Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Conference 2005

Preaching and Teaching Good News Between the Times:
The Promise of Truth in a World Adrift

Toronto, ON - April 26, 2005
Edmonton, AB - May 3, 2005

Truth is what you make of it. Your truth’s your truth—I have mine. There is no one truth, or if there is, no one person has it. Truth is not where it’s at. Experience is what counts. I experience multiple worlds and move in multiple worlds. The world of work, the world of entertainment, sports, and maybe my version of religion too. But in each I choose my own niche and create my own style.

Truth is one. It is given by God in the Scriptures, and embodied in Jesus Christ, and communicated today in the truths taught by the church. It is truth for all people, and we need simply to communicate these to the listeners, especially the younger generation.

Between the mulitiple worlds and truths and identities, on the one side, and the one world and truth on the other a chasm opens up. The chasm appears at times to divide not simply different planets but galaxies. What is the connection between the wail of rock music and the cry of creation or the groaning in the psalm? That’s the challenge that all preachers, teachers, youth workers, and evangelists face.

In four sessions this one-day conference will explore the connection between the good news for-all and the experience of the listener who appears to live in another world. There will be two pairs of workshops, in the first part the theological framework will be developed, while in the second specific ways of communicating the good news will be explored and sampled.

Keynote Speaker

George Vandervelde is Emeritus Professor of Theology at the Institute for Christian Studies, where the focus of much of his work has been issues of ecclesiology, gospel and culture, and ecumenism. He is the co-chair of the World Evangelical Alliance - Roman Catholic Consultation, and has been a member of a number of committees of the World Council of Churches and the Christian Reformed Church. He is the author of Original Sin: Two Major Trends in Contemporary Roman Catholic Reinterpretation.

Workshop Leader

John Van Sloten is the pastor of preaching at New Hope Church in Calgary, AB. A former real estate developer, he has spent the past 8 years developing a new kind of culturally relevant Sunday morning service.

Keynotes and Workshops

Morning Sessions

Keynote
Truth and Love: Modes of Mystery

While the gap between the truths that resounds within the walls of the church and the multiple truths experienced by people today, and especially younger people, is enormous, important links exist. One is the relation of truth and experience. Biblically, truth is not simply that can be captured in a statement, which then needs to be a) believed and b) applied, lived out.

Truth, experience, life, love, justice, are intertwined. In fact, they are one. But they are one in a way that can never be fully captured by our "truths." The "truth" of the gospel is a revealed mystery, an open secret that evokes, first of all, not a nod of the head but a shudder of the heart-a sense of awe and wonder.

In this first part of the morning session, these questions will be explored as aspects of the overall issue of "absolute truth," the relativism that seems rife in a postmodern world.

Workshop:
Last May, heavy metal band Metallica sent a camera crew to record New Hope (Christian Reformed) Church's Sunday morning service. They were intrigued that a church would use them to communicate a Christian spiritual message, as were the 200 new head bangers that showed up that day! What played out was a serious dialogue around the topics of global injustice, family breakdown, anger, addictions, and the profound, freeing power of forgiveness. God used a 'secular' heavy metal band to get his message across that day.

This workshop will look at how this new kind of 'culturally connected' message aligns itself with both our Reformed traditions and the post modern culture.

Afternoon Sessions

Keynote
The Good News of Reconciliation Today

While the good news encounters strong skepticism, if not outright resistance and hostility today, the homes, streets, and band venues are filled with people who long for some solid ground under their feet, for some sense of belonging, for identity. The good news of love and reconciliation deals with those deepest longings. Yet, our presentation of the heart of reconciliation, the cross, and the heart of God-God's choosing some, all?-does not connect. This second opening seminar will explore the way in which the person and destiny of Jesus, and the teachings in which those "truths" are expressed, connect to contemporary life.

Workshop:
Building on the theological framework developed in the morning, this workshop will take a more practical look at exegeting culture's stories. During this workshop, we will go through several exercises and try to discern the divine in the artwork of Vincent van Gogh, the music of U2, and a few other contemporary tales.

This event has made possible by a grant from the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.