Today’s sages—like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Jonathan Haidt, and others—all promise a way to navigate the uncertainty and anxiety of our cultural moment. They offer rules for life, exercises for emotional stability, or strategies for making the right decisions from relationships to business. How should Christians evaluate today’s sages? In his day, Augustine commends plundering pagan philosophies to build up the church. Using Augustine’s wisdom in City of God and Teaching Christianity, we’ll consider ways to wisely plunder and carefully critique the sages of our age.

Led by Zach Howard

Since mastering the art of killing at scale in the first world war, for over a century Luddism and tech pessimism have dominated the church’s lecterns and pulpits. Such a trend has been useful to help us resist worthless digital spectacles. But insufficient to show us the worth of our inventions. So how do we avoid both idols? The idol of digital vanity and the idol of pushing God out of the picture as irrelevant to Silicon Valley? The balance requires a whole new way of thinking about God, his creation, and the gadgets we use every day.

Led by Tony Reinke

“Sometimes I struggle with being motivated — in work, in learning, in life.” We all struggle with this: adults, kids, students, workers, Christians. We ask, “How can I be more motivated?” But this is actually not quite the right question. Rather, “How can I be motivated better?” There are different ways to be motivated, and God did not create them equal. Different ways are better for different types of actions. This workshop will explore types of motivation for work, learning, and life.

Led by Jonathan Worthington

More than a dinner party and less than an invitation into our authentically messy homes, Christian hospitality mirrors the heart of God for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. Beginning in Genesis, this session will trace God’s hospitality toward the outsider, expanding and invigorating our narrow and tired modes of hospitality with the steadfast love of God.

Led by Charisse Compton

J. R. R. Tolkien’s beloved stories—he Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion—have their origin and formation in the two great world wars of the twentieth century. Tolkien’s Christian faith and his understanding of the work of the imagination shaped his fairy tales in the midst of an age of tumult and fear, and they can aid us in our age of anxiety and dissipation too. This workshop will consider how that might be so by looking at his stories and other writings, in light of how Holy Scripture and Christian theology have spoken of faith, hope, goodness, and peace.

Led by Matt Crutchmer

More coming soon!

Led by Chuck Steddom

In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul describes his ministry as meant to destroy arguments and “every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God,” so that he might lead people to “obey Christ.” One such “lofty thought” that perennially challenges the Christian has to do with the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives. Particularly, the differences between the Gospel narratives call into question in what sense those narratives are historically accurate and reliable. In this workshop, we will look closely at some of these differences and consider ways of harmonizing them in such a way that lends credence to the historicity of the narratives while at the same time allowing each Evangelist his own distinct emphases. Through our study on the reliability of the Gospels, we will find fresh encouragement to trust in the God who inspired these narratives.

Led by Joshua Greever

Anxiety and Depression plague young people today, particularly young women, at never-before-seen rates. What’s the cause of such alarming trends? Is social media to blame? And most importantly, how can Christians navigate the minefields of online spaces and become immune to the worldly contagions and perpetual angst? Whether you’re a young person who has grown up with the norms of social media or the mother of a young person trying to learn as you go, you can, by God’s grace, become an unoffendable, joy-filled Christian whose stability shows the unshakable nature of Christ.

Led by Abigail Dodds

A detective, a cowboy, and an astronaut walked into… a chivalric romance. This workshop examines the Renaissance genre of the chivalric romance through Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser’s defenses of faerielands and the ways they serve moral formation. In the second half of this workshop, we will consider with G.K. Chesterton, Leif Enger, and C.S. Lewis in the twentieth century how the genres of the western, detective fiction, and science fiction take up and advance the narrative priorities (over and against the plot) of the errant knight.

Led by Betsy Howard

Far fewer of us today walk the roads and work vigorously with our bodies like most did in biblical times. In our sedentary age, what might we freshly learn and appreciate about God’s design for the human body, its movement and exertion, and the health of our souls and Christian joy?

