Disciple-Making Conference Keynote

Sonlife Team Members

We wanted to take a moment to introduce you to Dr. Dave Rahn,  this year’s keynote at the Disciple Making Conference (February 24-26, 2026 in St. Augustine, FL). 

Dave will be speaking at each general session throughout the conference. Dave began his career in youth ministry in 1972 with Youth for Christ, where he served as a Campus Life Director. In 1985 be began teaching at Huntington University in Huntington, IN, where he served for over 30 years. Dave’s degrees are from Huntington University, Wheaton College (M.A.), and Purdue University (Ph.D.). He retired as special advisor to the President of Youth for Christ USA in 2020, but he continues to advise, research, lead, write, and speak as much as he can.

Throughout his life in ministry, research, and education, Dave has consistently valued and promoted evangelism and youth ministry. His writings are numerous, and include books such as 

  • Youth Ministry That Transforms: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Hopes, Frustrations, and Effectiveness of Today’s Youth Workers (YS Academic)
  • Starting Right: Thinking Theologically About Youth Ministry (YS Academic)
  • 3 Story Participants Guide: Preparing for a Lifestyle of Evangelism (Harper Christian)
  • His most recent work is authored with Ebonie Davis, Grit & Joy: Help for Bewildered Families of Teens (D6 Resources)

His earliest book is Contagious Faith (published originally by Group, and later updated and released as Evangelism Remixed through Youth Specialties), which Dave coauthored with Terry Linhart. This book contains the results of a research project that sought to tease out the practices of those youth ministries that were shown to be most effective at seeing young people come to know Christ. Specifically, the researchers sought to answer two questions: 1) What are the differences between student leaders who reach their friends for Christ and those who don’t?, and 2) What are the common factors in youth ministries where teenagers reaching teenagers for Christ is the norm?

Among their findings are what the authors call the Student Leader Three Step. They found that the students who were significantly more effective at helping their friends come to know Christ engaged in three disciplines in an identifiably greater way than others. Those disciplines are alliterated as P.I.T.

The most effective student evangelists…

  1. Pray creatively – “The more often students prayed for others to commit to Christ, the more God used their outreach efforts to help their friends commit to Christ.” This kind of prayer was championed by both adults and students in the ministry.
  2. Invite others generously – Student leaders saw it as their job to be invitational. They invited their friends to group meetings, they invited their friends to significant conversations with Christian adults, and they invited their friends to personal conversations about Jesus. Noticeably, this invitational work was a community effort. 
  3. Tell others what Jesus means to them – The most effective student evangelists were coached more than once a month on how to share their faith. They had seen evangelism modeled in a healthy way by the influential people in their lives, such as youth leaders and other students. They also were helped by going on mission trips that gave them opportunities to share their faith (like Sonlife’s Remix and XJ Conferences, and Fusion)

Want to learn more from Dave? Register today (early bird deadline is August 31st) to hear more from Dave during each general session of the Disciple Making Conference 2026.