From the beginning, humanity has been enamored with technology, and too often our self-absorbed “let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its tops in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves” posture stands in sharp contrast to God’s “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” [1]

From the earliest days in Eden’s Garden, our great desire has been to belong, to be recognized, to have others look at us and love us for who we are. Across history, especially since the industrial revolution and the recent bourgeoning of social media, we’ve been tempted to satisfy our deepest relational needs with the alchemies of mammon—what author and cultural leader Andy Crouch understands as abundance without dependence—and magic—technologies that rule our lives but make us less human the longer we use them. Both mammon and magic act as superpowers, promising power but requiring no effort. “And power without effort,” according to Crouch, “diminishes us as much as it delights us.”

In our interactive lunch based on his recent book, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World (Convergent, 2022), Crouch paints a vivid picture of how we’ve been deceived by a false vision of human flourishing. But he goes far beyond just diagnosing our crisis; he offers three distinct redemptive moves that can strengthen our individual and communal capacity for greater heart-soul-mind-strength love and service. Gleaning lessons from the Christian movement’s early social innovations to examples of more humanizing forms of technology, Crouch explores how we can restore community and the relational trust and vulnerability it requires.

Whatever your occupation, vocation, or level of organizational leadership, we invite you to join us for an interactive lunch around tables as we engage in virtual conversation with Andy Crouch, who will help us think anew about how we might strengthen our connections, build resilient and flourishing communities, and live in ways that authentically express our humanity in its rich potentiality.

Cost

• $20 = Lunch and Book

Schedule

• 11:30 AM – Arrival and Lunch Served
• 11:45 AM – Welcome & Introduction
• 11:50 AM – Virtual Conversation with Andy Crouch
• 12:15 PM – Table Discussion
• 12:30 PM – Interactive Q & A with Andy Crouch
• 1:00 PM – Closing

Speaker

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His writing explores faith, culture, and the image of God in the domains of technology, power, leadership, and the arts. He is the author of five books (plus another with his daughter, Amy Crouch), accessible at andy-crouch.com.

Andy serves on the governing board of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He also serves as an advisor to The Repentance Project, The Pelican Project, and Revoice. For more than ten years he was an editor and producer at Christianity Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. He served the John Templeton Foundation in 2017 as senior strategist for communication. From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians, and for ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University.

Andy studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology. A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania.

[1] See Gen. 11:4; 1:26, NRSV.