Join us this August 1st-3rd as people from around the country gather together again to discuss building thriving communities of faith in this radically changing world.

What are people saying about these annual conferences?

"Exciting and cutting edge!"

"I walked away feeling empowered from the
conference--literally. It wasn't just a bunch of info...
I actually felt faith and a surge of empowerment."

"Each year I attend, my thinking is challenged and I am pushed a little further out of the box.  This is good!"

"It felt like we built real community
by having a space to talk about this
approach to faith and church
that isn't happening anywhere else." 

"I will always come back for the people." 

What is Blue Ocean Faith?

We’re meeting more and more people, all over the West, who are sold that their experience of faith will work best in the “Blue Ocean,” where very few churches and church people “swim.”  They’re seeing secular people around them explore and embrace faith even as their own faith is growing in ways they’d never anticipated.

This Summit will explore, in a number of surprising, fresh ways, what the substance of this faith is.  Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann will fill us in on her three-year study of the effects of a sort of faith that looks a lot like this.  (Hint: this faith turns out to be powerfully situated for good in a secular age.)  A panel of culture leaders will consider the possible impact of this faith in our broader culture.  (Peter Eavis, Wall Street Journal columnist [currently on leave]; Jill Lamar, editor-in-chief of Henry Holt and Company; Christy Scott Cashman, film actress, screenwriter and executive producer of recent best-picture nominee The Kids Are All Right; and Brian Odom, Associate Professor of Physics at Northwestern).  Dave Schmelzer (author of Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist, pastor of the Greater Boston Vineyard, and among the convevers of Blue Ocean, Inc.) will fill us in on the historic, theological roots of this approach to faith.  Charles Park (pastor of The  River Church, which meets at Manhattan’s Ground Zero, and another convener of Blue Ocean, Inc.) will set the stage for the culture panel and also join a conversation on its practical implications.

Along with what we hope will be several welcome surprises, there will also be smaller settings to discuss issues specifically relevant to you and in which you can start—or continue—to build the partnerships and friendships that will make this journey of faith a rich one.

Join us for what looks to be the most substantive, visionary and connection-rich Summit yet.

Logistics:

Download the schedule:

Conference Speakers:

Additional Resources:

If you haven't had the opportunity to attend these conferences in the past, you can still be on the cutting edge of the conversation by listening to a few of the key talks, watching these short videos, reading some of the printed resources, or joining in the conversation at the blog.

           BOS Talks                                   Videos                        Not The Religious Type               Blue Ocean Churches