Gavin Wark
Advance started out as “Leadership Advance.” It was a week-long leadership training experience for student leaders from local churches organized initially by the Ontario Youth Teams to cap their year of ministry. The first Leadership Advance would have been in 1975 at the end of the first Ontario Youth Team’s tour of duty. In those days most of the church youth fellowships were run by students executives and the those were the target audience for Leadership Advance. Workshops over the course of the week covered everything from personal evangelism and apologetics to running games and special events. The first four Leadership Advances were held at Emmanuel Bible College.
Initially, youth teams were only running every 3-4 years so Leadership Advance only occurred at the end of the Youth Team tours in June.
When we started running S.A.L.T. Teams (Serving and Learning Together) in 1987, Leadership Advance also served as the boot camp for our SALT Teams. SALT Teams were running every summer so Leadership Advance became an annual event. I think we shortened the name to Advance in the mid to late nineties. For a while we teamed up with “Youth With A Mission” who were also training itinerant teams and Advance was rebranded as Global Advance.
Advance 1990 At Camp Mishewah
By around 2009 Advance was phased out since we were no longer running SALT Teams and counsellor training was done on-site at our camps.
Advance 1991 Camp Mishewah
Advance was replaced by Xcelerate, which was a weekend leadership retreat in February or March for up-and-coming student leaders from local churches. The Xcelerate retreats were held at the Clarksburg Retreat in Clarksburg.
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