Grace DC Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission. The Institute is a church-based entity dedicated to equipping churches with the confidence and competence to welcome others the way Jesus welcomes us.  He is the author of  The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity and the Church at Its Best, published in 2020 with InterVarsity Press. He has also contributed to the books Heal Us Emmanuel: A Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church, and All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church.

Teena Dare is joined by Aaron Dailey and Warren Williams to discuss how the pandemic has changed the conversation around faith and work especially related to marginalized communities.

Covid-19, economic uncertainty and reckonings with race and justice are pressing big questions of life upon us all. People are asking questions that really matter. And Christians must be ready to listen and to engage our neighbors in ways that serve them and point to Jesus. Join Jennifer Chan from Redeemer City to City for a discussion on how to cultivate and sustain spiritual conversations in such a time as this.   Jennifer is the Missional Church Director City to City NYC. In this role, she trains and supports leaders in activating people to love and serve the city in all its beauty and complexity. Prior to joining the CTC team, she oversaw a discipleship initiative for the Redeemer family of churches. She has also managed a national human trafficking awareness campaign, and worked to prevent violence against women in East Africa. She and her husband have twin daughters.

As followers of Christ, we are unified in Jesus and who he is. We are part of the multiethnic family of God. What does it look like as multiethnic family to live out what Dr King and the Fellowship of Reconciliation called the Beloved Community? Join us for a time of learning and discussion on the multiethnic family of God and Beloved Community.  Pastor Efrem Smith is an internationally recognized leader who uses motivational speaking and preaching to equip people for a life of transformation. He consults on issues of multi-ethnicity, leadership, and community development. He is the current co-lead Pastor of Bayside Church, Midtown and is the author of several books, including his latest, “Killing Us Softly.” Rev. Kimberly Deckel is a pastor and church planter at All Souls Phoenix. She is on the Surge leadership team and helps with operations along with regional gatherings, faith and work, church planting, and women in leadership.

By this point in 2020 it’s become almost cliche to say that we are in a divided country. Americans have split into various groups and tribes, more zealously attached to their selected group and tribe and more hostile to those outside their group or tribe than ever before. Christians too often have been complicit in contributing to this growing polarization. This seminar will lay out different path for believers. We will explore how we can be faithful and prophetic as citizens and voters today not out of today’s polarized social identities but out of our common identity in Christ.

Join us for a conversation with Dennae Pierre & Gavin Linderman about praying together and processing our conversational life with God in midst of this historic moment.

Join Elisa & Caleb Mitchell (Phoenix Counseling Collective) in this episode to learn how we can attempt to parent our kids more generously and lovingly as well as find the grace for our own selves in the process.

Kimberly Deckel interviews Dr. Esau McCaulley about his book Reading While black.

This talk was by Biola's New Testament Theology Professor, Michelle Lee-Barewall, based on her book Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian.   Michelle Lee-Barnewall Biography - Trained in New Testament studies, Dr. Lee-Barnewall's desire is to help students develop their relationship with Christ through an informed and application-oriented understanding of Scripture. She is an Associate Professor of New Testament Theology at Biola University. She is the author of several books including “Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ” and "Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: Reframing the Gender Debate." Dr. Lee-Barnewall has published articles in New Testament Studies and Novum Testamentum and has presented papers at the national meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature. She is the author of several books including "Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian."

Kit Danley  Kit Danley is the founder and president of Phoenix, AZ based Neighborhood Ministries, Inc. – a comprehensive, holistic outreach that combines evangelism and church planting with many forms of community development and social justice engagement. Kit has a sociology degree from Northern Arizona University, continued her education with Fuller Theological Seminary and finished her DMIN with Bakke Graduate University. Kit and her husband Wayne have four awesome adult children and four grandchildren.   "The Way of the Peacemaker” Talk Description: “What if” our followership of Jesus moved us to become co-creators of peace in our troubled world? “What if”, in turn, churches throughout the world produced millions of peacemakers?  What if … we took each other by the hand and said boldly, “lets go together, lets go straight into the places which are suffering and oppressed and join the work of the kingdom of God.”  Let’s imagine this morning, the way of the peacemaker.

