Save the Dates: January 31- February 2, 2025
Volunteer at Resist the Drift 2025! Your time and talents can help make the Contend Conference an extraordinary event. We’re looking for volunteers to assist with a variety of tasks including setup, guest services, and breakout sessions. Please provide your top choices for volunteer positions and join our mission to inspire and equip others at Millington Baptist Church. Contact Sue Turner for Volunteer opportunities.
Volunteer Registration: If you will be registering to volunteer at the event, please make sure you register to volunteer before registering to attend. This will give you a discount code for your registration to attend.
Resist the Drift:
Contend Conference
Something is happening in our world … can you feel it? Do you see it? It’s not surprising if you don’t. The change is slow, almost unnoticeable. Like a swimmer floating in the ocean, the waves can carry you far from shore. It doesn’t feel like you’ve moved until you open your eyes and look.
Culturally speaking, this “drift” has been happening for a long time. However, recent events have caused people to open their eyes and see how far the waves have taken us. What was once considered truth is now questioned. People we work with, go to school with, and live near have no understanding of the Gospel and the truths of the Bible. Their view of Jesus is skewed. These assumptions have made their way into the church. Leaders and institutions we once trusted … have drifted.
What Now?
On January 31 – February 2, 2025, Millington Baptist Church will be hosting its second “CONTEND” Conference. The theme for this conference is resisting the drift. It is so easy to be carried along by the cultural waves. It is so easy to drift. The writer to Hebrews was combating this same issue. In a culture—and church—filled with compromise, Hebrews exhorts us: “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it (Heb. 2:1).”
We must pay closer attention to what we have heard. This weekend conference will help you recognize the drift and resist it with clarity, boldness, and conviction.
Are you ready to Resist The Drift?
Conference Schedule
6pm- Bookstore, Food, Connections Lounge
7pm- Conference Open, Worship
7:20pm- Welcome Address: “Recognize the Drift ” (Bob Erbig)
7:35pm- SESSION ONE: “Progressive Christianity: A Biblical Response to a Growing Movement” (Alisa Childers)
8:45pm- Worship, Next Day Activities
9:00pm- Dessert Social
8:00am- Bookstore, Food, Connections Lounge
NOTE: Kids Programming Available During Morning Sessions (TBD)
9am- Day Two Open, Worship
9:20am- Short Talk
9:35am- SESSION TWO: “Parenting and Social Media” (Jason Thacker)
10:45am- BREAK
11:00am- Short Talk: “Helping Teens Resist the Drift” (Johnny Graves)
11:15am- SESSION THREE: “Live Your Truth” (Alisa Childers)
12:30pm- LUNCH!
1:30-2:30pm- BREAKOUT TRACKS (Local Leaders)
2:30-5:00pm- Discussion Groups/Break
5:00-6:30pm- SESSION FOUR: “Critical Theory and Social Justice Ideology” (Neil Shenvi)
Including BREAK/DINNER (SIT DOWN DINNER with Speaker)
7:00-8:30pm- Speaker Q & A + Worship (Bob)
- Short Talk: “Music of The Revolution” –Pastor Bob
8:30am- Bookstore, Lounge and Food available in FH Ministry Center.
9:00am- “The Gospel as an Apologetic” Neil Shenvi
NOTE: Alisa Childers interview in both services w/Bob (Deconstruction Focus)
10:45am- “Wisdom and Discernment in a Chaotic Public” Jason Thacker
Speaker Resources
As a lifelong church-goer, follower of Jesus, and former CCM recording artist with the Dove award-winning group ZOEgirl, I experienced a period of profound doubt about my faith in my mid-thirties. I felt as though I had been tossed in a stormy ocean of uncertainty with no life jacket or lifeboat in sight. I didn’t know where to find answers to my questions, or if answers existed at all. Did I have to accept it all on some kind of blind faith? I began to investigate my faith intellectually—I took seminary classes and read everything I could get my hands on. This began my journey from unreasoned doubt into a vibrant, rational, and informed faith.
Whether you’re a seeker, a doubting Christian, or strong Christian wanting to become better at articulating your faith, I pray that this website will be a lifeboat for you. So jump in and let’s tackle the tough questions together.
I grew up in Delaware and attended Princeton University as an undergraduate where I worked on high-dimensional function approximation with Professor Herschel Rabitz. I became a Christian in Berkeley, CA where I did my PhD in Theoretical Chemistry at UC – Berkeley with Professor Birgitta Whaley. The subject of my PhD dissertation was quantum computation, including topics in quantum random walks, cavity quantum electrodynamics, spin physics, and the N-representability problem. From 2005-2010, I worked as a postdoctoral associate with Prof. John Tully at Yale where I did research into nonadiabatic dynamics, electron transfer, and surface science. I moved down to Durham in 2010 to do research into nonadiabatic dynamics and electronic structure theory with professor Weitao Yang at Duke University.
