Olivet Institute for Global Strategic Studies Director Dr. William Wagner hosted over 30 global Christian leaders last week in Houston, Texas for the first-ever Global Strategy Forum symposium. Participating from Olivet University were members of the Zinderdrof School of Doctoral Studies committee: Dr. Tom Cowley, Dr. Ray Tallman, and Dr. Mark Wagner. Professor Mark and Calla Li from Olivet's San Francisco campus attended as volunteers to help decorate the event, arrange technical equipment, drive, and photograph.
The forum brought leaders together to discuss how Christian influence could better penetrate Dr. Wagner's 12 mountains of culture. These include Art, Business, Media, Family, Sports, Military, Migration, Technology, Government, and several others.
Christian leaders and thinkers, such as Chuck Bentley of the Christian Economic Forum, Timo Plutschinski Director of the WEA Business Coalition, and James Kramer, CEO of Commissioned LLC, gave keynote speeches that drilled into different areas of ministry where believers are now currently making progress. One theme was that although Christianity is going from a majority to a minority culture, believers must keep pushing forward with a Kingdom mindset, finding new ways to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
The conference ended very hopefully with participants looking forward to seeing each other again in the future, and evaluating what sort of progress is being made in penetrating these mountains of culture.