Jason Brian Santos believes you can’t fix young adult ministry until you fix the church. The coordinator of collegiate, young adult, and youth ministries for the Presbyterian Mission Agency told a Big Tent 2015 gathering on young adult faith formation that American youth have a dominant new religion.

After three days of worship, workshops, Bible studies and children’s activities devoted to missional living in the areas of advocacy, poverty and discipleship, Big Tent 2015 attendees gathered in the University of Tennessee’s Alumni Memorial Building for a closing worship service before leaving Knoxville. 

“Serving and transforming church members is not a more important responsibility than serving and transforming the community,” says Atef Gendy, PhD, president of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC). “When people experience kindness, mercy, love, and kingdom values, they think differently about the rule and reign of God over their lives.” 

For much of her adult life as a pastor and associate presbyter, Ann Philbrick, associate for church growth and transformation for Presbyterian Mission Agency, has been interested in one key question: “What happens to congregations, that they get so stuck?”

On March 24, 1998, two middle school students, 11 and 13 years old respectively, pulled a fire alarm and waited outside, intending to shoot their classmates as they filed out of school. Five were killed, including one teacher, and 10 more were injured. Sadly, the Westside Middle School shootings near Jonesboro, Ark., set a precedent for similar acts of school violence in the years to come.

As our nation grows increasingly diverse, the way the church engages in ministry must also evolve. In an effort to meet the ever-changing needs of the changing church, Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries unveiled a new office—the Office of Intercultural Ministries—at Big Tent 2015, held this week in Knoxville, Tenn.