Dr. Chris Wright is International Director of the Langham Partnership International. He also serves as chair of the Lausanne Committee’s Theology Working Group and chair of the Theological Resource Panel of TEAR Fund, a leading Christian relief and development charity. He has written several books. Chris and his wife, Liz, have four adult children and three grandchildren.

The West and the Rest: Building Bridges in the Global Church
Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 8:30am-10:00am, Royal Palm Salons 5&6
We cannot be unaware of the huge gap that exists between Christians in the west and those in the rest of the world.  But we need to realize that the gap is far more complex than simply that we are rich and they are poor (or so we think).  There is wide cultural diversity.  There are moral blind spots and theological hot spots.  And the surprise may be that actually the same things were true in the New Testament church.  What, then, can we learn from the bible and from contemporary church and mission trends, particularly in the world of theological education, that will help us to bridge some of those gaps and let some two-way traffic over the bridge?

Reading and Preaching the Whole Bible for Mission
Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 1:30pm-3:00pm, Pacific Salon 1
Some people think that mission in the Bible began on the Mount of Ascension with the Great commission, and that includes just the book of Acts (and the maps of Paul's missionary journeys, of course).  But how can we read the whole Bible, from Genesis onwards, as the book of God's mission for his whole creation?  And what happens when we read and preach it in that way?