A first-of-a-kind conference combining global secular and Christian leaders heard a common message from many of its non-religious speakers – do not lose human connection due to technology.
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(Photo: Rethink Conference)Larry King speaks via satellite at the Rethink Confernce at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. on Jan. 17-19, 2008.
The advice given at the Rethink Conference at the Crystal Cathedral last week can be a bit of a surprise coming from influential leaders who profit from mass communication technology.
Rethink executive director Bill Dallas recalled, “Larry King was amazing in just helping us understand that although technology is certainly useful and important, we sometimes lose connection points.”
“Technology that helps and compliments our daily lives is useful, but when it becomes a crutch or when it becomes where we lose connection with people then it is dangerous.”
Dallas, who spoke to The Christian Post after the conference closed Saturday, said that venture capitalist Mark Kvamme - whose companies have funded businesses such as Google, YouTube, and Apple – also warned that technology can sometimes obstruct people from engaging in human contact.
“Kvamme has funded so many of these Fortune 500 companies and he said e-mail is a great thing,” Dallas recalled. “[But] he knows people in his company who e-mail the person in the next cubicle as oppose to getting up and talking to them. We e-mail people who are 50 feet from us and that’s when we lose connection.”
King and Kvamme were among the more than 30 prominent leaders that included former President George H.W. Bush, Rupert Murdoch and Kay Warren that spoke at the first-ever Rethink Conference.
About 1,200 unique people attended the conference from Jan. 17-19, and more than 5,000 people across the nation watched the speakers via satellite.
During Bush’s segment, the former president said loyalty is extremely important to him and what he looks for in a leader. Both Bush and media mogul Murdoch replied that family was most important to them.
“So it is interesting because even though this is a conference where we are rethinking many things – in technology, media, and entertainment – there are a few common themes including that we can’t lose the connection with each other and that we can’t lose the trust and loyalty to each other that stood out,” the conference executive director commented.
Prior to the conference taking place, it had come under criticism for inviting secular speakers to advised Christian on how to improve their ministry. Rethink organizers had adamantly defended the conference as seeking to help people “rethink” the methods in communicating the Word of God, not the Gospel message.
“I think we delivered exactly what we wanted to,” said Dallas after the conclusion of the conference. “The exit polls we did and the feedback was outstanding. So to the people who think we compromised the message in any way – we absolutely did not.
“I would say to the critics that at the end of the day what we hoped to deliver, the Gospel message, never changed in the conference during the three days,” he said. “The concern that we are going to try to wash down, or change, or new-age it [Gospel] never came up.”
Dallas said if speakers were not directly delivering a faith message, then they were sharing about technology and how that could help or harm the message.
Before the conference, organizers were uncertain if more Rethink conferences would be held, but after the success of the first one, more will be held “for sure.”
The next Rethink Conference will be held again at the Crystal Cathedral, Feb. 5-7. 2009.
“People want to start the new year and break out of the mold and get outside the box,” Dallas concluded. “Maybe a better word is they want to annihilate the box and get to a place where they can start fresh and rethink. By covering so many areas and a variety of speakers, no one came knowing what would be expected.
“Based on the pre-registration that we took today, this conference will go on.”
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jesus4me,
Well said!
truthandjustice1 -
Actually I read a number of different versions. Do you know of any that say the things that the Catholic church claims such as Peter was the first head of the church, that he was the "Bishop of Rome", or that the Roman church was the center of the Christian world?
I'm glad that you have "so many questions" but first please answer the one's I've already asked.......
Why would you ignore the Word of God in favor of the word of men?
Who do you consider to be your shepherd?
also..........
And on your subject of holidays, could you please explain why the Catholic church would chose to celebrate the birth of Christ incorporated into a pagan festival, and change the date of Easter so that it's a full month before Passover?
RBB,
Good question, I guess we would have to start with what bible you used. Do you use the KJV bible which was compiled by a Catholic, Erasmus, or another bible?
There are so many questions: do you follow Christian traditions like Christmas? I guess I'll just start there.
truthandjustice1 -
In other words because the Catholic church says so. How can you just ignore the contradiction? If the only thing to go on was word of mouth, then that might be one thing, but when the word of mouth directly contradicts what you know to be the Word of God, then that is a totally different thing. Why would you ignore the Word of God in favor of what anyone else said?
I'm not sure what the quote from Clement is about. It shows that there were those (plural) who led the churches. I wouldn't think that would do anything but prove my point.
RBB,
Pope Clement I
"Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry" (Letter to the Corinthians 42:4–5, 44:1–3 [A.D. 80]).
RBB,
The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it" (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
For the early Fathers, "the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees going back lineally to the apostles. . . . [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church's bishops are . . . Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed 'an infallible charism of truth'" (ibid.).
