General Sessions

We will begin the study of our design not with the first Adam but with the last (1 Corinthians 15:45). Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), fully God and fully human. As our confidence rests in him, we are being renewed and transformed into his image. Only in him will we discover our true design. This session will select three features of Jesus’s humanity that reveal our own: Jesus walked with the Father; he was tested and relied on the words of his Father; and he loved even when he was not loved.

If God has already given us our identity, why do we feel such a strong pull to reinvent it? We feel it in the gap between who we are and who we think we should be. This isn't only a cultural moment; it's an ancient human temptation. Scripture names it as an exchange: We refuse what God has given and remake ourselves on our terms (Romans 1; Ephesians 4). This pull is hard to resist in a world of designer identities, where life becomes something to shape, craft, and perfect. In this session, we’ll seek to understand this temptation by looking to Jesus—the true human—who reveals the life we were created to receive.

At its best, the development of technology reflects humanity’s mandate to steward and rule creation for God’s glory. Technological advances often help ease the challenges of everyday life in a fallen world. But when do they begin to undermine the very characteristics that make us human? In particular, when do the promises of technology—knowledge, power, efficiency, and ease—short-circuit the slow, patient growth in wisdom and character God intends for his followers? This session will explore the promises and perils of modern technology and suggest ways for Christians to embrace the call to walk in “the ancient paths, where the good way is” to find rest for our souls (Jeremiah 6:16).

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, we find the foundation on which we are meant to build our sense of self: We were created in the image of God. That image was marred when Adam and Eve sinned. So what does Scripture show us about how that image is being restored in us? And what does that mean for us now and in eternity future? In this session, we will help unpack the Bible’s story about a people who find their identity in being connected to Christ, who is at work by his Spirit to conform them to his image.

Life is becoming depersonalized. Loneliness is an epidemic; screens replace people; our algorithms know us better than our friends. In this strange new world, where can we rediscover our humanity? With all her flaws, the local church is the headquarters for God’s rehumanizing work. It’s here where we rediscover and bear witness to God’s good design, growing into our future selves together. In this session, we’ll consider how—through Word and prayer, baptism and communion, gathering and hosting, singing and service—the Spirit of Christ is rehumanizing us as his people.

Differences that become barriers abound in the church: Jews and Gentiles, husbands and wives, children and parents, employees and employers. We are tempted to prefer and to do life only with those who are like us culturally, politically, socially, and sexually. But as the body of Christ, holy and united through him, the church is called to bear witness to a hostile and polarized world. In this session, we’ll explore how followers of Jesus demonstrate what life together is meant to look like as God’s new creation people.

Paul’s vision of the resurrected life is so much more than mere restoration. In his great resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, we learn how the perishable gives way to the imperishable, the mortal to immortality, dishonor to glory, and weakness to strength. In this session, we’ll consider how, in Christ, what is earthly becomes finally and fully fit for heaven. Sharing in Christ’s resurrection means sharing in the ultimate victory of life over death. Those who know this hope are steadfast and immovable, with a vision that sends them out abounding in the work of the Lord.