‘Big guns’ coming for Worldview Weekend
Veterans of America’s culture war converge on Jeff City for major event
By Allen Palmeri
Staff Writer
August 23, 2005
JEFFERSON CITY– Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City, is hosting a Worldview Weekend conference Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 featuring five Bible teachers and experts on America’s so-called “culture wars.”
Tickets for the nine sessions are $35 apiece and can be obtained by calling Concord church member Ann Mobley at (573) 632-1954.
“There are a lot of folks who trust Jesus to save them, but they don’t filter their behavior and beliefs through a biblical grid,” said Mike Bronson, associate pastor of the host church. “So because we have a lack of a Christian worldview today, there’s no link between the Bible they profess to believe and the life that they live. The Bible says we’re to take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ, and when we don’t do that, we fail to live up to the standards that He holds us to.”
Scheduled to speak at the conference are: David Barton, best-selling author and president of WallBuilders, an organization dedicated to preserving America’s Christian roots; David Noebel, president of Summit Ministries, an educational ministry designed to equip Christian youth to defend truth; Kerby Anderson, president of Probe Ministries, a ministry that tackles the agonizing questions man asks and the profound answers the Gospel offers; Brannon Howse, president, American Family Policy Institute, and president and founder of Worldview Weekend; and Sean McDowell, son of Christian apologetics scholar Josh McDowell who also is a high school philosophy and literature teacher and author.
Bronson said the speakers will touch on material ranging from humanism to bioethics to media to pop culture to evolution—and then some. Worldview Weekend is America’s largest Christian worldview conference. Founded in 1993, it is now held in approximately 20 states each year with an annual attendance of about 20,000. For a full range of potential topics that could be covered in Jefferson City, visit www.worldviewweekend.com.
“The worldview is the framework from which we view reality and make sense of our life in the world,” Bronson said. “A 2-year-old has a worldview. He thinks he’s the center of the world. A typical lost person has a worldview. He thinks the material world is all there is and all there ever will be. Every person has a worldview, whether they know it or not. Our worldview affects our response to everything we say, everything we think, and everything we do. It’s our moral life, our social life, our political life—every aspect of it. So it’s so important for us to have a Christian worldview, and unfortunately, in this secular day and age, we’ve lost that understanding in the Christian community.”
Bronson said Concord has been anticipating the event for about a year. Pastor Monte Shinkle has stated publicly that it could turn out to be the most significant conference the church has ever hosted.
“They’re not going to be sermons, but they’re certainly biblically based instruction,” Bronson said.