Speakers

Keynote speakers 

Luc Bussière - France 

Luc Bussière, together with his wife Manuela, is a pioneer of Christian education in France. They founded the ‘Daniel’ Private School in 1986, the first Protestant evangelical secondary school in France, serving as its headmaster and then chairman for many years. He has initiated, encouraged and supported the establishment of numerous schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and French-speaking Africa. A professor of philosophy, a graduate in theology and the author of several books on Christian education, he is president of the “Mathurin Cordier” Network, which brings together most of the Protestant Evangelical Schools in France. He remains deeply involved at an international level, particularly through his work on the committee of the EACE (European Alliance for Christian Education).

Roger Kiska - United Kingdom 

Roger Kiska is an advocate solicitor admitted in England and Wales, a solicitor in Northern Ireland and a member of the Michigan State Bar. He has extensive expertise in European human rights law, as well as education and equalities law. He serves as legal counsel with the Christian Legal Centre in London and has acted as lead counsel in numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as providing strategic legal advice on rights-based litigation across Europe. He has appeared in broadcast media, including BBC, Sky News, ITV, and LBC, and has published scholarly articles and contributed chapters on human rights and religious liberty for several academic books. He was awarded the Scandinavian Human Dignity Award in 2012 and has served as an elected member of the Advisory Panel of the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency. He is based in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, where he also served as an advisor to the Prime Minister on international law and religious freedom.

Prof. J. Hoek - The Netherlands

J. (Jan) Hoek (1950), married to A. B. F. (Alie) van Kooten. From 1975 to 1979, he was a minister in Blauwkapel-Groenekan and from 1979 to 1994 in Veenendaal. He then worked as a theology staff member at the HGJB (Reformed Youth Association) and as a lecturer at the CHE (Christian University of Applied Sciences) in Ede and the Theological University of Applied Sciences of the Gereformeerde Bond (Reformed Association).  From 2004 to 2015, he was a visiting professor at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven and an endowed professor at the Protestant Theological University (Kampen and Groningen campuses).  He is the father of three children and has ten grandchildren. He has published several works on eschatology (Christian expectations for the future), Reformed spirituality, and church development.

Workshop speakers 

Peter van Olst - The Netherlands 

Christian education parts from a biblical worldview and is therefore critical about sin and brokenness in human cultures. Nevertheless, it never turns its back to the world or to society, but seeks to prepare students to be present in it. This causes a constant tension between the attitude of the pilgrim and the attitude of the citizen. A way to handle this tension in personhood formation activities is to strive towards shalom-seeking citizenship in which we enable students to be present as agents of shalom in a broken world that still remains fully God’s.  
Peter’s roles: at Driestar Christian University: Coordinator of Identity, Formation and Citizenship

Phill Moon - United Kingdom 

It's often not what you can do but who you are that matters.

What you can bring to your staff team and what your team can bring to your mission depends more on what you carry of the gospel than merely the sum of your competencies. Phill will share from his 30 years of leading a Christian school community and more recently a national organisation and projects in other nations.  He will explore the inner disciplines of discovering your identity and strengths, developing intimacy with God; journeying with God by responding to what he allows as challenges and grants as opportunities; as well as the outer disciplines of developing your team, spotting and developing the competencies and calling of others through mentoring and shaping your team for strategic growth and presence.

Phill’s previous and current roles

• Founder and headteacher of Bradford Christian School
• National Development Team member of the Christian Schools Trust, including a recent short tenure as CEO
• Course Director: The Essential Christian Teacher, a teacher training programme that serves the CST but also recently wider communities in Nigeria, Rwanda and India.
• School Leadership coach; investing in the development of the next generation of Christian school leaders.
• Phill has recently begun to serve on the board of EACE in its foundational years as well as Rise Together International, a new initiative aimed at restoration and equipping people through educational development, between the UK and nations on the west coast of Africa formally involved in the slave trade.

Christine Chiner - France

Christine Chiner was born in France into a Christian family deeply committed to ministry among children, teenagers, young adults, and college students. From a very young age, she witnessed the many blessings a church receives when it agrees to “enlarge the space of its tent” (Isaiah 54:2) and works effectively to promote Christian education and the salvation of the younger generation. Having decided to follow Jesus Christ herself at the age of 7, she is convinced of the importance of letting children come to Christ.  

While pursuing her studies to obtain a teaching certification in German, she actively engaged in ministries such as Sunday school, summer camps and youth camps, and school-based mission trips with One Hope. She also supported the creation of a french web radio station for children (ESSENTIEL kidz) and the establishment of the College Eben Ezer in Ouagadougou. 
After graduating, she quickly decided to teach young people in the juvenile justice system to see what more could be done for these teenagers facing significant academic challenges. It was there, faced with the immense needs of the young people and their families, that she became increasingly convinced of the need to open a Christian school "to seek the peace and prosperity" of her city and the good of the families living there. Since September 2015, she has been the founding director of the private school la Chrysalide in Lyon. With the team that has gradually come together, she devotes her time, her heart, and her passion to “other people's children.”

In 2022, she agreed to join the french national committee of the Mathurin Cordier network to support French Christian schools operating in an environment that demands steadfast perseverance in the face of pressure. She is particularly committed to building relationships with other European schools and networks, such as the EACE. 

As the host of the [Re]ssources Educatives podcast on ESSENTIEL radio, she helps amplify the voice of Christian school education in France.

Other speakers 

Arjen van Kralingen - The Netherlands

Arjen van Kralingen is principal of Hoornbeeck College Rotterdam. He is also active as a theologian in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. Hoornbeeck College is a Reformational Regional Training Centre for Senior Secondary Vocational Education that provides courses in four sectors: Economy, Engineering and Technology, Health and Social Care. We have around 2.000 students in Rotterdam. 

Hoornbeeck College Is part of the association "Reformatorisch Bijbelgetrouw Onderwijs” (RBO), and we have teaching locations in Amersfoort, Apeldoorn, Gouda, Goes, Kampen and Rotterdam. The Association acknowledges and accepts the Bible as the sole basis for doctrine and life. 

Students of Hoornbeeck College Rotterdam work in the South of Rotterdam. The part of Rotterdam where our school is located, is full of need in many ways: criminality, health problems, loneliness, illiteracy, unemployment, social stress, and so on. As a school we work in this area to try to alleviate these problems. This is meaningful is (in a modest way) not only helpful for our area, but also for our young students, who are learning and growing in these difficult situations.

Leendert van Wezel - The Netherlands

Leendert van Wezel is the chairman of the executive board of Driestar-Wartburg, a group of reformed christian schools in the Rotterdam, Gouda, and Leiden region. The school group consists of eight locations that provide education ranging from practical education and vocational education to pre-university education. The school group has a strong orientation toward its surroundings and actively seeks opportunities to make a meaningful contribution to the city and the areas around its different school locations. At the governance level as well, it explores ways to take responsibility for the development of the regional education system and strengthening the social structures.