REGISTER HERE

April 20 — 22, 2016

Westin Hotel, St. Louis, Mo.

811 Spruce Street
St. Louis, MO 63102
(314) 621-2000

Driving Directions

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: ACPsponsorRateCard2016

Keynote Speakers: Lisa Sharon Harper (April 21) and Prof. Grant Wacker (April 22)

Thursday, April 21, 2016: Lisa Sharon Harper,
Chief Church Engagement Officer, Sojourners

Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ chief church engagement officer, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community.

Friday, April 22, 2016: Prof. Grant Wacker
Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Christian History
Duke University

Professor Wacker joined the faculty after teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1977 to 1992. He specializes in the history of Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, World Missions and American Protestant thought. He is the author or co-editor of seven books, including Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (2001, Harvard University Press) and America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (2014, Harvard University Press). From 1997 to 2004, Professor Wacker served as a senior editor of the quarterly journal, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture. He is past president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and of the American Society of Church History, and a trustee of Fuller Theological Seminary. Wacker is a lay member of Orange United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C.

 RETURNING TO ROOTS:

The Associated Church Press traces its origin to a St. Louis, Missouri, meeting in 1916 at the Warwick Hotel. For our 100th Anniversary, we will return to St. Louis, with a host of professional-development workshops, fellowship opportunities, worship and inspiring keynote speakers.

In the 1916 meeting, editors covering the quadrennial meeting of the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.) decided that they should meet on a continuing basis. Wartime constraints in 1917 and 1918 prevented meetings those two years.The second meeting was convened in Cleveland, Ohio, in June 1919. E. C. Wareing, Western Christian Advocate, was elected president of the then-named Editorial Council of the Religious Press. Jaspar T. Moses, National Bulletin, and F. M. Barton, The Expositor, were chosen secretary and treasurer, respectively.In 1937, the name of the organization was changed to the Associated Church Press, and the constitution was revised.