NC Baptists

A Biblical Basis for Church Revitalization - Simple church survival is not a proper motivation for revitalization. Speaker: Sandy Marks

Sometimes reaching our neighbors with the gospel is hard because life can be messy. How can we reach a woman with the gospel when her life seems to be falling apart and we have grown weary? This breakout session will focus on biblical and practical ideas for reaching our neighbors and finding encouragement from God’s Word for staying the course. Speaker: Meredith Snoddy

Is your Sunday School or small group stuck in a rinse and repeat mode? In this breakout session, we will look at both theoretical and practical steps to turn Sunday School and small groups from an inward focus to an outwardly focused missional mindset. Come learn how to bring unchurched neighbors into biblical community. Speakers: Rick Hughes & Jeff Holder

While everyone lives or works in a neighborhood, not everyone lives with their neighborhood. If Christians are going to minister in our neighborhoods, we must understand the impact of various worldviews on our neighborhoods and learn to love our neighbors with the truth as we minister to their needs. Understanding worldviews is an important aspect of successful discipleship. Speaker: Scott Thompson

Evangelistic preaching is a priority of our pulpit ministry, but personal witnessing often escapes us. The embers of your pulpit ministry will stay lit to the degree that you, as a pastor and church leader, continue on the hot trail of personal witnessing. Join us as we discuss practical ways to complement personal witnessing and pulpit evangelism. Speaker: Daniel Dickard

Hear the stories of several churches who are strategically and faithfully engaging their neighbors in multifamily housing communities, loving them well, sharing the gospel relationally, making disciples and starting gospel communities. Speakers: K.O. Grissett, Joe Maye, Brian Norris

Attendees will learn and discuss what the apostle Paul calls the “elementary principles of the world.” We will seek to understand how this phrase describes basic human motivation, discern its relevance for disciple-making and learn how to apply the gospel to what we discover. Speaker: Josh Reed

The Prayer Conference provides a rich environment for God to speak to His people as they gather to seek Him for revival and spiritual awakening. Saturday evening speaker: Mr. Richard Owen Roberts.

The Prayer Conference provides a rich environment for God to speak to His people as they gather to seek Him for revival and spiritual awakening. Friday night speaker: Mr. Richard Owen Roberts.

North Carolina has a segment of its population that few pastors and churches are equipped to engage with the gospel, and this population is growing at an alarming rate — individuals struggling with drug and alcohol addictions. This breakout session will provide participants with a greater understanding of this growing segment of our population, a system to respond to addicts and their families that reach out to your church for help, as well as other resources to help you assist those struggling with addiction. Speaker: Matthias “Matty” Ponce-de-Leon

During this session, we will discuss how to love our neighbors in the context of discipleship by addressing the biblical texts of Luke 10:25- 37, John 15:7-10 and 1 John 2:1-6. We will answer three questions: Who is my neighbor? What does loving and discipling my neighbor mean? And how do I disciple them? Speaker: Josh Malek

Our culture is rapidly changing, and there is nowhere this is more evident than on the college campus. Hear from the Baptist State Convention’s Collegiate Partnerships Team about the current North Carolina collegiate landscape and how your church can be part of impacting lostness on the college campus. Speaker: Darrick Smith

Many parents have busy schedules which makes discipling their children difficult. What if you and your church could come alongside parents to equip them to be confident disciple-makers? Despite the hectic pace of everyday life, this training makes disciple-making in the home natural and easy. Come learn how you can equip the parents of your congregation to be confident disciple-makers. Speaker: Mark Smith

The assumption of most church programming is “People go to church and when they go to church, we want them to come to ours.” However, evidence indicates that this is no longer true. Learn how to connect with people who are far from God and help them take their first steps to follow Jesus. Speaker: Jay McGuirk

How do believers and churches engage culture with the gospel and how do they navigate conflicts inherent in converging cultures? This session will help you better understand the impact of culture to the mission of God and the implications for evangelism and disciple-making. Speaker: James Weddington

