The Friday Night Change outreach event and the Saturday Change Conference will have some incredible, inspiring communicators and musical artists coming to share in their own unique areas of passion to motivate us to become leaders of change for this generation.

We wholeheartedly welcome all of our special guests with the full confidence that each is bringing God’s distinctive message for us in 2008. We trust that you will find great blessing as you come to Change ’08!

Friday Night Change:
Seventh Day Slumber
Absolute Leadership
Hello Kelly

Saturday Change Conference:
Chris Seay (Keynote)
Brett Ullman (Keynote)
Christal Earle (Keynote)
Colin McCartney
Brian Pengelly
Albert Chung
Carl Nash
Jeff Smyth
Nine O Five (Worship)
Turn off the Stars
Finochio

Chris Seay is a leader in the emerging church discussion, church planter, author, and third generation Baptist pastor. He was the founding pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, one of the earliest examples of generational church planting. Currently, Chris is the president of Ecclesia Bible Society where he is orchestrating a scripture project known as “The Voice” (www.hearthevoice.com) that seeks to retell the biblical narrative with the literary beauty of great poetry and story as well as historical and timeless truth. As Pastor of Ecclesia Houston, Chris leads a unique congregation that is living out the gospel faithfully in an urban environment. He is also the author of seven books including The Gospel According to Tony Soprano, The Gospel Reloaded, and The Last Eyewitness.

Your Story: The Wounding Embrace
So, you cut or, maybe you starve yourself. Maybe you’re even into substance abuse. I bet you feel alone. But how is this possible when one in six North American teens struggle with self-injury? How can all these people be alone? Today, thousands of young people, under confident and often scared, are seeking release from their personal struggles in ways many adults would prefer not to contemplate and, sadly, ignore. You probably have friends who cut, friends who are bulimic and you know self-injury is a serious problem in teen culture today. Let’s Talk.
Self-injury is taking teen culture by storm and its impact is evident in teen movies, music lyrics and countless music videos.  Brett Ullman examines the current influences of modern culture and the many reasons young people hurt themselves.  He strives to empower struggling individuals to overcome the barriers to positive self-growth.  

Christal Earle, along with her husband, Vaden, is the co-founder and visionary of Absolute Leadership Development Inc., a not-for-profit organization that exists to empower emerging generations to change their world by living their lives with purpose. Absolute focuses on doing motivational presentations in high schools across Canada and internationally. As well, Absolute is the parent organization for Hero Holiday®, a humanitarian program that takes thousands of participants to developing countries around the world, building schools, houses, and children's homes. Christal has an intense passion for this generation, and is committed to seeing lives changed through love, justice and mercy. She immediately engages her audience with enthusiasm and humour, but also captivates them with genuine sincerity and insightful applications. Her dedication to change is infectious, and challenges all to make a difference in the world. She has spoken to more than 800,000 youth and young adults across North America, Europe, South East Asia and the Carribean, and has partnered with organizations such as World Vision, Viva Network, the Red Cross and CASAA. Vaden and Christal live in Hamilton, Ontario.

As founder and Executive Director of UrbanPromise Toronto, Colin McCartney is the visionary for Toronto’s unique urban ministry. Under his ten year leadership, hundreds of children, youth and their families have experienced safe places where they are empowered to change their own lives and communities through the love of God. Colin is also a popular speaker and youth ministry trainer who has spoken to audiences as large as 7,000 people and has spoken at camps and conferences throughout Canada, the US and as far away as Australia.  You can take a look at the ministry of UrbanPromise Toronto by logging on to their web site at www.urbanpromise.com. 

Brian is the Youth Specialist for New Direction Ministries. He has been doing youth ministry since he was 16 years old and has been a youth pastor, camp director, and a counselor focused on adolescent issues. After having struggled with his own sexual identity, Brian began mentoring other young people through the challenges of sexual identity, and now travels across Canada sharing his story and helping equip the church to love and share the gospel with gays and lesbians.
He is a regular contributor on www.reconnecting.ca and www.freetobeme.com and has been featured on 100 Huntley Street, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, and a documentary on Global Currents. Brian lives with his wife Anna in Etobicoke, ON.

Albert is the Education Director and Youth Pastor at Young Nak Korean Presbyterian Church of Toronto.  He’s been there since September 2003.  On top of all the adventures of youth ministry, he enjoys hanging out with his family, playing and watching golf and basketball.  Linda is his better half, and they just recently welcomed their first child, Christopher Laeden, into the world.

Jeff is an adventurer who loves to explore and elevate others to achieve what God has destined for them in life, mission and ministry. He is a certified life coach and is passionate to journey alongside those who are seeking to develop a distinctive community of faith that has bearing on and significance in present day culture. Jeff is the co-creator of one child with his wife Heather and the co-founder of several youth ministry networks across Ontario. Jeff has been in local church ministry for over 10 years and is currently serving as the Minister of Youth at The Peoples Church – Toronto.

Carl Nash is Director of LAUNCH. Carl has mentored and coached student leaders for over fifteen years, and it was through these relationships that the dream of LAUNCH began to take shape. He has enjoyed times of working as both a Physical Therapist and Youth Pastor, and is a graduate of Tyndale Seminary and the Arrow Leadership Program. Carl lives in Toronto with his wife Leanne and their three daughters.

