Sept. 29-30

Keynote Speaker:

Art McPhee

Come and listen to my story 'bout a man named Jed.

Those words began each episode of the sixties sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. And each week millions of viewers tuned in to watch the clash of cultures as Jed, Granny, and their kin interacted with posh Beverly Hills society. What may have seemed humorous in TV-land is rarely funny when it occurs in church. Cultural differences between pastors and their congregations often leave both wounded. The need to exegete not just biblical texts but one's local congregation is brought home painfully to pastors whose cultural assumptions differ from those of their parishioners.

This year's conference will center on the cultural dilemma and aims to help pastors understand and compensate for the influence of their own culturally-conditioned understandings on their perceptual and interpretational efforts.

The conference's three-fold focus includes:

• How to become better exegetes of local congregations
• The value-for long-term relationships, pastoral care, and preaching-of a better understanding of congregational assumptions.
• How such understanding assists pastors in their transformational role of aligning congregational priorities with God's purposes.

Conference Leader

Art McPhee

This year's conference introduces Art McPhee, who teaches mission and intercultural studies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkart, Indiana. He has also taught at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Virginia, Midway College in Kentucky, and in several overseas locales.

McPhee brings twenty-three years of pastoral experience in rural and urban settings to the classroom. Two of the locales he led he also planted. Along the way, McPhee served as district overseer of Mennonite Churches in Miami, Florida and as writer-speaker for denominational radio programs: the weekly Mennonite Hour and the daily Art McPhee in Touch.

The author of four books, including Friendship Evangelism and Traveling Light, he is currently at work on two more: The Coming of the Light, on Bible translation work, and Pickett's Fire, a popularized version of his PhD dissertation on Bishop J. Waskom Pickett, researcher of people movements in 1930s India and organizer of the United Mission to Nepal in 1953.

"Our participation in God's mission is, in part, an obligation to study: to study the Scriptures and the Christ they reveal; to study the Christ and the call he has given; to study the call and the place where it leads; to study the place and the people who live there; to study their lives and the forces that shape them; to study the Spirit and the paths he is blazing; to follow the paths to hearts that are hurting; to reach out in love and introduce Jesus."

SCHEDULE

REGISTRATION

You can download the brochure with a registration form in PDF format here. Print the brochure, fill out the form, and send it with your check to the address given.

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