JourneyOnline
Pete Rollins is travelling all the way from Northern Ireland to be a one of four Keynote Speakers appearing at the National Christian Youth Convention in January 2007.
Delegates, volunteers and participants will have the opportunity to engage with Pete as he speaks at the programmed evening rallies, bible study features and highlighted electives throughout the convention week.
On his website Pete Rollins says, “The last ten years of my life has involved a heady cocktail of youth and community work, unemployment, Church planting, event organising, philosophy and coffee shop loitering…, I am now seeking to shift the hangover via the development of Ikon, (a group which describes itself as apocalyptic, emerging and failing), lecturing in emerging church theology, and writing.
"I currently spend my time lecturing in philosophy (primarily the areas of religion, ethics and contemporary continental theory) and co-ordinating the Ikon community.”
A Church Times article on Greenbelt 2005 described Pete Rollins as “holding a seminar spellbound’, and Ikon’s ‘gentle, symbolic, and creative multimedia act of worship’ as ‘weird but wondrous’.
The emerging church (Ikon) is still a developing movement, yet it currently faces a serious challenge. How it responds will reveal whether it is little more than the latest re-imagining of the evangelical tradition, designed to address the decline in church attendance, or a radical re-envisaging of faith.”
Jeremy Burtenshaw, convention manager for NCYC 2007, met up with Pete at the UK Greenbelt Festival in August 2005.
Jeremy said, “Pete stood out at Greenbelt; he was the highlight of the festival for me.
"He stood in that awesome balance between urging people to have a critically considered faith yet still understanding that we are all human and that life is tough at times.
"His humble and sincere yearning for the truth excited me for the first time in years.”
Pete’s provisional thoughts revolve around the idea of exploring how becoming an Agent of Change must involve entering into a process of being changed.
He will explore the idea of evangelism as a two-way dialogue rather than a one-way monologue and how being a Christian involves becoming a Christian and how others can be an instrument of our further conversion.
NCYC will be held at Scotch College, Swanbourne from 3-9 January 2007. For more information on Pete Rollins, or any of the other keynote speakers (Tim Costello, Joyleen Koolmatrie or Dave Andrews) visit the official NCYC website at http://agentsofchange.org.au or contact the office on 1300 00 6292.
