Worldview Topics
Leadership, Writers & Teachers Conferences & Training
Worldview Seminars
Here you’ll find Lael’s topics for conferences and seminars with a more educational tone.
Enlivening her messages with humor and stories from the front lines, Lael shows how our basic Christian beliefs correspond with reality and offer meaning and hope. At ACSI conventions, writer’s conferences, business and political groups, universities and Christian schools, leadership training in churches, and conducting her own “Focus Your Worldview” weekend conferences, she equips her audience to live and teach a Christian worldview with confidence. The following topics can be adapted to fit the needs of your group. (
denotes keynote) Many may be illustrated with computer slides, music and video clips.
Leadership, Writers & Teachers Conferences & Training
Connecting with the Hearts of Today's
Audience
We are living in the midst of a revolution, not of governments, but of worldviews. Our neighbors, co-workers and family members have such different perspectives on truth, experience, meaning and hope. “Postmodernism is the air we breathe,” and Lael offers an insightful yet easily understood summary of our postmodern times for busy leaders. Beginning with a brief comparison/contrast of Christian, modern and postmodern worldviews, Lael constructs a profile of today’s audience and offers practical strategies to connect our message with their needs. This message is helpful for speakers, writers and teachers on any level--anyone who wants to sharpen his or her understanding of how to present God’s message in a winsome and compelling way to today’s audience.
Business and political groups: Connecting with the Heart of Today's Audience has been adapted to secular audiences such as Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, and Pachyderms focusing on the ways our shared basic beliefs are changing with unique applications for how to understand the red-state/blue-state divide, how to persuade voters and how to lead with a vision that connects to the radical individualism of today’s workforce.
Guarding Our Hearts in the Jesus Market
We do ministry in an entertainment culture where the highest value is getting and satisfying a big audience. Our greatest failure is often not our inability to educate or inspire, but to not be provocative enough to be noticed by the media. Ezekiel was perhaps the most sensational of the prophets. This message shows how his words challenge us to use imagination and tension to strengthen our message and how his life inspires us to write and speak with integrity, our lives a walking billboard of God's holiness and grace.
A Thinking Woman's Journey with Christ
(Originally presented to the women of the Torrey Honors Program, Biola University)
When God creates a woman who loves to think, that is part of her beauty—a reflection of the Lord's glory. This message challenges thinking women to live in that beauty, confident that God can nurture their gifts in the context of marriage and motherhood and what may seem like life’s detours. Because God loves not just our minds; he is after our hearts. Our beauty as women who love to think can also be a snare. Women will be inspired to yield to the Spirit’s exposure of the hidden pride that comes with learning so that we may minister with integrity of mind and heart—all so that we may spread for others the banquet that is God.
Worldview Seminars
Moving Not Just Minds, but Hearts for Christ
As parents and educators, we are trained to communicate information to the mind. How can we communicate truth to the heart of today's postmodern generation motivated less by facts and duty, more by story and vision? This message shows how we can move from an “ark mentality” focused on the protection of our children to a “missional mentality,” inspiring them to be Kingdom-builders. We'll discuss how to use stories and questions, imagination and authenticity to teach truth in a way that can ignite their vision and passion for God and his Story.
Worldproofing Your Faith
An easy-to-understand overview of Lael’s book, Worldproofing Your Kids: Helping Moms (as well as Dads and teachers) Prepare Their Kids to Navigate Today’s Turbulent Times. A Christian worldview gives true, although not exhaustive answers to the big questions of life such as:
• How can we be confident our faith is true?
• Where did we come from? Who are we?
• What are we supposed to be doing here?
• Where are we going?
This message respects the complexity and mystery of God and his creation, yet points to the knowledge, evidence and sufficient answers he was given us. It presents a summary of the following five messages that outline her book:
Honey We've Shrunk the Truth!
From “God’s Truth is marching on,” to “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” to “truth that’s true for me,” truth has shrunk to the level of personal opinion. How can we strengthen our confidence that our beliefs are true in a “whatever” world? Be confident as we look at both how God’s truth corresponds with the reality he created and at Jesus, the Truth-maker’s, resurrection and testimony.
Top Reasons to Believe the “Fact” of
Evolution
This message shows how creation and evolution are both “faith” positions. The mushrooming evidence for design is contrasted with the gaps and holes in Darwinian theory in an accessible presentation for people who want to major on the big ideas and minor on the techno-details. (From Lael’s chapter of the same name in Worldproofing recommended by Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial.)
Cheerleading for the Richer Life
What are we supposed to be doing here? Our kids may say, “Having fun!” but we can show them how God offers something more--Kingdom work with eternal impact, leisure without boredom. This message examines the musings of a mind getting flabby on too much leisure and entertainment and suggests specific strategies for challenging our kids’ minds with great art and real-world involvement.
Hot Glue Guns and the Meaning of Life
As women we've been designed for care-giving and gifted in ways that may take us into the marketplace. How do we find the balance? Perhaps the better question is, What kind of legacy will we leave? A look at Genesis 1 & 2 and Proverbs 31 helps us find answers from both our design and our gifting.
Living Large, Finishing Well
What does it take to move beyond the small stories of our lives and live Life with a Christian worldview, heart set on eternity? Lael shares her own story of how God
has taken her beyond the confidence that our beliefs are true to a delight in the Truth-maker—a journey that has fired her passion for building a Kingdom.
