53rd Weekend -- May 27-29, 2011
Back by popular demand for 2011: Dr. Leonard Sweet - "Telling the stories of Jesus"
What if Bo Diddley was right? What if the key moral question of the 21st century is not “What do you think?” or “What are you doing?” but “Who do you love?”
There are many contenders for first place in lists of “What’s Wrong with the World” or “What’s Wrong with the Church” or “What Causes Life to go Haywire?” I contend that pride of place belongs to identity. Fundamentally humans in general and Christians in particular are suffering from an identity crisis.
Our problem is not that we have a mistaken “worldview,” but that we have an unstable, unformed and unaesthetic sense of identity. And answers to identity questions get answered not in philosophical ways but in narrative ways. Instead of exploring a “Christian worldview,” we shall explore what it might mean to have a “Christian narrative identity.”
This theograhy of Jesus (a unique biography of sorts) will introduce the true narrative identity of a Christian, and the meta-narrative of life that ties human existence together into a meaningful whole. In a world of competing “stories” and ungovernable pluralities, there is more need (not less) for a totalizing story, a grand meta-narrative, that brings everything together into an overarching discourse and dialectic. We shall look at the story of Jesus with fresh eyes, and make hidden connections and surprising discoveries that bring new meaning to the words “good news.
Len Sweet is an author, preacher, scholar, and ordained United Methodist minister.
- "One of the church’s most important and provocative thinkers."
- “No church leader understands better how to navigate the seas of the 21st century.”
- “A writer of vast imagination, poise and charm.”
- “I can’t imagine a Christian leader in America who hasn’t read one or more of Leonard Sweet’s books.”
- “Some statistician-types will drown you in doom and gloom. Sweet’s message is uplifting, hopeful and relevant.”
These are but a sampling of responses to Leonard Sweet. In 2006 and 2007, Len was voted by his peers “One of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America” by ChurchReport Magazine.
Currently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University, Madison, NJ, Len has been Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Theological School at Drew University for five years. In 2001 Dr. Sweet was invited to be a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Fox University, a school in Oregon affiliated with the Quaker tradition and the Wesleyan Methodist movement.
Involved in leadership positions in the United Methodist Church, Len has been chosen to speak at various conferences as well as the 1996 World Methodist Congress in Rio de Janeiro. He also serves as a consultant to many of America's denominational leaders and agencies.
Len has written dozens of books, including titles such as:
- Jesus Drives Me Crazy
- The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion
- Summoned to Lead
- New Life in the Spirit
In addition to writing books, Len has authored more than 200 articles and over 1200 published sermons. He is the primary contributor (along with his wife Karen Elizabeth Rennie) to the web-based preaching resource, sermons.com. For nine years he and his wife wrote Homiletics, which became under their watch the premier preaching resource in North America. In 2005 Len introduced the first open-source preaching resource on the Web, wikiletics.com.
Len is increasingly being asked to lecture around the world, and has spoken in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, England, Wales, South Africa, South Korea, Iceland, Scotland, and most recently, China, Indonesia, and Latvia.
Download the 2011 brochure to learn more about this year's 53rd Weekend! You can also print the registration form.