Brave & Bold Youth + Parent Conference (November 2025) - A free, multi-church, two-night conference for youth and parents

"Aloha Ohana. Just a reminder about two FREE Explicit Movement events happening THIS WEEKEND at Leeward Community Church: Brave & Bold High School Youth / Parent Conference: Friday, Nov 14 at 7 pm..." Michele Okimura, November 12, 2025

The need

Across O'ahu's faith communities, youth pastors and parents have been carrying the same question. How do you talk with high school students about identity, value, and the cultural pressure they live inside, in a way that lets parents stay in the conversation instead of being shut out of it? Most of the available material was either too thin to hold the weight or too clinical to land in a youth room. The pastors Michele works alongside had been asking for something built for both sides of the family.

The event Michele built

Explicit Movement hosted a free, two-night Brave & Bold Youth + Parent Conference on November 14 and 15, 2025, at Leeward Community Church in Pearl City. The Friday-night session was the Youth + Parent gathering. The Saturday session was a Leaders Workshop on building a church culture that honors a clear, healthy vision of identity and sexuality.

The conference was free to attend. The model is the same model that runs through the rest of Michele's coalition work. The cost of the room is carried by the host and the partners, and the doors open to anyone whose family or congregation wants to be there.

How the coalition came together

Recruitment ran from August through November 2025. Sarah Budd handled logistics from the Explicit Movement side. Cana Landers of Church Youth Network worked the church-list outreach by phone, updating contact records for the youth pastors who had moved into new roles. Michele wrote personally to dozens of pastors and youth leaders across the island, congregation by congregation, name by name.

The recruitment list moved across denominations. Calvary, Baptist, Assembly of God, Nazarene, New Hope, Leeward Community, C4 Church, and independent congregations were all part of the outreach. By conference week, the venue was set, the registration was open, and the room was the room a multi-church coalition produces when one organization does the convening work.

What happened in the room

The Friday-night Youth + Parent session was the headline. The Saturday Leaders Workshop carried the same teaching arc into the pastoral and ministry team-leader audience that would carry the content forward into their own congregations.

For Michele, the conference was a model run. The same architecture has shipped before at smaller scales. The two-night November event was the version that confirmed the architecture scales when the coalition is wide and the venue partner is invested.

Where this work goes next

The conference is now part of Explicit Movement's annual rhythm. The 2026 cycle is in planning, with the same model and an expanded coalition base. If you are a pastor, a youth leader, or a parent who wants to bring the Brave & Bold work into your church or your home, get in touch through the Speaking page.

If you are building a coalition of your own around a body of work, the architecture Michele runs is teachable. The Brave Purpose Author Method is the path she shares with leaders who want to do the same.

Learn about the Brave Purpose Author Method