Engaging Culture Conference

Want to challenge folks to get active in sharing their faith?  Bring Carl & Juan to your event!God has not called us to lock ourselves up in our temples or to live in a bubble. God has called us to be “Light” and “Salt” to this dark and fallen world. God has called us to engage this world’s ideas and demolish them without demolishing people. Peter is clear that when we engage our culture, we must do it with gentleness and respect. So, why is it that we so often fail to engage our culture? Is it because we are afraid of not being able to respond to the attacks? Is it because we fear rejection? Is it because we are not so sure about our own faith? Whatever the answer to that question, if we don’t engage culture—the consequences will be devastating to the Church in this country, not to mention the lives of our kids and future generations of Christians.
The Engaging Culture Conference is designed to give your church or group the tools it needs to withstand the attacks and engage in the biblical task of demolishing arguments and any idea that raises itself against the knowledge of God. Our experience has been that students are often surprised when they hear good, solid, rational arguments in response to the doubts that they have.
Juan Valdes has dedicated his life in response to God’s calling to equip Christians with the tools they need to honor and serve God with excellence. Juan has over 30 years of ministry experience and it will show, as he bless your group with insightful, informative, interactive, and engaging presentations.
Unique Approach
For these talks, we use video clips from the skeptics and atheists. We allow the audience to hear the arguments in the words of popular critics and enemies of the cross of Christ. We then proceed to debunk each and every argument they present, leaving no room of doubt that we have the Truth and their best arguments are nothing but hollow and deceptive philosophies easily refuted by the Truth.
Motivating
These talks are highly engaging. You will find yourself motivated to dig deeper into God’s Word, work hard at living by God’s Word and you will be emboldened to share God’s Word.
Reassuring
Doubts certainly creep in when we are constantly bombarded with arguments against God, but they will dissipate as the Truth of God is presented and answers are provided. Hearing good answers to the tough questions about God can have a tremendous impact on building and solidifying the faith of your church or group.
Conference Topics
The Doubt Virus
Doubt is destroying young Christians when their faith is challenged and they are unprepared to respond. To further the dilemma, the answers provided by many range from irrelevant to heretical. Many of these young people find that nobody has a good answer and few Christians even care. What can we do to fight the spread of this virus?  This talk tackles both the problem and the solution to the Doubt Virus.
Engaging Culture: What is Truth?
“This may be true for you but it’s not true for me!” That is the mantra of a society that has rejected the existence of absolute truth. This talk make the case for absolute truth and clears up the confusion between truth and opinion; between truth and personal preferences.  Once we understand that the Truth of God’s Word is not subjective—but clearly objective, the relativistic perspective on truth crumbles. This talk equips the listener to engage with culture and demolish the arguments of relativism.
Engaging Culture: Tolerance
Our culture promotes the idea that it is intolerant and completely unacceptable to tell someone that you think they are wrong about something. That is, after all, the logical outworking of moral relativism. If everyone decides for themselves what is right and wrong, then who are we to tell someone they are wrong? This talk demonstrates that the modern concept of tolerance is self-defeating, and the biblical alternative is proven to be the rational position.
Engaging Culture: Attacks on the Bible
This talk focus on the several attempts by various atheist and agnostic groups to argue that many of the Bible stories are myths and fables. Special attention is placed on the more controversial stories such as: the talking snake, the talking donkey, Jonah and the great fish, walking on water, and several other difficult passages.  Each attack is considered rationally and logically and thoroughly debunked as the Truth of God’s Word comes to light.
Engaging Culture: The “Copy Cat” Theory
This talk refutes the idea that Jesus Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection are simply compilations of bits and pieces from different ancient mythologies. Amazingly, this is one of the most often asked questions at all of the conferences and talks we do.  The internet has picked up the idea and spread it like a wild fire. That idea is the main argument behind Bill Maher’s film Religulous and the Internet movie Zeitgeist. In this talk, the claims are explored one by one and thoroughly debunked.
Engaging Culture: Faith vs. Science
Are faith and science irreconcilable? Is it an either/or dilemma? If you listen to modern skeptics, science and faith have nothing in common.  Our culture promotes the idea that intelligent people pursue science while the ignorant pursue faith.  If you are a Christian, that places you squarely in the camp of the dumb, the uneducated, and the fanatical people that believe in the myths and fables of the Bible.   How do we respond to this attack? This talk engages the argument by clarifying the meaning of the words “Faith” and “Science.” In addition, the notion of irreconcilability is proven to be erroneous.  This talk equips your church or group with the tools to demolish this dangerous attack.
Engaging Culture: The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to Christianity among the unsaved. This talk tackles the many aspects of this difficult issue by addressing many common and hard questions: What is evil? Where did it come from? Is there a purpose to evil? Why can’t evil be stopped? Why is there so much evil? Couldn’t God have made a world without evil? Each question is addressed from a sound biblical, and rational, perspective. Furthermore, this talks compares the Christian response to that of other worldviews and highlights the fact that the Christian response to the problem of evil is the most rational and intellectually satisfying of them all.
Engaging Culture: Why Follow Jesus?
Why Jesus and not Mohammed, or Allah, or the Buddha, or any of the millions of Hindu deities? What makes Jesus worthy of being followed?  This talk addresses the primary reasons why following Jesus is the only alternative that makes sense.  We consider Jesus’ works, his claims, and his resurrection.  In addition, this talk provides a strong argument that proves the resurrection of Jesus using historical documents outside of the Bible, giving the listener the ammunition they need to respond to the claim that there is no evidence of the resurrection outside of the Bible.
1 Day Conference Schedule
Saturday Morning,
8:00 AM – Sound & A/V check
8:30 AM – 9:00 AM – Introduction and Worship
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: What is Truth?
10:00 AM – 10:15 AM – Break
10:15 AM  –  11:15 AM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Attacks on the Bible
11:15 AM  –  11:30 AM – Break
11:30 AM  –  12:30 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Tolerance
12:30 PM  –  1:30 PM – LUNCH
1:30 PM  –  2:30 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Faith vs. Science
2:30 PM  – 2:45 PM – Break
2:45 PM  –  3:45 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: The Problem of Evil
3:45 PM  –  4:00 PM – Break
4:00 PM  –   5:00 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Why Follow Jesus?
5:00 PM   Closing
2 Day Conference Schedule
Schedule
Saturday Morning,
8:00 AM – Sound & A/V check
8:30 AM – 9:00 AM – Introduction and Worship
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: What is Truth?
10:00 AM – 10:15 AM – Break
10:15 AM  –  11:15 AM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Attacks on the Bible
11:15 AM  –  11:30 AM – Break
11:30 AM  –  12:30 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Tolerance
12:30 PM  –  1:30 PM – LUNCH
1:30 PM  –  2:30 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Faith vs. Science
2:30 PM  – 2:45 PM – Break
2:45 PM  –  3:45 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: The Problem of Evil
3:45 PM  –  4:00 PM – Break
4:00 PM  –   5:00 PM – Juan Valdes – Engaging Culture: Why Follow Jesus?
5:00 PM   Closing