National Training Event

National Training Event is an annual conference that brings together Christian university students from all over Australia to grow in the knowledge of Christ and to learn how to reach others with God's word.

NTE is broken up into 2 sections: training and mission.

Training runs from Saturday to Wednesday morning at ANU, Canberra. You will:

- Get a better understanding of God and his gospel through talks from leading Bible teachers
- Develop skills in how to understand and teach the Bible in Strand groups
- Choose from a wide range of workshops designed to sharpen your ministry skills

Mission runs from Wednesday to Sunday. ES North Terrace will be partnering with churches in Sydney. Some of the things we might do on mission include:

- Participating in the church's outreach activities
- Running programs and inviting people to events at the local shops and train stations
- Helping run a church service
- Helping out with kids ministry
- Giving your testimony or giving a talk
- Running a primary school scripture class

It is an exciting opportunity to put into practice the new skills you will have acquired at NTE.

National Training Event 2012

Saturday 8th December - Sunday 16th December

Click here to visit the official website

Why you should go to NTE!

National Training event is coming up shortly and don’t miss your opportunity to go on one amazing conference. I went last year and it was nothing short of amazing!!! For you to understand why it was so amazing I’ll just run through some of the things I experienced while there.

The conference itself was in Canberra, which lasted 5 days long. Each day we would have sessions with talks by guest speakers Richard Chin and Don Carson. These speakers where enthusiastic and full of knowledge and their teaching was exciting. We also had electives and small groups each day. The pop culture one particularly spoke to me raising questions like what does our society think about binge drinking, gay marriage and sex? What does God think about them and how can we lovingly share to our friends Gods purpose for their life?

But this trip was not complete without putting everything we learnt into practice straight away, so we headed off to two different churches in Sydney and helped with their outreach projects. We helped out at a carnival at the large shopping center nearby, acted out a story from the Bible at a local school and ran a church service with all of us involved.

In all NTE was a great blessing, the teaching impacted me greatly and lead to personal spiritual growth that I couldn’t experience anywhere else, the opportunities we had to minister to the local community in Sydney was amazing and if I had the chance to do it again I would do it in a heartbeat.

Stewart, 3rd year Design (Visual Communication)

I attended National Training Event in December 2010 and it was the highlight of my year. The conference in the first week was fantastic. Don Carson was the main speaker and he led us through 2 Timothy. The strand groups were the best part of the conference. For me, these were small-group-like sessions where we worked through a passage in 1 Peter. It really has changed the way I read and try to understand the bible.

Following the week-long conference we headed off to mission with a local Sydney church. That was a fantastic time. We were billeted out in groups to stay with families from the church. We were involved in a carnival at a local shopping centre, a Christmas style play at the primary school and so many other things. This is something that makes NTE standout for me among other conferences and camps. After a week of training and learning you immediately get to use what you have learnt as you go out on mission.

It was a fantastic time for making new friends and growing closer to older ones. We learnt so much and got to put it into practise. It was the best two weeks and 2010 and I hope to be there again this year.

Dylan, 3rd year Science

NTE 2010 was amazing! I learnt better ways of approaching the Bible, how to dig deeper into the scriptures to see what God originally intended and how that applies to us today. Spending the conference and mission week with other brothers and sisters in Christ was a great encouragement as we shared what Jesus was teaching and challenging us in. My response was to see where I fit into God’s mission and to let him, through his word, shape my life.

Michael, 3rd Year Civil Engineer

NTE 2010 was my third NTE, so I had some idea of what to expect. The conference has always struck me to have very clear and helpful teaching in the main sessions. I also did an elective on ethics which was much more interesting than the ethics lectures I had been given in my medical course! It helped me to see the reasoning behind why things are wrong, and to realise that there is a more satisfying answer than 'because God said so', indeed that it is more related to how God created humans to be.

The main sessions were enjoyable. I really enjoy being in a large crowd of young passionate Christians singing their hearts out to God, passion that is often aided by the teaching of the sessions. The conference has a large number of people, and for someone shy like me, it is hard to meet many people from other states and universities. I did have some good conversations though, and in any case there is opportunity at the conference to get to know some of the other ESers from Adelaide better. My strand was based on the resurrection. Although the strand group didn’t go as in-depth as I would have hoped, it did give me an enthusiasm for learning more about God.

Another highlight of the conference was the bookstall, although this wasn't so much of a highlight for my wallet, as I think I ended up with about 7 books, which I still managed to fit into my suitcase somehow!

Then it was on to Sydney to a church that I’d visited since my first NTE. We stayed with billets, who very kindly care for students visiting. This year, we made use of the new mall to host a fun fair. The puppet show was the main evangelical part of the fair, as they managed to do an amazing presentation of the gospel in about 5 minutes. It was a great feeling to watch all the people as they paid attention to the word of God being told to them. The girls helped out with the gingerbread night again, where people from the congregation invite friends and people from the community to have a fun night of decorating gingerbread houses, with a gospel talk as part of the evening. We also took part in the carols services at the church, with some student talks & testimonies that the staff had helped us prepare earlier.

I have always enjoyed going to NTE, and would recommend it to anyone who can possibly attend.

Robyn, 4th year Medicine