On Thursday, July 8, Tony Livigni kicked off Momentum Ministry Partners’ first Momentum on the Road conference at Grace Church in Lititz, Pa. (Tim Boal, lead pastor), with the question, “What is the most valuable item you have ever misplaced or lost?”
Tony, who is the campus pastor at Grace Church of Greater Akron – Medina East Campus, a Charis Fellowship congregation in northern Ohio, first came to know the Lord as his personal savior as student at Momentum. During the first session Tony, walked students through the three parables found in Luke 15, the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate his main point: Our Heavenly Father is on an all-out search mission motivated by love.
Last summer, Momentum had to cancel their regular conference due to COVID restrictions. This summer, they opted to have four smaller conferences in lieu of one larger one. In early 2021, Director of Ministry Operations Eric Miller reached out to Tim Boal, lead pastor at Grace Church in Lititz, about hosting the first of the conferences.
“Momentum has been a fantastic ministry to the young people in the Charis Fellowship,” Tim said. “It has impacted thousands of people. When they reached out to me, hosting them seemed like a natural thing to do.”
The church hosted more than 500 students, leaders, staff, and volunteers for the 36-hour conference from Thursday afternoon through Friday night. Tim and the staff at Grace Church worked with Momentum staff to facilitate a main session auditorium, classrooms for training tracks, and indoor and outdoor space for afternoon activities like a foam slip-n-slide, karaoke, trivia, sewing, spikeball, bubble ball, volleyball, corn hole, and hantis. Volunteers from the church served in a variety of roles from providing food to media to helping with afternoon options. Tim also lead a training track titled, Understanding the Hard Parts of the Bible.
In addition to Tony Livigni, Jim Brown, lead pastor at Grace Community Church in Goshen, Ind., and Jeff Bogue, senior pastor at Grace Church of Greater Akron and Momentum Ministry Partners president, spoke during main sessions. Worship was led by Jordan Howerton and band, and emcees Dave Nicodemus, pastor of student ministries at Grace Polaris Church in Westerville, Ohio, and Dayne Carraway, pastor at Church at the Well in Baltimore, Md., started each session with games and prizes. Many Fellowship ministries set up booths to interact with students such as Grace College in Winona Lake, Ind., Encompass World Partners in Atlanta, Ga., and GROW in Wooster, Ohio.
Grace Church in Lititz was the first of four locations for Momentum on the Road. Momentum will head to Grace Church of Greater Akron in Bath, Ohio (Jeff Bogue, senior pastor) early this week, followed by Grace Polaris Church in Westerville, Ohio (Mike Yoder, lead pastor). The conference tour will wrap up at Grace Community Church in Goshen, Ind., (Jim Brown, lead pastor) next weekend.
Pray for the students who made decision for Christ at this conference and for Gospel impact at the remaining conference locations. Follow along with photos from all four locations here.
