Reclaim Your Story

Jeremy Del Rio inspires audiences to find their voice and reclaim their stories. His passion to see people thrive in the face of adversity, rooted in 30 years of inner city community development, translates into a motivational speaking style uniquely suited for the 21st century.

Since preaching his first full-length sermon at age 13, Jeremy has delivered hundreds of speeches to live audiences up to 90,000 people, including keynoting and presenting workshops at national conferences, guest lecturing at colleges and universities, and participating in panels and think tanks. He has also conducted dozens of print, radio, and television interviews as a spokesman for various campaigns. Contact for bookings.

Speaking Archive

Listen + Engagements + Sample Workshops

 

  
[At 9/11 Tribute to Grace and Hope; Billy Graham New York; UYWI Reload]

LISTEN

Urban Youth Workers Institute

Christian Community Development Association

Concerts of Prayer Greater New York

Other

RECENT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

View Jeremy’s Speaking Calendar here.

  • Keynotes: Christian Community Development Association National Conference; DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative National Conference; Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Convention; The New York City Leadership Center Launch Event; The NYCLC Leadership Forum; The National Street Schools Network; Willow Creek Association SHIFT Student Ministries Conference; Urban Youth Workers Institute; UYWI Reload; TechMission Annual Conference; Youth Explosion Conference; Mission Fest; Teen Revolution Festival; Engage; Urban Kingdom; WMCA Youth Leaders BBQ
  • Workshops: Christian Community Development Association; Billy Graham North American Institute for Emerging Evangelists; Urban Youth Workers Institute; UYWI Reload; Youth Rock
  • Think Tanks: Acton Institute; National Network of Youth Ministries Urbnet Summit; Somebody Cares Emerging Leaders; Mission America’s The Gospel in the City; We Care America; American Bible Society Urban Youth Strategy; CCDA Emerging Leaders
  • Churches: Metropolitan New York Baptist Association (NY/CT); Presbytry of the Assemblies of God (NY); Crossroads Tabernacle (NY); Bay Ridge Christian Center (NY) Church at the Gateway (NY); Christ Tabernacle (NY); Cornerstone Christian Church (NJ); Full Gospel Tabernacle (NY); The Life Christian Church (NJ); Central Baptist (NY); Abounding Grace (NY); Living Hope Community Church (CA)
  • Colleges and Universities: North Park University; Roberts Wesleyan College; New York University; City College; Nyack College; Alliance Theological Seminary; King’s College
  • Other: Greater New York Billy Graham Crusade; Concerts of Prayer Greater New York Pastors Prayer Summit; Mission New York; Oakland Raiders Chapel Service; NYCUP Training; 9/11 Anniversary “Tribute to Grace and Hope”; New Life New York Staff and Volunteer Training; Nueva Esperanza Capacity Building; Flushing Christian School Commencement; Anchor House

 

SAMPLE WORKSHOPS

20/20 Vision for Schools: Transforming Public Education within a Single Generation of Students

Adults promise children that if they stay in school they will be equipped to succeed in life, but we have failed to make good on that promise for generations — with high school graduation rates in some cities hovering at or below 30%. First graders in fall 2008 will graduate high school in 2020. Come explore how urban ministries can transform public education within a single generation of students by activating congregations, adopting schools, and becoming answers to prayer.

Jesus Justice: So Easy a Five-Year Old Can Do It?

Jesus the Justice Advocate may not be standard Sunday school fare, yet he began his ministry by declaring his heart for justice in a concrete mission statement to preach good news to the poor. He loves justice so much that he embeds it into how we inherit eternal life. Why then can 5-year-olds understand justice better than so many adults, and what can we learn from them to make justice a lifestyle?

Mooks, Midriffs, Myspace & More: Engaging Youth and Media Online

Corporate profiteers produce and market media for a target youth audience they call mooks and midriffs — caricatures that exploit adolescent insecurities and hormones — a strategy described as “grabbing below the belt and reaching for their wallets.” The result: average teens now consume digital media for 72 hours each week and increasingly digest that media online in what the New York Times calls, “Websites Without Rules.” This workshop will:

1) Expose the strategy behind mooks and midriffs;
2) Examine the rise of “Websites Without Rules” and ministry opportunities they create; and
3) Explore ways to engage this plugged-in generation.