Waging Peace in a Hostile World: A Peacemaking Conference Main Speaker October 18th: Lisa Jernigan  Lisa is an advocate, speaker, and trainer for global engagement. She is Co-Founder of Amplify Peace, a global movement that promotes the principles of peacemaking through trainings and transforming encounters, both locally and globally. Focusing on leadership empowerment for women, she travels frequently to the Middle East and Africa to meet and collaborate with faith and community leaders. Lisa lives in Mesa, Arizona with her husband, Cal, who is the Lead Pastor at Central Christian AZ. Their greatest joy is their two grown children, their spouses, and eight grandchildren. Connect at: amplifypeace.com

Flourishing in Mission In the Christian tradition, flourishing in mission for Jesus always and inevitably involves dark nights of the soul, seasons of spiritual desertion that challenge our sense of spiritual and emotional stability and health. What role do these seasons play in our personal and ecclesial growth, and how do we navigate them wisely and well? Join us to explore this further! Chuck DeGroat Chuck is a Professor of Counseling and Christian Spirituality at Western Theological Seminary  Holland MI, and Co-Founder and a Senior Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies, San Francisco. He is a licensed therapist, author, retreat leader, and spiritual director. Chuck has been married to Sara for 25 years and has two daughters.

Spiritual Formation in the Local Church Spiritual formation is a growing interest among pastors, leaders, and laity and as pastors and church leaders we have an opportunity to create space to understand and learn from the spiritual formation movement. Join us for a time to consider how culture is longing for richer spiritual encounters and how to meet that desire in ways that point others to Jesus. It is our hope that this will be a time that stretches and encourages you to seek Jesus and experience Him more fully while also finding intentional ways for your church members to do the same. Speaker: Gavin Linderman Gavin spent 6 years in the music industry traveling, before beginning vocational ministry. Since beginning in ministry, he developed a longing for a deeper more authentic experience of Jesus; this longing unexpectedly led him into the Anabaptist stream of the Christian Church where he learned the riches of the Gospel of the Kingdom and began his theological training. Additionally, he well spent another 5 years focusing on the role of Spiritual Formation in Christian Life. In the midst of exploring life with Jesus, Gavin and his wife planted Axiom Church n Peoria AZ where he currently serves as Lead Pastor.

Communicating the Beauty of Christian Sexual Ethics Sex is everywhere in our culture, yet an intimidating subject for many Christians to talk about. We may be convinced God's vision for sex is true but is it also good and beautiful? We'll explore some fresh language, imagery, and concepts from Scripture, to help us communicate biblical sexual ethics winsomely, narratively, and beautifully to a culture that is highly skeptical of the Christian vision.   Josh Butler Joshua Ryan Butler is Pastor of Teaching and Direction at Redemption Church (Tempe, AZ) and author of The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War and The Pursuing God: A Reckless, Irrational, Obsessed Love That’s Dying to Bring Us Home. Joshua enjoys helping people who wrestle with tough topics of the Christian faith, as well as reading, hiking, and playing guitar. Joshua's wife Holly, daughter Aiden, and sons James and Jacob enjoy spending time with friends over great meals and exploring the scenic beauty of the romantic Southwest.

Blessings and Curses of Social Media As church leaders, how do we cultivate faithfulness in our congregations around the right stewardship of social media? From vitriolic tirades to yummy cookie recipes, we seem to be sharing pieces of ourselves on social media in ways that are at times true reflections of who we are, and at others, mere projections of who we desire to be. In this gathering, we have invited Dr. Stephen Carradini (assistant professor at ASU) to join us for a conversation regarding the theological significance of social media, its impact on our communal psyche, and to offer us some directions forward in the proper stewardship of this technological tool for faithful Christ-centered living. Dr. Stephen Carradini is an assistant professor of technical communication at Arizona State University. He has a doctorate from the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media program at North Carolina State University. He also co-hosts a podcast called Winning Slowly (winningslowly.org) about the ethics of technology (including social media) as seen through a Christian lens. He lives in Gilbert with his family and is a part of New Valley Church in Chandler.

In this episode, Tyler Johnson talks about leadership development as a lifelong relationship in which the mentor helps the protegee reach his/her potential.