Thus on the basis of experience the Fathers could be "profoundly convinced of the futility of arguing with heretics merely on the basis of Scripture. The skill and success with which they twisted its plain meaning made it impossible to reach any decisive conclusion in that field" (ibid., 41).
Any conference that endorses and clearly invites secular personnel to give Christians "insight" on how to improve their ministries, is a deception. What communion does light and darkness have? Does the world now have better insight to help the "church" "re-think" how it will minister to them? This is absurd. How can people who call themselves born again, who take God at His Word and seek Direction from the Holy Spirit, be inclined to take advise on how to minister to the world from secular people who don't know the Lord? How can the blind lead those who were blind, but now have been enlightened by the Truth of God thru Jesus Christ. No, it should be the other way around. We as the church need to be influencing the world around us with the clear, pure, unadulterated simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to be salt and light to those around us. We are to be seperate from the world. We are in the world, but not of the world. Our citizenship is in heaven. This is not hard folks! Why does the church continue to compromise with the world? Robert Schuller is one of the founders of the seeker friendly movement, and has much in common with the current day deception of the Emergent Church conversations, and the worldwide Ecumenical drive for unification of all the world's religeons. Men like Rick Warren, Tony Campolo, Tony Jones, Brian Mclaren, Doug Pagitt, Richard Foster, Rob Bell, and others have all gone down the slippery slope of deception and endorse it with a seeker friendly message that leads to destruction.
The Body of Christ needs to OPEN IT"S EYES to the Deception in the Church. This conference just goes to show to what extent the "church" has gone to be like the world, rather than seperate as the Scriptures teach us to live.
We as Christians need to beware of all the false doctrines, teachings, suggestions, etc.
Read the Book of Jude if you don't believe me.
For more info on the Emergent Church of Deceipt go to www.understandthe times.org, or www.apprising.org.
"it's just you would never see the Catholic leadership behave in the same manner."
How do you explain the RCC's lack of swift action concerning child-molesting priests?
Another question for taj: What do you think about the lack of unity shown at this link?
http://tinyurl.com/2teh5g
truthandjustice1 -
We have all repeatedly heard from you that you believe the Catholic church is the original church. I was wondering if you could explain then why God's word doesn't bear that claim out. For starters could you please explain where is scripture it shows, that after Jesus' death, Peter was the head of the church, or that he was looked on as someone other than a respected member of the Apostles and Council of Jerusalem. Or for that matter, that the church had a head at all. Each church had leaders and while there were those who went from place to place preaching, such as Paul and his companions, there isn't any indication at all that there was a centralized head.
truthandjustice1 -
My feeling exactly. Why would any of them want to go to the Catholic church when they already belong to the true Christian church, the church laid out in God's own word.
By the way I couldn't help but notice you still haven't said if you think the pope is your shepherd or God.
My Trip to the Rethink Conference
Commentary by Roger Oakland
www.understandthetimes.org
http://www.understandthetimes.org/commentary/c73.shtml
I think there needs to be some serious rethinking about the deceptions coming out of this Rethink Conference. A lot of earthly, worldly, ungodly, sensual, demonic wisdom going on if you ask me. A lot of being unequally yoked with unbelievers and getting advice from unbelievers??? Advice from pagan heathens??? What is the Church coming to?
I mean to say, Robert Schuller is a heretical false teacher as well, isn't he?
Robert Schuller
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/word-faith.html#rschuller
Robert Schuller
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s09.html
I have read essays and articles about Robert Schuller and his teachings and even I have listened to him and watched him proclaiming his twisted teachings, and I have to ask myself; "Is Robert Schuller even a Christian, is he even "born again?"
RBB,
I was referring to the desire to return to the Catholic Church, but at the end of the day what does it matter ? It doesn't matter if it is Schuller, Graham, Dobson,.... you could find similar quotes from all of them. I have nothing against the evangelicals, it's just you would never see the Catholic leadership behave in the same manner. Why would we want to return to something when we are the original Church?
truthandjustice1 - We do understand what " means. An example would be me using it as such, quoting you concerning his quote:
"but sometimes he says things that make sense"
That is me quoting you implying you agree with him. Now if I am wrong and you don't agree with him please say so. Or are you realizing that calling the pope your shepherd instead of God is wrong? Before answering I'd suggest you read what God has to say about it, instead of the words of men (the catechism).
“I think we delivered exactly what we wanted to,” said Dallas after the conclusion of the conference. So to the people who think we compromised the message in any way – we absolutely did not. I would say to the critics that at the end of the day what we hoped to deliver, the Gospel message, never changed in the conference during the three days,” he said. “The concern that we are going to try to wash down, or change, or new-age it [Gospel] never came up.”
Unfortunately, Robert Schuller compromised the Gospel of Jesus Christ years ago. It's not surprising that this event would be hosted at the Crystal Cathedral.