CALGARY WORLDVIEW CONFERENCE Calgary Worldview Conference Rekindling Christian Imagination with    David Smith    Saturday, February 28, 2009 River Park Church 3818 14A St SW Calgary AB              Also coming to · Edmonton: Mar. 21 · Toronto: Sept. 26 · Ottawa: Oct. 3 · Grand Rapids: Nov. 7

 
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Rekindling Christian Imagination We tend to associate imagination with fantasy, and reality with facts, but the ways in which we picture the world to ourselves have a great deal to do with how we live in it. The Scriptures bid to shape our imaginations, weaning us away from reductive ways of seeing and towards a graced vision of the world. David I. Smith is the Director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College as well as Associate Professor, Department of Germanic and Asian Languages at Calvin College. He completed his MPhil at the Institute for Christian Studies and PhD at the University of London. David's interest lies in foreign language pedagogy, particularly in relation to moral and spiritual development as well as in Christian philosophy of education. David is a sought after speaker by Christian educators.

Co-Sponsors

Institute for Christian Studies			Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin College
Graduate Teacher Education Program

Schedule

Morning

KEYNOTE: The Garden of Delight
The world invites us to imagine ourselves as consumers satisfying needs, as competitors in a battle for security, as computers processing information. What if instead we followed a long tradition of biblical reflection that invites us to think of ourselves as called to be pleasure gardens, gardens of delight? What if we heard in present-day talk of Kindergartens a faint echo of an older image of school classrooms as gardens of delight? What if we began to wonder, in imitation of the biblical prophets, in what ways our society is a wilderness or a garden of delight? This first lecture will explore through this lens how Christian thinkers have imagined the threads linking learning to our life together.

FIRST RESPONDENT
Jeff Logan notes that the imagery of education being both the personal experiencing and the active cultivating of a Garden of Delight resonates well with the traditional learning models found within many indigenous communities around the world. Jeff is the Lead Pastor of SouthGate Baptist Church, the Coordinator of Alberta Bible College's Summer Institute of TESOL. Jeff grew up in an Aboriginal community in Manitoba and studied at the University of Regina and the First Nations University of Canada. He studied Indian Education and Art Education before completing his MA in Linguistics at the University of Regina. Jeff spent a number of years in adult education and as an adjunct professor at a number of universities in Canada and Southeast Asia.

SECOND RESPONDENT
Jim Nieuwenhuis will reflect on the Garden of Delight from the perspective of a psychologist. Jim works for the Calgary Health Region as a Clinical Psychologist, providing individual and group psychotherapy to adults. He is an alumnus of The King's University College, Edmonton, and the University of Alberta.  He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Jim lives in Calgary with his wife, Pearl, and their two daughters.

Afternoon

KEYNOTE: Learning from the Stranger
The world invites us to imagine foreigners as competitors for resources, as exotic objects of fascination, or as dark threats to our wellbeing. Scripture calls instead for a radical love of strangers, a practice of hospitality that reaches out to embrace the outsider. This call to hospitality can help us to see how learning from other cultures can connect with nurturing a Christian identity. It also challenges a variety of basic ways in which we tend to imagine our place in the world. This second lecture will explore how learning from the stranger can be a Christian practice, and what it means for how we teach our children.

FIRST RESPONDENT
Antoinette Godbout welcomes and learns from strangers daily in her role as Sponsorship Coordinator with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS); a role she has held since 1986.  She has coordinated the CCIS Legal Workshop Series for community service providers and immigrant clients. At present she also works with a certified Immigration Consultant assisting with Family Class and Group of Five Refugee applications.

SECOND RESPONDENT
Ellen Nobel has spent the past seven years working with the street youth of Calgary. The culture of street youth can be as foreign to the average citizen as that of another land. Crossing that barrier has often been a challenge for Ellen, but her experiences prove that these barriers, too, can be crossed, resulting in invaluable rewards. Ellen is a graduate of the University of Calgary's Fine Art program and of extensive studies in psychology/counseling at Rocky Mountain College.

Registration

Please register by the 25th of February to ensure lunch availability.

If you have any questions please email
or telephone Jenny Krabbe at 403 803 4387.

Directions

River Park Christian Reformed Church
3818 14 A St. SW
Calgary, AB
 
Transit: Bus #13 from downtown
 
Directions: http://www.riverparkchurch.com/

Sponsors

	Sutton Partner Realty Group Carolyn Huisman 403-830-5821