Thurber Lecture Archives

The Rev. Dr. Reggie L. Williams is planning a couple of exciting opportunities to take our studies to the city streets. One focuses on the history of Black Paris, the other on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident.

Featuring Dr. Scott Cormode
Tuesday 5 April 19h30-21h via Zoom.

The church as we know it is calibrated for a world that no longer exists.  The basic assumptions about what it means to be church have changed and will continue to change.  We the Church need to find a way to be agile enough to step into a future that we cannot predict.  This book, The Innovative Church, was road-tested over the course of four years with over 100 congregations seeking to take the next faithful step.  At its core, it asks one simple question: How do we embody a never-changing gospel in an ever-changing culture?

Dr. Scott Cormode (PhD, Yale University) is the De Pree Professor of Leadership Development at Fuller Seminary.  He founded the Academy of Religious Leadership and the Journal of Religious Leadership. He is a former academic dean and is presently a senior fellow at the Fuller Youth Institute.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Featuring Al Tizon
Tuesday 15 March via Zoom and also in-person in the Thurber Room -- Lecture and Zoom at 19h45; Meal at 19h.

A "Pass Vaccinal" is required for the in-person event in the Thurber Room.
There will be a meal served at the live gathering. We are asking for a donation of 5€ to help cover the costs of the food. 

Al Tizon is Affiliate Associate Professor of Missional and Global Leadership at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. Previous leadership positions he has held include Executive Minister of Serve Globally, the international ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church and co-president of Christians for Social Action, founding director of LIGHT Ministries in the Olongapo City, Philippines and associate professor of holistic ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University near Philadelphia, PA. Al has engaged in community development, church leadership, advocacy, and urban ministry in the United States and in the Philippines.

You can read more about Al's latest book Whole and Reconciled: Gospel, Church, Mission in a Fractured World on his website: https://www.draltizon.com/ We are excited to welcome Al to ACP and benefit from his expertise in mission and ministry.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Featuring Dominique DuBois Gilliard, Director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Tuesday 1 February 19h30 via Zoom and also in-person in the Thurber Room

Ever wonder what it means to have privilege? Feel confused about how to use one's privilege for the betterment rather than the detriment of the body of Christ? Dominique Gilliard has done some groundbreaking work helping churches and other organizations recognize where privilege exists and rather than deny it, work toward using it in a way that honors God. You won't want to miss this compelling and challenging evening as we continue to wrestle with what it means to be a church that cares deeply about being a reconciling community. 

This is event is part of the Many Colors, Creeds, Cultures...and Conversations! series.

Featuring Rev. Grace Imathiu, a leading activist/pastor for Welcome and Inclusion
Tuesday 18 January 19h30-21h via Zoom.

On 2 May 2021, ACP adopted an Affirmation of Welcome and Inclusion that we're now called to live into. The affirmation reads as follows:

We believe that we are called to love and welcome all people of all socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, races, nationalities, gender identities, and sexual orientations.

We believe that all who place their faith in Jesus Christ and seek to be his disciple may become members of our church.

We believe that all members of the ACP should have the same rights and responsibilities.

It's time to take our next best steps – to live out our affirmations! We're delighted to have Grace Imathiu joining us once again to guide us in the process. Though we're sincerely committed to loving all in word and in deed- to making Christ's extravagant love known to all who wish to experience it, it's not always easy to do so...yet it can be done!

Join us as we examine together what can be done to make Christ's love known to those who have been made to feel unwelcome and unloved in life, and even within the church.

This is event is part of the Many Colors, Creeds, Cultures...and Conversations! series.

Grace Imathiu is Senior Pastor of First UMC in Evanston, Il. She has also served churches in Kenya as a church planter; a superintendent minister overseeing 68 rural churches in Nkubu; and an urban minister to an ecumenical congregation in Nairobi with strong outreach to the neighboring slums of Kawangware. Pastor Grace is intimately familiar with the Church in its many theological expressions and social locations.

