Breakout Sessions: Experiencing Life with God Conference

This talk is from the session, Scripture and the Formed Life, the first breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Michael Wilkins’s description:

Jesus Emmanuel is God with us, who transforms us as we abide in him and his Word. This does not mean perpetual Bible study but means for us to live in the realm of the truth of Jesus for every area of life, allowing his Word to transform us from the inside to the outside.

This round of questions is from the session, Scripture and the Formed Life, the first breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

The panel features Tremper Longman and Michael Wilkins. Eff Martin is the moderator.

This talk is from the session on Philosophy, the first breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Aaron Preston’s description:

One might think that genuine spiritual formation is open to Christians only, but on Dallas Willard’s view this is not the case. For Willard, Christian spiritual formation overlaps with ordinary moral formation in ways that make genuine moral and spiritual progress possible apart from any concrete, historical embodiment of Christianity. However, this never happens apart from engagement with Jesus Christ Himself. This talk will lay out the textual basis for this interpretation of Willard, and will explore some of the issues it raises, including the relationship between spiritual and moral formation, God’s role in each, and the special contribution that Christian teachings and practices can make to the project of formation.

This talk is from the session on Seminaries, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Angela Reed and David Wang’s description:

In our 60-minute seminar, we will review the latest research literature on spiritual formation and share different approaches to teaching and assessing formation specifically within a seminary context. We will also facilitate a discussion on the markers/characteristics of spiritual maturity.

This talk is from the session on Seminaries, the first breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Angela Reed and David Wang’s description:

In our 60-minute seminar, we will review the latest research literature on spiritual formation and share different approaches to teaching and assessing formation specifically within a seminary context. We will also facilitate a discussion on the markers/characteristics of spiritual maturity.

This talk is from the session, Worship, Music, The Arts and Formation, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Lisa Deboer’s description:

The visual arts can be a powerful aid in Christian worship and devotion. Setting new Protestant practices alongside older Orthodox and Catholic practices illuminates excellent questions Protestants would do well to ponder. We’ll take up just one: how the arts connect public worship to private devotion and why this matters.

This talk is from the session, Worship, Music, The Arts and Formation, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Carolyn Arends’s description:

The arts can be important resources for “training rather than trying” in our spiritual formation. We’ll look at six ways that receptivity to art in various forms can help us proactively cooperate with God and his desire to transform us: 1) The arts help us train to pay attention. 2) The arts help us train in longing. 3) The arts help us train for the renewing of our minds. 4) The arts help us train to love things and beings for more than their “usefulness.” 5) The arts help us train for incarnational living. 6) The arts help us train for direct experience.

This round of questions is from the session, Worship, Music, The Arts and Formation, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

The panel features Lisa DeBoer and Carolyn Arends. Christopher Hall is the moderator.

This talk is from the session on Gentle Apologetics, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Gregg Ten Elshof’s description:

If love can constrain the pursuit of knowledge, then there is reason to puzzle about a wide-spread way of thinking about omniscience according to which God knows all true propositions. Perhaps it would be unloving in some cases for God to know what it is in God’s power to know.

This talk is from the session, Learning to Be, the second breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Michael Stewart Robb’s description:

As a gospel minister, what did Dallas intend to do? Believing that the spoken word and the body were the most Spirit-empowered tools for leading others to Christlikeness, Dallas avoided prefab programs, polished rhetoric and multiplication schemes. Always focusing on the mind, his philosophy of ministry was to show up, talk and improvise.

This talk is from the session, Dallas Willard’s Impact on Counseling, Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction, the third breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Gary Moon’s description:
Modern psychology, pastoral counseling and even Christian counseling seem to have developed a form of amnesia concerning soul care’s classical past. These disciplines have been prone to adapt forms of existing secular theories as opposed to developing theory and practice that arise from Christian theology. As a result, invisible, immeasurable things like soul and spirit are often left out of the classroom and training labs. We will talk about two psychologists who saw things differently.

This talk is from the session, Dallas Willard’s Impact on Counseling, Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction, the third breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Siang-Yang Tan’s description:
Dallas Willard’s impact on counseling and psychotherapy is less well- known but significant, especially in the use of prayer, Scripture, spiritual teaching, and other spiritual disciplines in therapy (Willard, 1996; see also Tan, 1998, 2007, 2013). Religious and spiritual therapies have received much attention and empirical support for their effectiveness in recent years (Worthington, et al., 2011; Captari, et al., in press). Willard’s impact can be clearly seen in the development of such therapies, including Christian approaches that are Christ-centered, biblically- based, and Spirit- filled (see Tan, 2011).

This talk is from the session, Dallas Willard’s Impact on Counseling, Psychotherapy and Spiritual Direction, the third breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Lacy Finn Borgo’s description:
“While psychotherapy and counseling are concerned with normal making, spiritual direction is concerned with abnormal making.” (Moon) The idea of abundant life appears abnormal in our world where anxiety, anger and angst are the norm. Dallas Willard’s insight around Vision Intention and Means offers substance, form and the possibility of human transformation to the ministry of spiritual direction. (Moon & Benner, Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls, 11.)

This talk is from the session on philosophy, the third breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Charity Anderson’s description:
This talk challenges an assumption in the literature concerning the problem of divine hiddenness, namely, that the following are inconsistent: God’s making available adequate evidence for belief that he exists and the existence of non-culpable nonbelievers. I draw on the notions of defeated evidence and glimpses to depict the complexity of our evidential situation with respect to God’s existence.

This talk is from the session, Secularism Part I, the third breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Alister Chapman’s description:
Most Christian students in the world do not attend Christian colleges. The danger for these students is a bifurcation between their life with God and their intellectual growth. Is there a way that we can help all Christian students to connect their discipleship more closely to their intellectual pursuits?

This talk is from the session, Willard’s Four Key Concerns, the fourth breakout session of the 2018 Experiencing Life with God Conference, an academic conference hosted by the Martin Institute of Westmont College and Renovaré.

Here is Greg Jesson’s description:
Malcolm Muggeridge once said, “The only fish that goes with the stream is the dead fish.” Dallas intentionally went against every stream of modern thought by rigorously arguing that reality can be known as it actually is, that humans beings are utterly unique, and that spiritual formation must be tied to objective evidence.