Led by David Mathis

When it comes to issues such as anxiety, depression, OCD, etc., many Christians suffer in silence. This workshop aims to provide a biblical framework for thinking about our complicated soul/body reality. While acknowledging physical factors that contribute to our suffering, we will explore how the Psalms help us get to the heart of our pain in order to apply the medicine of the gospel.

Led by J. Aaron White

What does it mean to be “called” by God to do ordinary work in this world? Paul told the Ephesians that we were created “to do good works,” and we know from experience that God uses our work to bring glory to Him.

In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore how our “works” relate to our “work” and how it is possible to have a variety of “vocations” even if we don’t have a career yet!

We’ll also address how faithfully to “not-work”— to play, to engage the world, to contemplate—to God’s glory. We know that we are made to rest, but what about other forms of leisure?

Led by Mike Schutt

Some contemporary philosophers describe philosophy as a perpetual questioning of everything, beginning in angst and tending towards one’s own death: The Never-ending Journey. Described as such, philosophy is portrayed as anti-truth, against God, and as opposed to Christianity. Martin Heidegger famously said that a Christian philosophy is a contradiction and a square circle. This, however, is not how philosophy has been classically described. Rather, classical authors such as Plato and Aristotle, and Christian theologians like Justin Martyr, Boethius, and Aquinas, have described philosophy as a voyage of discovery, beginning in wonder, and slowly but surely leading the philosopher from this world to God. Philosophy could be described as a God-given guide, who awakens our sleeping souls with awe, directs us through this world—so filled with a wild mixture of goodness and evil, beauty and ugliness—to its final end: a joyful resting in the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

Led by David Haines

If we’re to maximally profit from the Bible, then we must learn to read it well. Who better to teach us how than the Bible itself! In this interactive, hands-on workshop, we’ll meet the Bible’s hidden hermeneuticians (a.k.a. Bible-reading guides) and see how they teach us to read Holy Scripture.

Led by Jared Compton

We all know someone who struggles with anxiety. So how do we minister to that friend or family member or individual in our small group? How do we lovingly and wisely come alongside them in a way that addresses both body and soul? Come join us for this interactive workshop as we dig into God’s Word and discuss practical ways to help.

Led by Brian Liechty

Church elders, pastoral staff, and Christian ministry leaders know the pain and difficulty when conflict arises and leaders disagree. What should leaders do and how should they lead when there’s conflict? Join Pastors Steven and Kenny as they outline biblical principles and practical steps to manage conflict, maintain unity, foster healthy teams, and know when leaders should go their separate ways.

Led by Steven Lee and Kenny Stokes

What is Christian education? What are key priorities, challenges, and opportunities for Christian educators today? This workshop addresses these and other questions in an interactive discussion between President Tabb and experienced educators who lead three respected Christian schools in the Minneapolis area: Avail Academy, Hope Academy, and Liberty Classical Academy.

Led by Brian Tabb, Ross Douma, Rebekah Hagstrom, Russ Gregg

J. R. R. Tolkien famously defended the use of monsters in the imaginary story Beowulf against critics who could not “admit that the monsters are anything but a sad mistake”. But Tolkien rightly understood that the monsters in Beowulf were centrally important to the story. In this workshop we will investigate Tolkien’s argument. But more importantly, we will see how his discussion can help Christians to see the importance of the imagination, including the imaginatively monstrous.

Led by James McGlothlin

Human attention is one of the most precious gifts we have to give, and perhaps never more so than in an age like ours, when human attention is an endangered species. This workshop will offer an ancient principle for stewarding our attention well — proximity shapes responsibility — along with several practices to help put the principle into action.

Led by Scott Hubbard

Contentment is more than a vague feeling that all is well in the world and in one’s own life. True contentment is active; it bears gospel fruit in any circumstances. In conversation with the apostle Paul, Jeremiah Burroughs, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton, we’ll discuss the God-satisfied heart of Christian contentment and why it matters.

Led by Andrea Hoglund