Grace loves people and has a passion and gift for inspiring and nurturing communities of faith to live out loud the prophetic story of Jesus. For Grace, the quintessential expression of the resurrected Lord’s presence is a community whose very DNA is a radical hospitality, which births a loving and a healthy tension that is ideological, theological, racial, ethnic, and cultural.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Featuring Diana Butler Bass - - bestselling Christian author
Tuesday 30 November 19h30-21h in person and via Zoom.

How can you still be a Christian?

This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church experience, their interactions with other believers, and in their personal devotion to Christ. Some are choosing to leave the church, others are exiting their faith all-together, but Diana says there's a much better way...and the key is to Free Jesus.

Join us in conversation with Diana as she speaks to us about these concerns. Come and discover that Jesus is not a one-dimensional/static Savior, but a God who walks with us and helps through life's challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.

This special evening is our invitation to rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Him beyond the narrow confines we may have chosen to build around Him.

Diana Butler Bass is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, especially where faith intersects with politics and culture.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Featuring Shane Claiborne - founder of Red Letter Christians
Tuesday 26 October 19h30-21h via Zoom.

Parkland. Las Vegas. Dallas. Orlando. San Bernardino. Paris. Charleston. Sutherland Springs. Newtown. These cities are now known for the people who were shot and killed in them.

More Americans have died from guns in the US in the last fifty years than in all the wars in American history. With less than 5% of the world's population, the people of the US own nearly half the world's guns. America also has the most annual gun deaths--homicide, suicide, and accidental gun deaths--at 105 per day, or more than 38,000 per year.

Some people say it's a heart problem. Others say it's a gun problem. Shane Claiborne believes it's both!
 

 Join us for a very special conversation with Shane as he examines one of most significant moral issues of our times...Violence. Come and discern what we can do as Christians to beat weapons of all varieties into gardening tools. Come and capture a vision of hope for a world that is weary of violence.

Shane Claiborne is a bestselling author, renowned activist, sought-after speaker, and self-proclaimed “recovering sinner.” He writes and speaks around the world about peacemaking, social justice, and Jesus, and is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President, Executing Grace and Beating Guns. You can follow him on Twitter (@shaneclaiborne), on Facebook (ShaneClaiborne), and at www.redletterchristians.org.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Featuring Jim Winkler- President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the United States
Tuesday 21 September 19h30-21h in person and via Zoom.

Register here to attend this Thurber conversation in person or via Zoom.

It's been 18 months since churches across the globe began to reinvent/restructure their ministries in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We're continuing to meet and function differently here at ACP. The questions many ask concerning our future are these:

What will the Church look like when the pandemic abates?

What will we have learned, and how will we function differently?

What new visions for the Church is God seeking to inspire within us, post-pandemic?

Join us live/in person at ACP, or online via Zoom as we hear from and interact with Jim Winkler.  Jim is a whimsically wise church leader who will be sharing some of the insights and reflections he has gleaned through his consistent engagement with pastors and churches across the globe.

As president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches, Jim oversees an ecumenical partnership of thirty-eight Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African-American, and Living Peace traditions – in a common commitment to advocate and represent God’s love and promise of unity in our public square.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here

Twenty years ago

Featuring Larry and Carol Kalajainen, John Rogers, and Fred Gramann
Thursday 9 September 19h30-21h via Zoom.

It's hard comprehend that twenty years have passed since the horrifying attacks of 11 September 2001, and yet most of us remember where we were, what we experienced, and the grief and loss that impacted us so profoundly.

At this special ACP Community Conversation, we will be hearing from former pastor Larry Kalajainen and his wife Carol, pastor John Rogers, and Fred Gramann - all of whom were serving ACP on 11 September 2001. This is a conversation you won't want to miss as you contemplate your own remembrances of the day and the weeks that followed.

Join us via Zoom as we learn of the outpouring of love that was showered upon the Church by the citizens of Paris, as we consider all of the pain and sorrow that needed tending to, and as we reflect upon the lessons that have been learned (or failed to learn) from this horrifying event.

Special note: ACP will hold a 9/11 Service of Remembrance on 11 September at 16h in the sanctuary. All are welcome to attend. Register for the Remembrance Service here. A Pass Sanitaire is required to attend.

Thurber Conversations are an adult community gathering and growth time that is open to all.

Video recordings of selected past Thurber Lectures and Conversations here