Workshops & Breakout Sessions
Here are confirmed sessions – more coming soon!
Leveling Up Discipleship in a Screen-Based World
How can we engage digital culture not as a threat, but as fertile ground for spiritual formation? Together we explore creative and practical ways to disciple people in — and through — the digital spaces they already inhabit.
Annika and Philipp Bonin are church planters from Frankfurt, Germany, where they launched NERCH — a church for nerds — in 2024. Married for 10 years and part of the City to City Europe network since 2019, they are passionate about using digital spaces as vital ground for community, discipleship, and mission.
Dealing with Accumulated Grief in Ministry
Church planters often have multiple layers of grief. These can include personal loss, hardships in ministry, and grief they experience by nature of their proximity to the grief of others. Because grief and its effects can be cumulative, healthy processing is a key ingredient to ministering from a place of spiritual and emotional health in the longterm. Come learn about some of the most common effects of grief on your brain, emotions, physical body, and relationships, while interacting with tools for how to care for yourself and others.
Joy is a mental health counselor specializing in trauma, grief and loss and has been working in church, non-profit and private practice settings for over a decade. She and her husband have been assisting church planting efforts in Athens, Greece since 2012 and doing primary church planting in the city since 2020. She and Philip have two adult children and one teenager.
Building a Diverse Church Community
Our cities are populated with people from all kind of ethnicities, ages, people with different levels of education and prosperity. Is it possible to build a strong church community in which all these people are represented and that influences society in a positive way? During this breakout session we’ll find out the features that are needed to be church in that way. We’re longing for kingdom-shaped churches that are present in an holistic way, implementing missionary and deaconal activities as two sides of the same medal.
Jurjen ten Brinke (47) is married to Marijke and father of four children. He is working twenty years in Amsterdam and founded multi-ethnic church Hope for North. In February this year he stepped down as local pastor, becoming a city church catalyst in Amsterdam. The other half of the week he is active in a national broadcast television and radio company.
Reaching the Scroll Generation: Discipling Gen Z & Alpha
How do you create programmes for a generation suspicious of anything that sounds like… a programme? How do you capture the hearts of people who think a 90-second video feels like a commitment? The answer isn’t to panic — it’s to adapt. Gen Z and α are hungry for truth, longing for connection, and more open to the gospel than you might think. But they won’t be reached through yesterday’s models. In this workshop, we’ll explore how to rethink church programmes to be more fluid, creative, and responsive — meeting young people where they’re at and equipping them to use their gifts for God’s glory. Expect practical ideas, open conversation, and fresh inspiration for discipling the emerging generation.
Ralph is the planter and pastor of City Church Manchester, which launched in 2014. The church has 47 nationalities and 75% of its regular attenders are Gen Z or Alpha. He is the director of the Northern Gospel Project, an initiative to establish 30 healthy gospel churches in Greater Manchester by 2030. Ralph authored "Perfect Unity" (2024) and "Preaching with Spiritual Power" (2016). He lives in Manchester city centre with his wife Anna and their three teenage children.
Preventing Burnout as Church Planters
Burnout is on the increase in vocational ministry. How do we begin to think about burnout in the life of the church planter when everything depends on one person to grow the church and help it to thrive? Is some kind of burnout not inevitable? But of course it doesn’t depend on one person. It is completely dependent on the Lord. In this seminar we will dip our toes in the water as we think about what burnout means for us personally. Where do we place our trust and how do we use our time? What is our responsibility and what is not? Have we cultivated a theology of rest that impacts the day to day choices we make? These are some of the questions we will be discussing in groups. There will also be time for some personal reflection.
Louise MacMillan is a biblical counsellor based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She trained through CCEF in the US and now works alongside Biblical Counselling UK in tutoring courses. She also lectures in Biblical Counselling at Edinburgh Theological Seminary. She is researching the causes of burnout in ministry for her MTh.
How to Tell the Story of a Movement
Movements run on stories—the kinds of stories that shape our vision, stimulate our imaginations, and form our identities. Sometimes instead of telling compelling stories, though, we settle for "messaging" or "marketing" and are disappointed with the results. The purpose of this workshop is to help you find the plot, develop the characters, and identify the crisis that make up the story of church planting in your neighborhood, city, or region.
Brandon J. O'Brien is senior director for global thought leadership at Redeemer City to City. He is the writer of several books, including Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, and stories such as A Fire Is Lit: The Redeemer City to City Story. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Integrating Children and Children’s Ministry into the Life of your Church Plant or Network
Church plants often focus on reaching adults first – but have we unintentionally overlooked the very ones Jesus welcomed first: the children? They are a vital part of the community and equally in need of the gospel. How can we include children in the life and mission of a church plant? Zechariah envisioned a city where “the public squares will be filled with boys and girls playing there” (8:5). Our churches should reflect that vision and be places of joy, safety, and growth. Together, we will explore practical, biblically grounded, strategies to integrate children into the heart of your church plant/network! Let us reimagine church as a place where children belong and thrive!
Yannis Tzamtzis studied Philosophy, Education, and Psychology at the University of Athens, with a major in Education. For over 20 years, he has been serving the Christian community in Greece through children’s ministry, including Sunday schools, camps, outreach programs, and more. He is the founder and director of Alana – Initiatives for Urban Children, in partnership with the First Evangelical Church of Athens and the CTC Balkans movement. Yannis is married to Lydia, and together they have three children: Aquila (9), Icarus (7), and Ophelia (1).
Anastasia Zaimi studied History and Archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, with a major in Archaeology, and Theology at the Greek Bible College in Athens. She is part of the pastoral team at the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, focusing on ministry with children, teenagers and young adults. For the past four years, she has also volunteered with the ministry of “Alana”.
Revisiting Church Models
In past years, much contextualisation has focused on the sermon, the community style and perhaps some aesthetic elements of worship and interior design; it has tended to stop short of tearing up the plumbing of the church model itself. However, as existing models of church become less viable due to changing socio-economic conditions and other factors, many church planters have been forced to innovate and push the envelope on what a church community is allowed to look like, while remaining within Biblical parameters, resulting in inspiring examples and new possibilities. In this workshop we will decode the elements of a church model, look at some case studies, and enlarge our horizons together.
Tim Coomar (42) is married to Cynthia and they have three children. He was a church planter for 12 years in Athens, Greece, and for the past two years he has been the Operations Director for City to City Europe. As part of his role with City to City Europe, he travels to various cities as a catalyst, witnessing first hand both the diverse challenges faced by church planters today and the wide range of approaches that they are employing to meet the new realities on the ground in their cities.