Empowering Indigenous Leadership

In communities blighted by absent fathers, incarceration, underperforming school districts, drugs, and other social ills, how can youth ministries come alongside individual youths to equip and empower them for leadership? Is developing indigenous leaders even worth the heartache and effort? Examine the myths, methods, and messages of effective mentorship (minus meaningless, magic mantras).

Joshua Paradox: Establishing Meaningful Mentorship

Emerging leaders need mentors and spiritual disciple-makers to invest in their lives like Moses invested in Joshua. Appointed by God to deliver His people out of slavery, Moses understood early on that someone else would lead them into freedom. Yet Joshua is a paradoxial figure. For as much benefit as he received from his mentor, Joshual failed to reproduce the investment, and his spiritual legacy did not survive a single generation as a result. As indigenous leaders emerge around you, will they find a Moses that embraces, guides and encourages them to greatness? Or will they find a Joshua, someone too busy fulfilling his own destiny to in someone else’s?

A Dialogue about Living Out Social Justice in Your Community

Amidst a world plagued with pain and suffering, we often respond with brotherly love and good works as the Bible dictates. However, God also wants us to move beyond mere service. In this forum, a cacophony of voices will invite us to consider what it means to embody God’s Kingdom coming on earth, and what it looks like to begin enacting God’s justice in our neighborhoods and world.

Have You Seen Your Kids’ MySpace?

Radioactive B!+@H, Suckanut Slut, Boyish Sex Machine, NaughtyXXXAsh – porn stars or teens on MySpace?”

Why should I care so much for everyone else when no one gives a s!*# about me?” “y do guys … say that they like u but make u feel like s!*#?” “I will get you drunk and help you plot revenge against the sorry b@$!@&! who made you sad.” “Why is it that life sucks?” “my mother … i can’t stand her!”

Welcome to the world of teenagers, in their own words. These are just a few of the online identities and comments generated by teens on Myspace as they wrestle with emotional conflicts, relationship dramas, family strife, sexuality, and purpose. Businessweek calls the 70+ million young people with Myspace accounts (plus millions using other online social networks) the “Myspace Generation.” How should the church engage?

What Would Jay-Z Do? Engaging the Culture

In the last thirty years hip hop has revolutionized pop culture while evangelical Christianity has created an insular subculture. How have self-proclaimed “controversies” like Eminem and “hard-knock” lifers like Jay-Z sold millions of records to suburban kids all across America? Fundamentally, it’s because Jay-Z and his counterparts have become better fishers of men than we are. They identify with kids’ pain and address their needs in language they understand and in a forum they frequent. The question for the Church is no longer whether to engage, but how to do so effectively.

Taking Your Ministry from Irrelevant to Revolutionary

We serve a generation desperate for authenticity, desperate to move beyond the rhetoric of cliche Christianity to something meaningful, transformative, and real. Christ’s model of revolutionary ministry was to concentrate His activity in a small number of authentic relationships. By modern standards, the immediate results of that strategy were mediocre at best and a failure at worst. Yet His influence over twelve disciples split history in two and changed the world forever. How did He do it? Are His methods applicable today?

Bagged Lunch and a Drop of Oil: Multiplying Re$ource$ for Urban Ministry

Called, but underfunded. Impassioned, and hungry for more. Broke, and feeling alone. How do bivocational youth workers pay the bills and buy the stuff necessary to get the job done?

Jesus received one recorded offering in his career. The disciples didn’t get it. The masses were confused. But a boy with a bagged lunch understood, and his tuna fish sandwich fed 5,000.

A husband’s debts nearly cost a widow her sons’ freedom. The prophet’s response: What’s in your hand? A few drops of oil and a town full of jars later, she bought their freedom. Let’s explore how to turn tuna fish and empty bottles into resources for urban ministry.

Rudy Giuliani’s Next Lawyer?

I Am My School

The Power of Your Story

We Got Next!

Transforming Public Schools

PS 102 Mural Documentary

Read the case study here.
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