As part of its mission to equip the local church, SOLA Conference 2021 has gone digital to share resources online. This year’s conference theme is “Witness”. The SOLA Conference hopes to equip the local church to be a compelling witness despite our divisive and divided society and culture.
Yesterday, we shared our plenary speakers and panels. Today, we are introducing our microtalk speakers and interviews. They provide great context and tools for Christians to understand and use so that they can be better witnesses in the world. We encourage you to read about the speakers and topics, and then come back on May 24 to check out their talks.
Microtalks
“Paul and Silas in Prison! – 3 Ways to Worship and Witness in a Worst-Case Scenario”
Aaron Lee, Social Media Manager at SOLA Network
Description: How can we find the strength to sing in a worst-case scenario? Like Paul and Silas in prison, we can worship and witness in any situation because God is sovereign over every circumstance.
Bio: Aaron Lee is the Social Media Manager at SOLA Network. Aaron also serves as the Social Media Officer of First Chinese Baptist Church of Walnut, where he is a Sunday School teacher and music leader. Aaron’s music, videos, podcasts, and articles about worship and art are on his website (musicgoon.com).
“Engaging Our Emotions: What do I do with How I Feel?”
Tim St. John, Counseling Pastor at Lighthouse Community Church
Description: As we see in the Psalms, no feeling is meant to be excluded from our relationship with God. In fact, every emotion is designed to turn us toward God and assist us in bringing our hearts and lives before him. Yet in this extended season of suffering, the waves of sorrow, anxiety, and depression have rolled through our lives and drawn our hearts away from God. In this seminar, we will consider from the Psalms how God teaches us to build emotional health in our churches as we engage what we feel and learn to draw near to God with even the most painful emotions.
Bio: Tim St. John serves as the counseling pastor at Lighthouse Community Church in Torrance, CA. He’s a graduate of the Master’s Seminary (M.Div, Th.M) and completed counseling certificate training through ACBC and CCEF. Tim’s passion is to see the grace of gospel-centered counseling grow and thrive in local churches.
“Smelling Your Lunch on a Monday: Witnessing Well in the Workplace”
James H. Lee, Pastor of College Ministry and Church Operations at Living Hope Community Church
Description: Most of us work and work for a lifetime. In fact, the majority of Americans spend the most number of their waking hours at work. Christian workers witnessing well in their workplaces can surely make a difference for Jesus. But what does that look like? Why should I bother? What does witnessing mean in the Bible, and how can we do that at our work without being labeled weird, feeling awkward, and getting in unnecessary trouble?
Bio: James H. Lee is a pastor at Living Hope Community Church in Brea, CA. He gets to be the husband to Hannah and father to Abigail. A former frat boy, James has been radically transformed by Jesus and strives to live for Him. A novice crypto investor with a few years of corporate experience, James is passionate about issues of faith in the workplace.
Gaining a Voice
Dr. Esther Chung-Kim, Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College
Description: The treatment and reception of Asians in the broader American society has shaped the theological tendencies of Asian American Christians, ranging from very radical to very conservative theologies and all of these tendencies, even though often at odds with each other, share a common goal to gain a voice in mainstream Christianity.
Bio: Esther Chung-Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director of The Gould Center of Humanities at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Her research focuses on questions of authority, early modern biblical interpretation, and poor relief reform. She has published books on Inventing Authority: Use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist (2011), Reformation Commentary on Scripture: Acts (2014) and most recently, Economics of Faith: Reforming Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe (2021). She teaches courses on History of World Christianity; Poverty, Wealth, and Social Change; Christianity and Politics in East Asia; and The European Reformation. She is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church.
Interviews
A Bigger Asian American Dream: An Interview with Dr. Sharon Kim
Dr. Sharon Kim, Professor of Sociology at CSU Fullerton
Description: In this interview, Dr. Sharon Kim, Professor of Sociology at Cal State Fullerton, shares her insights on sociological trends amongst Asian Americans, the creation of third spaces for worship, and the future of the Asian American Church.
Bio: Dr. Sharon Kim’s research, which focuses on the intersections of race, religion, and immigration among Korean Americans, has been published in numerous articles and books. Most recently, she has authored a book entitled A Faith of Our Own: Second Generation Spirituality within Korean American Churches that was published by Rutgers University Press. In A Faith of Our Own, she investigates the development and growth of hybrid third spaces of worship among second-generation Korean Americans. Prior to her appointment at Cal State Fullerton, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the Irvine Foundation and taught for three years at Occidental College. She was a recipient of two grants from the Louisville Institute: The Dissertation Fellowship and The First Book Grant for Minority Scholars.
A Reflection on the Past Year: An Interview with Scott Sauls
Scott Sauls, Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church
Description: Pastor Scott Sauls shares about some of the key witnesses in his own life that led him to faith in Christ, as well as some major lessons that he’s been learning in this past season. He also identifies some of the major challenges and opportunities for the Church and provides a word of encouragement to church leaders.
Bio: Scott Sauls is husband to Patti, dad to Abby and Ellie, and serves as senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville. He was also a lead and preaching pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC after planting churches in Kansas City and Saint Louis, where he also taught homiletics at Covenant Seminary. Scott has authored five books including his most recent, A Gentle Answer. He writes weekly at scottsauls.com and can be found on Facebook or Twitter/Instagram at @scottsauls.
Blindspots — People Still Look Like Trees
Harold Kim, Senior Pastor of Christ Central of Southern California
Description: Pastors get front-row seats to people changing, but they often become too busy, burdened, and blind to their own needs for change or to see the change happening in them. Pastor Harold Kim shares his own story of recovering from burnout and blindspots.
Bio: Harold Kim is the founding pastor of Christ Central of Southern California and serves on the Board for Christ Central Network (CCN) and as President of SOLA. He graduated from UC Berkeley, received his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and his Master of Theology (Th.M.) from Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in 2001. Harold is gratefully married to Sun Hi and a happy father of two daughters, Taylor and Elizabeth. His great joy and passion is to see lives changed as Jesus Christ becomes central to everything.