Leadership Conference
A Leadership Conference is offered each March to churches, the community and our students. It is sponsored by SBC and its supporting conferences. A guest speaker(s) presents a series of lectures on a topic that will challenge and encourage those in various fields of ministry.
Undivided - Could the Good News Still Unite the Church Today?
At the 2024 Leadership Conference, we’ll draw on sociological research to ground an exploration into four themes connected to faith transmission from one generation to the next. First, we’ll explore a topic that is garnering more attention than most subjects these days among sociologists of religion, along with many church leaders and parents: those who say they have no religion.
Second, we’ll examine how younger generations in Canada view and experience the world. What are their values, concerns, and hopes? How are their attitudes and behaviors similar or dissimilar to their parents and grandparents? How does the social environment for young people today compare to prior generations? And how do younger people approach religion and spirituality?
Third, what social conditions positively contribute to Christian belief and practice transferring from one generation to the next?
Finally, while parents play the most influential role, they need a strong supporting cast.
I look forward to returning to my Christian roots in Manitoba in March 2024 – a personal and professional sojourn. While we’re together, my hope is that we’ll have a good combination of learning new ideas, interacting with one another’s questions and experiences, and collectively considering tangible next steps informed by the sociological research on these four topics.
- Session 1: Why Do More People Say They Have No Religion?
- Session 2: How Do Next Gen Canadians View And Experience The World And Their Faith?
- Session 3: What Is Needed To Pass On The Faith Well From One Generation To The Next?
- Session 4: How Can Congregations Flourish And Support Faith Transmission In Canada?
Undivided - Could the Good News Still Unite the Church Today?
Everyone agrees that the church should not major on minors. Churches would mostly agree with the slogan, in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty and in all things, charity. Yet we find our churches beset with a tribalism that is perplexing, even though Protestants been through 500 years of church founding and splitting. We may need a deeper understanding of the Scriptures to move past the slogans we find difficult to apply. Most Christians would declare that what unites the church is Jesus Christ and his salvation. So, the SBC Leadership Conference team asked two biblical scholars and a pastoral leader to engage the Scriptures in answering the question: Could the good news still unite the church today?
- Introduction: Terry Hiebert
- Session 1: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Torah - Dr. Pierre Gilbert
- Session 2: Relational Identity in John's Gospel and Christian Unity - Joshua Coutts
- Session 3: Church Unity in a Polarized World - Terry Kaufman
- Session 4: Panel Discussion
Now I Become Myself: Overcoming Shame & Discovering Our True Self.
Before sin entered the world, we are told in Genesis 2:25 that Adam and Eve were free from feelings of shame. As they discovered soon after by eating the fruit in Genesis 3, shame separates us from God as we begin to hide ourselves and fixate on our shortcomings. How do we overcome these fears? Join Ken Shigematsu, the Senior Pastor at Tenth Church in Vancouver, B.C., as he explores how to experience a genuine sense of belonging and connection in the community of Christ in 'Now I Become Myself: Overcoming Shame & Discovering Our True Self.'
- Session 1: Covered by Grace
- Session 2: Seeing God's Face in Others
- Session 3: Limits and Liberation
- Session 4: On Beauty and Becoming
How Long O Lord? Suffering with an All Powerful God
A theology of suffering begins with understanding what it means for God to be all powerful. A common defense of an all powerful God is that he grants freedom to humans who bring about pain and suffering. Biblical theology does not explain the origin of evil; both in the psalms and in the creation story of Genesis evil is present before humans are created. The biblical writers never try to explain away evil, they call on an all powerful God to blast evil away. This series of studies will look at how God achieves full dominion by building relationships that lead to peace. God deals with suffering in a process by which all things are brought together for good to those that love him and are called to follow his purpose.
