i4Conference

4th Annual National Conference on Innovation

October 5-7, 2008

Columbus, Ohio

Bringing scholarship, faith and experience together

In any field of endeavor you reach a point where you cannot effectively
pursue today’s opportunities using yesterday’s thinking, tools, or methods.
The approach to mission and service that brought us to the present are
largely inadequate to take us into the future. To live and thrive in a new
world requires innovation.

Innovation is not given to formulas. It is given to people – inspired, hope-
filled, restless, fascinated individuals with an almost cellular drive for
change and transformations. If you are one of the self-chosen few willing
to stop blaming your organization and your world and start taking personal
responsibility for innovating a new and better future – this Conference is
for you!

Bring your leadership team. Set your sights higher. Join innovators from
across the country and beyond for stimulating thought, exploration, idea
generation and action. Make innovation work for you!

Keynote Speakers:

Robert Wuthnow, Ph.D., teaches sociology of religion and cultural sociology, and currently serves as chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of over twenty-five books, including America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity and After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (2007). He has also edited over ten books, including a new edition of the Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion.

Leonard Sweet, Ph.D. is currently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School (Madison, NJ), and Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University (Portland, OR). He is the author of more than one hundred articles, 600 published sermons and thirty books, most recently The Gospel According to Starbucks (2007). Founder and President of SpiritVenture Ministries, Sweet is a frequent speaker and conversation partner at conferences both in the US and around the globe. In both 2006 and 2007 he was voted "One of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America" (www.thechurchreport.com).

Kelly Monroe Kullberg is the founder and director of project development of The Veritas Forum which she first organized at Harvard in 1992. She edited and co-authored the best-selling Finding God at Harvard: Spiritual Journeys of Christian Thinkers (1996), a decade later she wrote Finding God Beyond Harvard (2006), and taught senior electives at Harvard College in film and C.S. Lewis while serving as a chaplain to the Harvard Graduate School Christian Fellowship from 1988-1997. Kelly lives with her husband David and children in Columbus, Ohio. She enjoys Ultimate Frisbee on beaches, football in the front yard, and skiing out West.

James Tucker, Ph.D., Chair for Excellence in Learning, and Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga; also founder and chairman of the board of the Foundation for Leadership and Learning, a global network of resources for the advancement of leadership development. Jim has provided consultative and training services to hundreds of school systems--public, private, and parochial--in more than 40 states as well as Brazil, Canada, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, and the Virgin Islands.

Julius Nam, Ph.D., associate professor of religion, Loma Linda University School of Religion. One of the most articulate, engaging and insightful young Adventist scholars today, Nam is active in the American Academy of Religion, Adventist Society for Religious Studies, and The Association of Seventh-day Adventist Historians. He has served as pastor in Korea and in the U.S., and currently teaches Adventist History and Theology. He was a principal in organizing the 2007 scholarly conference on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book, Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine.

 

FOCUS AREAS INCLUDE . . .

  • The changing religious landscape and the need for innovation;
  • Innovation DNA and the 21st century Church
  • Innovations in Learning and Development
  • Expanding the Innovation horizon within Adventism
  • How meaningful innovations occur at the intersection of insight, invention and faith

 

FEATURES:

iExpo:  Exhibits that will introduce you to multiple innovation models and the people who make them happen;

iCafe:Directed group conversations and explorations of innovation principles and applications;

iConnect Groups:  Network with others who are engaged in innovation from contexts similar to yours.  Create learning and supporting communities with persons of like interests and passions.

iProfiles:  Innovations – incremental and radical – are occurring in various contexts.  Be introduced to a sampling of these innovations; be inspired by those who are on the frontline, reinventing their way to growth, value, and excellence.

SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

Sunday October 5
3:00 p.m. Registration
3:00 p.m. Innovation Expo
6:30 p.m. Conference opens --
                General Session
9:00 p.m. “After Hours”

Monday October 6
8:00 a.m. Soul Awakenings
8:30 a.m. General Session
                Reflections
11:00 a.m. iCafe
12:00 p.m. Networking Lunch
1:30 p.m. iCafe
3:00 p.m. General Session
                Reflections
                Break
8:00 p.m. iCafe with Len Sweet
9:00 p.m. “After Hours”

Tuesday October 7
8:00 a.m. Soul Awakenings
8:30 a.m. General Session
                Reflections
                iPanel
12:30 p.m. Conference Concludes