Hey everyone!

Just a quick post to get the ball rolling on our blog!  This is the official blog for anything and everything SoCal Youth Ministries!  Alot of exciting things are happening, so stay tuned to socalyouth.org for updates, information and tools to help you get plugged into our awesome district youth ministry.

Just a quick shout out to all the Sectional Directors for being at our board meeting in Norco yesterday, we had a a tremendous time of fellowship and productive time of planning.

2009 is gonna be awesome, and we are kicking it off the right way with our first ever, first annual Holiday Youth Convention!  Here’s the lowdown: January 1-3 2009 in Ontario California. Our speakers include Wayne Francis, Jeremy Foster, Rich Brown, Donnie Young, David McGovern, Greg Pounds & Amado Huizar.

Registration for this event is ONLY $40.00 if you get it in by December 1st. After that, it goes up to $60.00, so don’t forget to register soon!  Do it all online at socalyouth.org!

Let’s turn SoCal upside down in 2009!

Much Love-

David McGovern, Director of Promtions

David is a veteran youth worker of 10 years, the last 3 as the full time student pastor at North Point Worship Center in Escondido, where he serves under his mentor, Pastor Darin Sargent. He also serves as the Section 1 Youth director and has made a lasting impact in the San Diego metro. He is aggressively championing for the advancement of student ministry in the SoCal region and whole-heartedly believes that district youth ministry can be at once relevant and powerful.  He is passionate about utilizing an array of methods to connect students to their Creator, and he is having the time of his life as the pastor of Solid Student Ministries. He is married to the love of his life, Monique and they are the proud mommy & daddy of their awesome little girl, Anevay.

Donnie was born Nov 22, 1978 in San Bernardino, Ca. He was raised by wonderful Christian parents and At six years old, in the basement of an old church, he was baptized with the Holy Ghost. He’s been involved in youth ministry for the past 10 years, and His greatest passion is to reach out to this generation of lost, hurting and spiritually blinded young people and lead them to Christ. On June 17, 2000 Donnie married to the love of his life, an extremely talented musician and vocolist named Sonya Gloria Young. Sony, is also very involved in youth ministry along with various music ministries. They have recently been blessed with two beautiful children, Meghan (4yrs) and Drew(8 mos.). Donnie & Sonya currently serve as youth pastors and assistant pastors at Gateway Christian Fellowship.

By virtue of his upbringing in the home of a pastor, Richard has ministry and serving in his DNA. After cutting his teeth on bus ministry and nursing home ministry and anything else he could find to do during his teenage years, he moved into active youth ministry in his late teens.  Once he completed his college degree, Richard found himself bi-vocational as he led his local youth ministry while teaching Jr. High in the public school system.  Serving as youth pastor for two different churches and serving as a sectional youth director for six years prepared him to lead a church from a “youth conscience” perspective.  He is currently the Senior Pastor of LifeChurch of Pasadena, Youth President of the new So-Cal District, husband of Tamara, and daddy to Caymbria and Brooklyn.