Learn the biblical basis for why you should engage the immigrants among you as well as practical ways that you can make disciples of the foreigners the Lord is bringing to your doorsteps. Speakers: Antonio Santos & Larry Phillips

In a culture that increasingly calls what is evil good and what is good evil, we must learn to engage unbelievers with love. As disciple-makers, we must understand that it is unloving to fail to address sin. Loving others requires confronting their sinfulness. Speaker: Jeff Holder

Gospel-centered, biblical preaching and teaching is a necessary element of a robust disciple-making strategy. Disciple-making requires more than good preaching and teaching, but it must include it. We will examine Scripture, case studies and contemporary research as we explore this topic. Speaker: Russ Reaves

Oftentimes we ask people to connect with Jesus, and we haven’t even connected with them. Experience a highly participatory, active and fun session to learn the first step of connecting with your neighbor to build a loving relationship. Also, learn how you can be trained to teach “The Six Stages of Cultural Mastery” to leaders in your church. Speakers: Ken Tan & Neal Eller

There are a million ways to get into a gospel conversation, but the question is: Do you know what to do once you are in one? In this session, you will gain practical tools both to share and train others in telling your story and God’s story competently, confidently and humbly. You will also spend time practicing in the session. Speaker: Caleb Sprinkle

Millennials have broken the mold on the priority of church attendance. We will explore what makes millennials different from previous generations and what your church can do to understand, equip and empower millennial parents as disciples who make disciples. Speaker: Cheryl Markland

Are you perplexed with the impact of smartphones? Do you find yourself competing with texts and social media? With all the competing voices, how do you guide your child and build foundations for faith? This session will help you answer questions like these about technology, culture, and the family. Speaker: Merrie Johnson

If we have been commissioned to make disciples by teaching them everything that Christ has commended and the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, what kind of implications does this have for our discipleship process? Join us for a conversation on how these two commands work together and how to move towards a discipleship process that shepherds the whole person unto life in Christ. Speaker: Yana Conner

In the face of North Carolina's rapidly growing international population, how should the church respond? Is there a biblical mandate to make disciple among immigrants, refugees, and international students? If the answer is yes, what Great Commission strategies and methodologies might we use to reach our international neighbors with the life-transforming message of the gospel? Speaker: Chuck Register

As church leaders, we are trained to disciple every area of spiritual maturity...except generosity. This session is designed to give you some practical tips on how to disciple generosity versus talk about money. Speaker: Kent Vincent

Generation Z — the generation born after 1995 — outnumber baby boomers and millennials and make up 25 percent of the population today. As adolescents, their power may be limited, but their habits will become increasingly important. Habits set in this generation’s teenage years will influence their lives forever. They are the first generation to grow up in the digital age. They have short attention spans. Visuals matter. Meeting them where they are matters. What is your church doing to reach Gen Z? Speaker: Merrie Johnson

This session will equip the pastor to be a disciple-maker and provide him with a structure to create a disciple-making culture in his church. Speaker: Sandy Marks

For the second year in a row, more than 1 million international students have chosen to study in the United States. Many of these students enrolled in our colleges come from countries that are hostile to Christians, and many have never heard the gospel. Yet, many churches do not think of international students when they think of missions. This breakout session will help you and your church learn practical steps in understanding international students and sharing the gospel with love, friendship and cultural awareness. Speakers: Tom Knight & Vana Conner

This session will be an honest discussion about the plague of pornography and the way it devastates men and women in our churches. The session will also provide some handles for helping people find freedom from pornography. Speaker: Scott Hildreth

Living in a culture where living "set apart" can seem difficult, society communicates it is acceptable to step over boundaries and live as you want. Compromise seems like the only way to function in the world. But Scripture tells believers something different. This session will focus on how those who name the name of Christ can still live according to biblical absolutes without compromising the truth of Scripture. Speaker: Missie Branch