A few days after arriving in Durham, I had a seizure caused by an undiagnosed 5cm brain tumor between my cerebellum and occipital lobe. By God’s grace, the emergency surgery was a success and I’ve been healthy ever since.
In 2015, I quit my job at Duke to homeschool my four children, although I still fiddle with quantum mechanics now and then for fun. In addition to my duties as the principal of the South Durham Academy for Math and Science (also known as Daddy Academy), I tutor the Master’s class at our local Classical Conversations homeschool co-op. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, weight-lifting, and video games.
My wife and I are members at the Summit Church. If you have questions about Christianity or anything else, feel free to email me at:
Jason Thacker serves as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He also is a senior fellow in bioethics and director of the research institute at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is the author of several books including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. He also serves as the editor of The Digital Public Square: Christian Ethics in a Technological Society and co-editor Baptist Social Ethics and the Essentials in Christian Ethics series with B&H Academic.
He was the project leader and lead drafter of Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles, and his work has been featured at New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Politico, The Week, USA Today, Christianity Today, World Magazine, The Gospel Coalition, and Desiring God.
He is a graduate of The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies. He also holds a Master of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he is currently a PhD candidate in ethics, public theology, and philosophy. He serves as an associate fellow with the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge, an advisor for AI and Faith, and fellow in science and technology at the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Seminary. He is married to Dorie and they have two sons.
SESSION INFORMATION
SESSION ONE, Friday, 7:35 pm.
“Progressive Christianity: A Biblical Response to a Growing Movement” (Alisa Childers)
In this talk, Alisa will walk the audience through the history, key beliefs, and key figures of the movement of progressive Christianity, and ultimately show how progressive Christianity is at odds with historic Christianity and even disagrees with Jesus on what the Bible is, what Jesus accomplished on the cross, and the definition of the gospel.
SESSION TWO, Saturday, 9:35 am.
“Parenting and Social Media” (Jason Thacker)
Social media is a tool that can be used for both good and ill, but also is profoundly shaping every aspect of our hearts, minds, and souls. Recognizing this reality is one of the key steps in raising up the next generation in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue. We need more than simple tips and tricks on how to use technology better as we recognize that these tools have become one of the primary ways that we are being discipled today and transformed by the patterns of this world. Learn how to think deeply about the nature of these tools that never leave our side and how we might practically equip the next generation to wisely engage them as they seek to follow Jesus in a digital age.
SESSION THREE, Saturday 11:15 am.
“Live Your Truth” (Alisa Childers)
Popular slogans like “live your truth,” “follow your heart,” “you are enough” “you are the boss of you” and “you’re perfect just as you are” flood our social media feeds. In many cases, even materials marketed as “Christian” promote these ideas. But are they biblical? In this talk, Alisa will walk the audience through 3-5 cultural lies, demonstrate the bad thinking underneath them, and then turn to the Bible for a much better story.
SESSION FOUR, Saturday, 5 pm.
“Critical Theory and Social Justice Ideology” (Neil Shenvi)
Critical theory and its expression in fields such as critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and queer theory are having a profound impact on our culture. Contemporary critical theory’s ideas about race, class, gender, identity, and justice have dramatically shaped how people think, act, and view one another—in Christian and secular spheres alike.
BREAKOUT INFORMATION
BREAKOUT ONE: Human Trafficking (Adrienne Livingston)
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT TWO: Muslim Theme (Alfonse Javed)
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT THREE: Teens
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT FOUR: Kids Programming available Saturday, 9am-12pm
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
Brought to you by The Underground Sessions
Hotel Reservations
Hotel: Courtyard Marriott in Basking Ridge
Address: 595 Martinsville Rd, Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
MBC has provided Contend Conference attendees with a discounted block rate hotel reservation opportunity. The fee for this hotel room is $125.00 (plus taxes & fees) and you can make that reservation through Courtyard Basking Ridge with the link below. Use the code MBRS for your discounted rate.
BREAKOUT INFORMATION
BREAKOUT ONE: Human Trafficking (Adrienne Livingston)
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT TWO: Muslim Theme (Alfonse Javed)
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT THREE: Teens
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
BREAKOUT FOUR: Kids Programming available Saturday, 9am-12pm
“TBD” (TBD) Text Description to come
Brought to you by The Underground Sessions
Rev David Hentschel 
