Covenant MidWinter Conference

The 2011 Midwinter Conference will broadcast seven live worship services. Using the following links, you will find everything we gained permission to capture and post from the Midwinter Conference.

http://www.covchurch.org/midwinter/video/

John M. Perkins

 MONDAY, JANUARY 31 @ 6 PM (Mountain)

John M. Perkins is a sharecropper’s son who grew up in New Hebron, Mississippi, amidst poverty. Fleeing to California at age seventeen after his older brother’s murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. However, after converting to Christianity in 1960, he returned to Mendenhall, Mississippi, to share the gospel of Christ. While there, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings, and imprisonment. He was arrested again in 2005 while protesting in Washington D.C. against the U.S. government for de-funding of programs aiding the poor.

In Mendenhall, Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae, founded Voice of Calvary Ministries. This Christian community development ministry started a church, health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development, and training center. From this ministry, other development projects started in the neighboring towns of Canton, New Hebron, and Edwards, Mississippi.

In 1982, the Perkins family returned to California, where Perkins and his wife founded Harambee Christian Family Center in northwest Pasadena, a neighborhood that had one of the highest daytime crime rates in California. Harambee runs numerous programs including after-school tutoring, Good News Bible Clubs, an award-winning technology center, summer day camp, youth internship programs, and a college scholarship program.

In 1983, Perkins and his wife, along with a few friends and other major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development, Inc. for the sole purpose of supporting their mission of advancing the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world.

Al Tizon

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3 @ 8 AM (Mountain)

Al Tizon is associate professor of holistic ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University and the director of Word & Deed Network of the Evangelicals for Social Action in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

He received his BA and MA in religious educational and church leadership studies from Vanguard University of Southern California in Costa Mesa, California, and his PhD in missiology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. As a missionary with Action International Ministries, Tizon and his family engaged in community development work, ministry to street children, and church leadership development among the poor in his native Philippines for almost ten years. An ordained Covenant minister, Tizon served several churches in both the Philippines and the United States as associate and interim pastor for seven years and as lead pastor for five.

Tizon is the author of Transformation after Lausanne: Radical Evangelical Mission in Global-Local Perspective and co-author of Linking Arms, Linking Lives: How Urban-Suburban Partnerships Can Transform Communities.

Al and his wife, Janice, reside in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. They have four children and one grandchild.

Ray Johnston

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1 @ 7 PM (Mountain)

Ray Johnston is the president of Thriving Churches International. He is a twenty-five year veteran of both youth and adult ministry. Johnston has served in churches in Duarte and Marin County, California. He was the chairman of the Department of Youth Ministry at North Park College and adjunct professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago. For many years, he helped coordinate the youth ministries program of the Evangelical Covenant Church where he was responsible for the support of youth pastors, youth ministry training, and the development and promotion of national youth events. He is also founding pastor of Bayside Church in Granite Bay, California.

Johnston is the author of four books: What If It’s True?; Developing Student Leaders; Developing Spiritual Growth in Junior Highers; and Help, I’m a Sunday School Teacher!: and 50 Ways to Make Your Sunday School Come Alive. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, leadership training events, national conferences, and family camps.

Ray is a graduate of Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Carol, currently live in Granite Bay. They have four children.

Laura Sumner Truax

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3 @ 6 PM (Mountain)

Laura Sumner Truax is senior pastor at LaSalle Street Church, a non-denominational church in downtown Chicago with a long tradition of uniting individual faith in Christ with God’s call for justice and compassion lived out in the world.

Truax holds a master’s in pastoral studies with an emphasis in spirituality and a master’s of divinity degree. She is a frequent speaker and serves as a teaching pastor for the University of Chicago.

Laura is a past board member of Interfaith Youth Corps, which works to build a world in which religiously diverse young people interact peacefully, cooperate to serve the common good, strengthen their religious identities, and build inter-religious understanding. She currently serves on the Board of Governors of Opportunity International, an international micro-lending institution committed to lifting the most impoverished by modest low-income loans, as well as on the advisory board of Cabrini Green Legal Aid, the first faith-based legal clinic in the nation to provide criminal defense for those who cannot afford it; the Theological Book Network, a nonprofit committed to resourcing seminaries and Bible colleges of the majority world with high quality books and resources; and the Congregational Resource Guide, a group of scholars and practitioners engaged in supporting and resourcing congregational and denominational leaders in developing leadership practices.

She and her husband, Terry, live in Chicago, and have one child.

Craig Gross

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 @ 7 AM (Mountain)

As a young pastor in Southern California, Craig Gross began to notice a recurring theme among those he cared for – a struggle with pornography. He decided to address the root of the problem, so he went to the porn industry to ask some questions. This passion led him to start XXXchurch.com, a website that mixes the seedy with the sacred in an effort to raise the often taboo subject of pornography. Within days of his initial journey to the porn industry, some people in the church began to condemn Gross’s efforts as immoral and ineffective. At the same time, many others affirmed him, opening hardened and often broken hearts to a relevant and authentic gospel they had never experienced in mainstream religion.

In the seven years since it began, XXXchurch.com has had more than 70 million visitors to the website. Gross has been featured in GQ, Newsweek, LA Times, and the New York Times. He has also been on Good Morning America, Nightline, and CNN. His ministry is the subject of an award-winning documentary and a new TV documentary.

Craig has written six books. His latest book is Jesus Loves You…This I Know. Craig and his wife, Jeanette, live in Las Vegas, Nevada, with their two children.