We live in a world increasingly marked by accusation and anger, and our churches are called to be places where the love of Christ is not just a theological tenet but a felt reality. We’ll talk about how, with God’s help, our churches can be marked by honesty, safety, and renewal.

The Gospels claim to give us access to eyewitness testimony about their hero. This session will explore what we can learn about Jesus if we pay attention to both the male and female witnesses the Gospels offer us within their narratives, from the beginning of Jesus’s life on Earth to the end—and beyond!

1776 remade the world. In one extraordinary year, a combination of books, ships, machines, inventions, paintings and declarations created a new cultural landscape which we could characterize as WEIRDER: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, ex-Christian, and romantic. In this session we will see how these different transformations came together to shape our world—and how the church of 1776 responded, and what we can learn from them.