Website: www.seventhdayslumber.com
Myspace: www.myspace.com/7thdayslumber

The transformation of Joseph Rojas, frontman and songwriter for Seventh Day Slumber, from former felon and drug addict to redeemed saint cannot be overestimated. His miraculous conversion, which is both a fairy tale-like story and the crux of the music, mission, and ministry of this band, has now taken on an even greater, more powerful role in the lives of those in its wake: Rojas, his tale, and Seventh Day Slumber itself, have now become catalysts.  Displaying such vulnerability in the lyrics and possessing a bone crunching rock sound to reach a hurting audience translated to an incredible connection with listeners and eventually lead to the incredibly successful US efforts "Picking Up the Pieces", "Once Upon A Shattered Life", and "Finally Awake". In the R&R Christian CHR world the band has also had incredible success with "Caroline" (Top 5), "Oceans From The Rain" (Top 5), and "Missing Pages" (Top 5). But more than just basking in the glow of those achievements, Rojas, bassist Joshua Schwartz, guitarist Jeremy Holderfield and drummer Ray Fryoux sought to strip back the barriers between the crowd and stage to relate on a spiritually intimate level.

Absolute Leadership Development, Canada’s leading student empowerment organization, is a charity that has been partnering with Canadian schools since 2001. Their “Motivational Experience” - a hard hitting mixture of young speakers, multimedia and music - was the most popular motivational assembly amongst Canadian schools. Building upon the success of this presentation, Absolute is launching a new program called Think Day. Remaking the popular one hour motivational presentation with cutting-edge MakeYouThink® character education curriculum, Think Day will also give schools the option of adding workshops and global awareness sessions to create a comprehensive motivational program that will have lasting results in student’s lives.

Website: www.hellokellyonline.com
Myspace: www.myspace.com/hellokelly

Hello Kelly is making so much noise with their hyper-charged show and supersonic sound that it's hard to ignore this little band that could. But why would you want to do that? To put it simply, Hello Kelly is a pop-rock band. Whether they're blasting through an upbeat riff-rock power tune, or moving gently through one of their stirring ballads, this band will put a smile on your face and keep it there. From the vibrant and colourful guitar-work, to the tingling synth leads that never get old, these Canadian rockers have constructed a sound that is teeming with fresh melodies, creative arrangements and lyrical confidence. Often dubbed "the hardest working band in Ontario", Hello Kelly had soon shared the stage with Christian music favourites Thousand Foot Krutch, Starfield, Superchick and Hawk Nelson and seen success with three 1 CHR singles on Canadian Christian radio. Now, having signed with 7Spin Music, Hello Kelly is gearing up to melt faces everywhere with their first full-length release, titled "Hello Kelly", produced by new comer Adam Smith.

Website: www.nineofiveonline.com
Myspace: www.myspace.com/nineofiveonline

Nineofive is a fresh approach to worship music. Honest, from the heart, and real. Nineofive got its humble start as a monthly youth worship event in Port Perry, Ontario and has grown into a thriving music ministry led by frontman and songwriter Josh McCabe. McCabe, who also plays drums for Canadian rock band Hello Kelly, says this about the project: "It comes from a place of recognizing God's desire to have an intimate relationship with his children and how we need to strive for that relationship daily!" Nineofive's debut EP released on May 20th, 2008 and is set to hit iTunes during the summer, boasting six songs filled with catchy melodies, inventive arrangements and heartfelt lyrics.

Website: www.turnoffthestars.com
Myspace: www.myspace.com/turnoffthestars

Turn Off The Stars began a few years ago at Western University in London, Ontario. Lead singer Mike Walker and his brother, guitarist Andrew Walker met bassist John Dawson while performing an acoustic show on campus. From that day forward, the boys continued on together as an acoustic band - but deep down they knew something was missing…or someone. Enter drummer Max Kennedy. With the band now firmly set up as a 4 piece, their passion for rock became too strong to ignore and Turn Off The Stars was born.

With the release of their debut album, "Everything Is OK", Turn Off The Stars are ready to conquer the nation with their lush, atmospheric rock songs. Despite their lofty aspirations, be rest assured that any success which may befall Turn Off The Stars will not go to their collective heads.

Myspace: www.myspace.com/nathanfinochio

Finochio should be more than just a name you find difficult to pronounce. It is a word that should be on your lips, and a sound that should be in your ear. It's an idea...the idea that life and its Creator should no longer be apart, nor should art be removed from the Artist. Finochio is a good idea.  Finochio is also a mesmerizing new talent, and one that is exploding onto the North American scene with both infectious pop rock and true worship, captivating audiences at every turn. Exciting new songwriter/worship leader Nathan Finochio is the driving force behind these songs, whether they're performed solo or with the touch of the collective that is "Finochio". The music of Finochio is as universal as the words they sing, incorporating the electronic sounds of today into the more familiar territory of greats like The Beatles and Bob Dylan, while somehow creating something you've never heard.