Turn Your Campus

UYWI + Strategic Partners = Life Transformation for Youth

On January 26, almost 1,800 urban and suburban leaders and youth gathered for Turn Your Campus, a game-changing annual event that rolled out on the campus of Biola University.

A youth ministry destination event for 18 years, UYWI has joined the mix for the last five years. God uses the Turn Your Campus event to gather and galvanize students and leaders toward one goal: bringing the light of Jesus Christ to their schools. 

Through large group worship, challenging teaching, and practical break-out sessions, youth gain a growing vision for how to live out their faith in the schools where they learn and do life five days a week. Participants also get to experience phenomenal Christian artists such as Propaganda, (aka Jason Petty, a public school teacher who reaches this generation through his music) and DJ Promote, (aka Carlos Trevino, a seasoned youth worker with a heart for this generation).

Turn Your Campus trains and shapes middle and high school students to be more effective witnesses right where God has placed them. They discover how to see their campus as a mission field, how to become effective witnesses in FCA and other Christian clubs, how to live out their faith on the athletic field and in classroom discussions on topics such as evolution.

Here’s what Diego, a teen living in SoCal, had to say: “What God has taught me today is to love and listen to people, to relate my story to theirs, and to relate all that to God’s story.”

Another student named Isabel offered this recap of her experience: “I learned today that I should never set boundaries for myself when it comes to talking about Christ. Whether it’s with my friends or complete strangers, I should always feel free to talk openly about God.”

Bobby Duran, UYWI’s Events Production Manager, offers this perspective: “UYWI is committed to leveraging collaboration to build God’s Kingdom. The reason this event works so well is that we are living out our value of collaboration.  By adopting the attitude of “Let’s just serve together,” the body of Christ gets the job done of reaching this generation together.  When we do this, God’s just going to bless it!”

And God has blessed the event.  The unique chemistry of Turn Your Campus results from strategic partnerships UYWI has created with Youth for Christ, Biola Student Ministry, NNYM (National Network of Youth Ministry), and Network of Christian Educators. Through the combined networks of these organizations, God cast a big net that gathered 645 churches, 555 campuses, and 1,765 attendees at this year’s event.

“Here’s how Turn Your Campus is a win-win for everyone,” says Duran:

  • UYWI has a chance to partner with others on a major youth event.
  • UYWI-trained youth workers get to bring their youth for training on how to impact their campuses.
  • Leaders meet and network by zip code to build strategies for working together to impact youth in their zip codes for Christ.
  • Leaders come to a Youth Worker Oasis to receive encouragement from Larry Acosta to keep on keeping on.
  • UYWI has the opportunity to offer information on 90 Degrees Certification and Thrive to leaders hungry for more training and resources.

What Students Say:

“What I’ve learned at Turn Your Campus is that life throws a lot of pressure on us teenagers with school, sports, clubs, relationships. There are so many things that we get caught up in and they become just a list of things to do. Sometimes our faith also becomes just a thing to do. But really we’re called to give it all to God.  I’ve learned to let Jesus help carry that pressure and to just walk with him.” – Joseph

“ God has shown me today here at Turn Your Campus that I can’t be afraid to go outside of my comfort zone and talk to other people about the word of God.” – Shaquille

“Today at TYC I’ve learned that God can use different stories and media to connect people with the Gospel.  I now understand how to take my story as a starting point for communicating with people who don’t yet know God.” – Kimmy

“What I’ve learned at TYC is that it’s not that difficult to go out and just share the Gospel with your friends.  Today has encouraged me to go out and speak to my friends who I haven’t spoken to about Christ, to just lead them and help them with the struggles that they have.” – Angela

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