You’ve heard of a flipped classroom? In response to your feedback, we’ve designed Karam Forum 2018 as a flipped conference. The agenda for our time together in Los Angeles this January focuses on dialogue and mutual learning – but with an innovative twist that allows us to include great individual talks as well. Register to join us for this unique experience!
(Don’t forget, faculty and leaders at ON partner schools can register free!)
Fewer monologues, more dialogues! That’s what we heard from you after our first Karam Forum this year. We listened! And we thought a focus on discussions would be a great way to model the kingdom of God, where we learn from each other in community. But we also knew that individual talks are an important way to catalyze conversations, and they’re invaluable as video resources in churches and classrooms.
What to do? We invited six theological educators to give short, TED-style talks at local events held at two of our partner schools. We’re capturing those talks and will be releasing them throughout the fall, so you can start thinking about these key issues before you arrive (and start using the videos, too). Then the scholars who gave the talks will join us to participate in catalytic discussions at Karam Forum!
As people are arriving on Thursday, Jan. 4, we will continue the tradition of welcoming our attendees with a panel on how people in disciplines other than theology are connecting what they do to the Christian faith. This year’s opening panel will feature Christians in the legal profession discussing the challenges of law in a pluralistic society. The dean of a law school in Korea is flying in to share a global perspective, plus we have a state supreme court justice, the head of a center at Wheaton College and the dean of Trinity International University’s law school. So this will be a rich discussion!
On the opening evening, after sharing a meal together we’ll model that whole flipped conference process, from start to finish, live. Andy Crouch will give a short talk on what it means to flourish. Everybody’s talking about flourishing these days, but the Christian message and mission include a radical reorientation of our way of thinking – and our way of living – when it comes to what real flourishing is. If you’ve been with the Oikonomia Network for a while, you know that’s been central to our community ever since Dallas Willard challenged us on these issues five years ago.
Most of our time that evening, however, will be devoted to dialogue. Jumping off from Crouch’s talk, we’ll have two provocative panels to discuss how a Christian view of flourishing plays out in God’s mission and world:
How does the church help people understand flourishing?
- Mako Fujimura
- Stephen Grabill
- Amy Sherman
- Vincent Bacote
- Moderator: Greg Forster
What are Christian hopes for a globalizing world?
- Brian Fikkert
- Bruce Fields
- Brent Waters
- Sajan Mathews
- Moderator: Greg Forster
The next day, Friday, Jan. 5, we’ll have two panels featuring the theological educators who have given short talks on key subjects. You can check out the talks before the conference – they’ll be released over the course of the fall semester – so while we’re together we can focus on learning from each other:
How does theology help people discover the mission of God?
- Deborah Gill
- Nathan Hitchcock
- Jay Moon
- Moderator: Darrell Cosden
What perspectives does the Bible offer us on economic wisdom?
- Joshua Jipp
- Keith Reeves
- Eric Tully
- Moderator: Darrell Bock
In between, we’ll have a panel on the changes we’re seeing, and seeking, in our schools:
How can Christian higher education help people discover the mission of God?
- Greg Jones
- Amy Sherman
- Marty Harris
- Tod Bolsinger
- Moderator: Donald Guthrie
And of course there’ll be plenty of time to interact with peers in breakouts and networking breaks – we’re mindful of the importance of downtime at our events!
Our time will conclude after dinner on Friday with an address from Charlie Self on the mission and calling of Christian higher education.
This “flipped conference” format is an exciting experiment for us, and we look forward to serving you in Los Angeles this January. Register today if you haven’t already!
