Summit Theme: A CITY WITHOUT WALLS (Zech. 2:4-5)

A New Kind of Security (Thursday pm)

“A City Without Walls: I myself will be a wall of fire around it” - God’s new city calls us to experience a new kind of security that is found in the LORD Himself, who will be a wall of fire around the city.   In this session we are seeking to create a safe environment for the Summit that will encourage us all to ask God to be our Source of Security and to seek His grace in seeing our self-erected walls for self-preservation come down.

• Plenary Speaker: Pastor Jeanette Yep
• Focus: Setting Up the Summit Environment: a safe place

A New Kind of Learning (Friday am)

A New City Reality Calls us to New City Learning - God’s new city contains a new social reality that requires a new kind of learning.  In this session we will consider learning models that have the ability to contextualize to our ever-changing and globalized environment. 

• Focus: Telling the Story of the Center of Urban Ministerial Education; a contextualized training model that grew out of and helped sustain Boston’s “Quiet Revival”
•  Plenary Speaker: Dr. Alvin Padilla, Dean of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary - Boston

A New Kind of Reality (Friday pm)

“A City Without Walls…” - God’s new city is an altogether new kind of reality.  In this session we will all be called to consider a Kingdom vision that requires all of us to move from our present reality to a new kind of reality that we have not yet experienced.

• Focus One: Telling the Story of Boston’s Quiet Revival
• Focus Two: Youth and Next Gen
• Plenary Speaker: Soong-Chan Rah

A New Kind of Space (Saturday am)

“A City Without Walls…a great number of men and livestock” - God’s new city describes a new kind of space—a limitless space, a city without walls, welcoming to all; a space that will include great numbers from all nations and a space that will require us all to break out of our "little space" worlds.

• Focus:  Seeing how our cites are inter-related as a spiritual “ecosystem” as Acts 1:8 cities
• Plenary Speaker: Glenn Smith

A New Kind of Glory (Saturday pm)

“A City Without Walls: I will be its Glory Within” -  God’s new city will manifest a new kind of glory that will be greater than the glory we have known in the past, a glory that will bring greater honor to God and more reflective of His Kingdom.

• Focus: A New Kind of Glory
• Plenary Speaker: Alvin Sanders

Pastor Jeanette Yep has been serving on the staff of Grace Chapel (Lexington, MA) since 2007 as the pastor of global and regional outreach.  A native of Boston, she grew up attending the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church (BCEC), which her parents helped start in 1961. She was a plenary speaker at Vision New England’s Congress 2000. 

For thirty years she was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  She spent five of those years working with students on Boston area campuses, then moved to Chicago and held various positions of campus and national leadership, including Vice President and Director of Multiethnic Ministries.  She teamed with other InterVarsity staff members to create a training program helping Asian American students integrate their ethnic identity with their faith. Initially used with students from Harvard, Williams, Wellesley, Yale and BU, portions of the curriculum were used at other colleges around the U.S.  Before coming to Grace Chapel, she traveled globally for two years for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), developing and training younger leaders.

“Auntie Jeanette” is recognized by many for her creative role as emcee of the Urbana Missions Convention in 1990, 93 and 96. She has contributed significantly to IVCF’s commitment to multi-ethnicity in make-up and outreach. She helped plant a church in Chicago targeting previously churched and unchurched Asian Americans. Jeanette graduated from Mount Holyoke College and Northwestern University (Chicago) and has studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Regent College. She is one of the authors of Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents.

Dr. Alvin Padilla, a native of Ponce Puerto Rico, came to the USA when he was 12 years old.  His father was a migrant farm worker and one year he decided to stay permanently in the US.  He attended school in Haverhill, MA and graduated from Villanova University in 1978.  His first professional job was as the affirmative action officer for the city of Haverhill which complemented his community organizing skills.  He is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div)and the Graduate School of Drew University (Ph.D).

