9:00 am  |  APPLIED WORLDVIEW INTENSIVE

The World’s Deep Hunger: Reckoning with the “Discenchantment” of the Modern World

DIAGNOSING DISENCHANTMENT, EXERCISING DISCERNMENT, AND DOING THE WORK OF CULTURAL DISCIPLESHIP

The secular age has flattened our world and given us the impossible—and exhausting—task of making our own individualized meaning. But God’s redemptive story of creation offers a vision of reality that endows the world with meaning. Instead of the strain of constantly expressing our “authentic” selves, we’re invited into participation with what God is doing, most fully recognized in the person of Jesus Christ.

7:00 pm  |  SESSION 1

How God Has Made Himself Known

SEEING THROUGH WHAT GOD HAS REVEALED AND HOW THAT SHAPES OUR WORLDVIEW

In the Apostle Paul’s address in Athens, he stated: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…” (Acts 17:26-27, ESV). Historically, Christians have believed that God has revealed Himself through Scripture and through His creation. How does God continue to reveal Himself now, and what does that mean for our life in Christ?

HOW SUFFERING REVEALS THE HEART OF GOD

Life is a gift as Gianna Jessen, who was destined to die in a late-term abortion, likes to say. But what about other gifts, such as the severe cerebral palsy she experiences from the abortion effort? They are an opportunity to depend on Jesus for everything. Or as she puts it, “What a tremendous honor it is to have to lean on the strong arm of Jesus all the way to heaven.”

HOW FOOD CAN REVEAL THE GOODNESS OF GOD

Is it okay to enjoy good food? Isn’t that worldly? But C.S. Lewis said: “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.” Through example, Chris will show us a resounding “Amen!” response, American style.

HOW CREATION DECLARES THE REALITY OF GOD

Psalm 111: 4 says “He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered.” The Earth is “crammed full” of signs of God’s creativity, care, and design, all of which are also harbingers of heaven. The data about origins and design gathered from the universe support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind, but a personal God.

8:30 am  |  SESSION 2

Recovering Beauty in the World

HOW JESUS’ FOLLOWERS IN HISTORY RESTORED BEAUTY TO THE WORLD

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder… or is it? Jesus-followers in history believed that our experience with beauty was objectively real because truth—in Jesus—was objectively knowable. We’ll look at their work in visual art, architecture, music, and other areas to learn how we can experience beauty and reveal it to others.

HOW CREATING SHARED GOD’S LOVE

During the COVID lockdowns, Emily Colson and her son Max, who has autism, were stripped of outside community and the team who helped them. Desperate to find things for Max to do, Emily cleared the dining room table, got out all the paints, and let Max play with the colors. What happened after that has surprised everyone. They found a way to share God’s love first locally and then across the world, and now they’re reaching some of the most vulnerable in society.

10:30 am  |  SESSION 3

How the Family Reveals God

WHAT FATHERS REVEAL ABOUT GOD

A major way that a man contributes something valuable to the human race is that he can be a father. A father whose heart is turned toward his children illustrates the grace of a heavenly father. He is in Roland’s words, “an earthly mirror of a heavenly reality.” As Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13 ESV). And with the Holy Spirit, our hearts are turned back toward both our earthly and heavenly fathers.

WHAT THE FAMILY REVEALS ABOUT GOD

The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” This is indicated by research showing that children with married parents achieve better academically and have greater emotional and physical health. In other research, married couples have shared they have higher levels of “satisfaction, trust and closeness” than cohabitating couples. The evidence stacks up: To picture His goodness and truth, God designed the family from the very beginning.

1:30 pm  |  SESSION 4

Joining God’s Work

TO HEAL IS TO KNOW GOD

What is medicine, and what is it for? For that matter, what is health? It’s more than just the absence of disease. Humans aren’t just machines. Neither are they a collection of bones and tissue. Healing reveals “the right order of things.” It involves compassion, love, mercy, and justice. It is taking part in a greater story of restoration.

JOINING GOD’S WORK: CREATING BECAUSE GOD CREATES

Our passion to create can drive messages of truth that are “fearless, factual, and freeing.” Although we are not the Creator, we have, in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien in “On Fairy Stories,” the capacity to be “sub-creators,” to emulate God in creative ways. When God instructed Adam and Eve to steward and fill the Earth, creating became part and parcel with human flourishing.

BUILDING AND LEADING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GOD

Christian leaders are called to be shapers of culture. God gives us the creativity to break free of boxy thinking, to challenge set mindsets, and point toward the deeper reality of Him. Once Sunday is over, we don’t go back to the secular world: God has made our work sacred. Made in the image of God, we treat our employees and followers as also made in that image, while following Jesus’ servant example.

TO TELL THE TRUTH IS TO KNOW GOD

We are called to be truth-tellers. But society is pressing us to be quiet, claiming that simply speaking truth is creating harm and spreading hatred. But to tell the truth is to know God. We do so through the mind He gave us and the use of our senses, but also dependent on the Holy Spirit, aware that we need His wisdom for both understanding special and general revelation. We speak the truth with courage, knowing that the truth contributes to human flourishing.