- Session 1: Drama in the Conquest of Evil (Psalm 104; 74)
- Session 2: Can a Person be Right with God? (Job 9-10)
- Session 3: My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? (Psalm 22; Matthew 27:27-50) with special guest Dr. Roger Gingerich
- Session 4: More than Conquerors (Romans 8)
Losing to Gain: Lives Worthy of the Gospel
Lives worthy of the gospel (Php 1:27) are lives lived for Christ and lives lived for each other. In Philippians Paul moves back and forth between those two. He comes at worthy lives several different ways, but it boils down to living for Christ and for others in the family of Christ. In the first session, we’ll look at the opening prayer for love, a remarkably thorough explanation of how love fits into God’s purposes (Php 1:9-11). In the second session we’ll hear Paul evaluate his troubling circumstances (Php 1:12-28). He does not think about difficulties as we do. In the third session we see Christ as the ultimate example of living for others (Php 2), and some other examples. In the fourth session we survey what Paul left behind to gain Christ, and how he gains Christ. Paul deliberately makes his life an echo of the Christ hymn (Php 2:6-11). That is, what Christ did to gain Paul and us, Paul in turn does to gain Christ. And that’s a life worthy of the gospel.
The video series includes the following sessions:
- Session 1: The Philippians Prayer (Php 1:9-11) - 54 minutes
- Session 2: What's the Most Important? (Php 1:12-28a)
- Session 3: The Mind of Christ (Php 2)]
- Session 4: Gaining Christ (Php 3:4-12)
Living Non-Violently in a Violent World
Acts of violence have become all too common in our world today. What does the Bible say about how we are to respond to this violence? In session one, Sprinkle will lay a biblical foundation for nonviolence through the New Testament, including an examination of the words of Jesus. But what about all the violence in the Old Testament? Session two will tackle some of the more challenging, violent texts of the Old Testament by looking at Israel’s own violent history. Session three will address some of the main objections to nonviolence that have been made by those living in the twenty-first century. Session four will paint a picture of what it look like for the church to live nonviolently in the midst of a violent world.
The video series includes the following sessions:
- Session 1: Nonviolence in the New Testament - length 1:19
- Session 2: Nonviolence in the Old Testament - length 1:10
- Session 3: Addressing objections to Nonviolence - length 1:04
- Session 4: Living nonviolently today in a violent world - length 0:43
Leadership Lessons from David
David is known as a man after God’s own heart, but what does that mean? In session one of Leadership Lessons from David, we will look at the challenges real leaders face daily - sometimes getting it right, sometimes messing things up, but always being called into a wholehearted pursuit of God. Session two will look at the worshipping life of the leader, and why as goes our worship, so goes our leadership. In session three, we’ll explore the leader’s prayer life as both a doorway to deeper intimacy with God and as a taproot to greater strength from God for dealing with the demands, temptations, and disappointments of leadership. The closing session will probe what goes into going the distance as a leader.
The Gospel According to Moses
The Gospel According to Moses:Rediscovering the Gospel in the Old Testament Cast as a collection of Moses’ farewell sermons to his congregation, Deuteronomy represents an impassioned appeal to believers of all ages not to forget that they are entirely the product of divine grace. The New Testament emphasizes that YHWH, the God who mercifully redeemed Israel, called her to covenant relationship with himself, and commissioned her to be his agents of grace, is incarnate in Jesus Christ.
DR. DANIEL L. BLOCK has lectured and taught internationally in nine countries. His most significant publications include a two-volume commentary on The Book of Ezekiel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, 1998), a weighty commentary on Judges and Ruth (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999), and most recently a major commentary on Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012). Block’s educational background includes a D.Phil. in Semitics and Classical Hebrew, University of Liverpool (UK), and post-doctoral studies, Cambridge University (UK).
The video series includes the following topics:
- Session 1: The Grace of Salvation (Deuteronomy 4:32-40) - length 1:39
- Session 2: The Grace of Covenant Relationship (Deuteronomy 4:9-31) - length 1:07
- Session 3: The Grace of Law (Deuteronomy 4:1-8; 6:20-25) - length 1:15
- Session 4: The Grace of Fellowship in the Presence of God (Deuteronomy 12:1-15; 14:1-21) - length 1:27