The Seminars & Schedule for the Transforming Culture Symposium

Ok, before I go on to make my very, very, very serious announcement that's pretty much obvious from the heading, I'm going to draw your attention to a pretty stinking funny advertisement, courtesy of my father by way of his Brazilian friend who speaks five languages. It's here. And I had to watch it twice in a row so I could laugh a second time.

The photo is two rockstar friends of mine.

And now for my serious note. This is what I sent out to a few of my closest thousands of friends.

THE SCHEDULE & SEMINARS
We are pleased to announce the schedule and list of seminars for the Transforming Culture Symposium, held in Austin, TX, April 1-3, 2008. All info can be found at http://www.transformingculture.org/.

We ask you please to pass this on to pastors, artists, church leaders and other persons who have an interest in discussing the church's relation to art and culture.

Registration price goes up January 1, 2008, so take advantage of the early bird price.

Thank you and blessings.

David & Larry

The Hill Country Institute for Contemporary Christianity

presents

TRANSFORMING CULTURE:
A VISION FOR THE CHURCH & THE ARTS

SPEAKERS : Eugene Peterson, Jeremy Begbie, Barbara Nicolosi, Andy Crouch, David Taylor, John Witvliet.

AUDIENCE & PURPOSE: The symposium brings together pastors, church leaders and artists to discuss the Church's relation to the arts and to artists. If you are interested in exploring the ways in which we can encourage a more theologically informed, biblically grounded, liturgically sensitive, artistically alive and missionally shrewd vision for the Church and the arts, then we welcome you to join us for a stimulating and refreshing two-day conversation.

SOME OF THE SEMINARS:
· The use of Visual Art in the church
· Scripture-telling and the art of Theater
· Spiritual Formation of artists
· Blended worship: "preserving the old, releasing the new"
· Art & Evangelism
· Art & Social Justice
· 10 new ways the Church can become again a Patron of the arts
· Cultivating the Imagination of the congregation
· Perspectives on Preaching Narrativally
· A Biblical Basis for the Arts

THE DESIRED OUTCOME: Our overriding desire is to inspire a movement among pastors and artists to lay hold of God's great purposes for the church. We wish to encourage a more theologically informed, biblically grounded, liturgically sensitive, artistically alive and missionally shrewd vision for the arts. We hope to connect people from across continents. We hope to foster a 30-year dialogue. We want to set loose an eventual J.I. Packer poet laureate and an Amy Carmichael breaking new ground in the field of modern dance. We're looking at our artists making films for Universal Studios, showing in the vanguard galleries, teaching in the college theater departments. We're looking at seminaries with programs in aesthetics. We're looking at a generation of children growing up in our churches getting the kind of nurture that will produce first-rate artists—a Mozart or a Charlotte Bronte.

The hope is for a powerful, grace-filled transformation of the culture.

And that future begins now.

Artists as Agents of Grace. Pastors Rich in Imagination. The Church as a Patron of the Arts. A Winsome and Prophetic Renewal of Culture.

Join the conversation.