preparing for the new year

I’m in the midst of preparing for a workshop titled “Witness To the Present Day Culture” at a conference near Houston next week. Yes, I’ll be flying out on New Year’s Day, which means I probably will not ring in the new year at midnight. I need my routine sleep. The question of culture itself is so huge, as big as humanity. I was initially going to start with the 5 categories from Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture categories. As I considered it further, especially in present day culture, I recalled 2 thought leaders who are skillfully and wisely reconsidering this question. So, I’m going to be adapting my workshop content from Andy Crouch and Tim Keller. I’ll also speak from my work with L2 Foundation. I plan to post my powerpoint slides, links, and possibly audio at the L2 blog next week — if the retreat site has Wifi.

I may even go multimedia, beyond the powerpoint, and possibly show a clip from the Intersect|Culture DVD that Andy Crouch / Christian Vision Project helped put together. This is an excellent DVD that I’ve seen all the way through. The DVD comes with a companion curriculum for small group discussion, with 6 discussion starters on video filled with inspiring stories and teachings from many Christian leaders including Ken Fong, Makoto Fujimura, and Tim Keller, and Lauren Winner.

Render Conference is hosted by the Partnership of Asian American Churches in Texas (PAACT). PAACT is a fellowship of evangelical churches whose vision is to assist the local church in advancing ministries among English-speaking Asians. The conference is held to support and encourage English-speaking Asian-Americans in the pursuit of vocational Christian service and to cast a vision for ministry in the local church.

[update] just found out there’s a conference website: www.render2008.com