Dr. Padilla came to Gordon-Conwell after five years of teaching Biblical studies at Nyack College. Prior to that, he founded and taught at the Spanish Eastern School of Theology in Swan Lake, NY for seven years. He has also served as pastor of the Fort Washington Heights Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in New York City, a Spanish-speaking congregation. In his work as Dean of the Boston program, he oversees the educational programs of Gordon-Conwell’s Center for Urban Ministerial Education and the emerging programs in downtown Boston, including Masters and Doctor of Ministry degrees. Dr. Padilla is an ordained minister in the PCUSA. He holds professional memberships in the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Asociacion para la Educacion Teologica Hispana.  

Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL.

Rah is formerly the founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church (CCFC), a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. Soong-Chan was a plenary speaker at the 2003 Urbana Student Missions Conference, the 2005 Summer Institute for Asian American Ministry and Theology, the 2006 Congress on Urban Ministry, the 2007 ECC Midwinter Conference, the 2007 Urban Youth Workers Institute Conference and the 2008 CCDA National Conference.

Soong-Chan received his B.A. in Political Science and History/Sociology from Columbia University; his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; his Th. M. from Harvard University; and his D.Min. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is a contributor author to Growing Healthy Asian-American Churches (IVP).  He is the author of The Next Evangelicalism, on the changing face of American Christianity and on the cultural captivity of the American evangelical church (2009).

Soong-Chan, his wife, Sue, who teaches special education, and their two children, Annah and Elijah live in Chicago.

Dr. Glenn Smith is married to Sandra (1976) and together they have three daughters, Jenna (né 1981), Julia (né 1984)  and Christa (né 1986).  He and his family were involved in pastoral ministry with an Anabaptist Francophone congregation in Montreal, Quebec for 20 years.

Glenn did his graduate studies in Patristics at the Université d’Ottawa and his doctoral thesis in contextual theology at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago.  He received an honorary doctorate from the Union des universitées privées d’Haïti for his contribution to urban theological practice in that country.

He has been the Executive Director of Christian Direction in Montreal since 1983 - a multi-faceted ministry committed to the spiritual transformation by Jesus Christ of all of life in the cities of the Francophone world. He is a professor of urban theology and missiology.  He is the Senior Associate for Urban Mission for the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelisation.

He is co-author of the book, Espoir pour la ville; Dieu dans la cité (Hope for the city, God in the city), the co-author of Éduquer les enfants: une vision protestante de l’éducation. L Histoire du protestantisme au Québec depuis 1960 and the editor of The Gospel and Urbanization, a 250 page reader that is into its 5th edition in French and English on urban ministry. He also wrote the book, Following Jesus: God invites us to transformative discipleship, which was published in English, French and Spanish. He edited, Towards the transformation of our city/regions in the LCWE Occasional papers series. His forth-coming book is entitled, City Air Makes You Free. He is the author of numerous articles on urban mission.

Dr. Alvin Sanders, along with his wife Caroline, following years of urban ministry in Chicago and Cincinnati, started River of Life Church in downtown Cincinnati in the midst of civil unrest over the shooting death of an African-American teenager by a white police officer. River of Life was planted as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, economically diverse church with a heart for reconciliation.  While serving as founding pastor he also served as Director of Ethnic Ministries for Cincinnati Christian University.

Presently Alvin serves as Executive Director of Reconciliation (EFCA Samaritan Way).  EFCA Samaritan Way is a division of the Evangelical Free Church of America that has a mission to reverse division, multiplying Kingdom growth (www.efca.org/samaritanway).

A noted authority on reconciliation, Dr. Sanders travels often to consult, teach and preach on the unique theological, social and cultural issues concerning diversity and Christian organizations.  He has been named an adjunct professor at institutions such as Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. He also is the author of Reconciliation 101:  A Handbook for Ministry Leaders.

He and his wife Caroline reside in Cincinnati and are the proud parents of two daughters, Hannah and Gabrielle.