By a panel of resource specialists from the IT world, from the church, theologians, theological educators, offering different updates on context, digital world, www development, theological education.

Focus:

• What are the important changes in digitality & technology that are happening in the world today?
• How is it affecting the ways people interact/communicate with each other? Is it altering the sense of presence and relationships in digital communities?
• Which of these changes will churches and religious communities need to pay attention to and actively engage?

Professor of Communication, affiliate faculty in Religious Studies and a Presidential Impact Fellow at Texas A&M University. She is also director of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies, and a founder of Digital Religion studies. Her research focuses on technology, religion and digital culture, with emphasis on Jewish, Muslim & Christian media negotiations. She is co-editor of Routledge’s Religion and Digital Culture book series and the Journal of Religion, Media & Digital Culture. She is author of over 100 articles and books including When Religion Meets New Media (2010), Digital Religion (2013, 2ⁿᵈ edition 2021), Digital Creatives and the Rethinking Religious Authority (2021). She is the co-editor (with John Dyer) of Ecclesiology for a Digital Church: Theological Reflections on a New Normal (2022). She has been quoted in such outlets as the Houston Chronicle, USA Today, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, and on the BBCWorld Service. She also received the RCA Scholar of the Year Award and TAMU’s Transformational Teaching Award.

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Ms. So Young-Kang

So-Young has over 20 years of experience across strategy, leadership, transformation and technology. She helps organizations and individuals stay human in an increasingly digital world. She is the CEO and Founder of Gnowbe, an award-winning microlearning creator tool that is revolutionizing how creators teach and learn. By democratizing content creation, Gnowbe empowers creators to design, build and share multimedia content in participatory ways. Gnowbe empowers creators from >100 countries to impact their communities.

With her background at McKinsey, Citigroup, and as the Founding Chairman of Awaken Group, a human-centered transformation design firm, So-Young has been a strategic advisor to global leaders across the US, Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa. She has been a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum since 2014. So-Young is the author of ‘Inside Out’, global speaker and thought leader across multiple platforms including WEF, Forbes, Davos, TEDx, Huffington Post, Drucker Forum, etc. She is on the boards of Young Professionals’ Group and founding member of SEA Founders.

So-Young holds a BA with Honors from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard University.

Mr. Arun Kumar

Arun Kumar has over 10 years of experiences across oil and gas engineering, social works, startups, learning and development, training, community building and marketplaces. He started off as one of the first scholars of the Honda Dreams Fund which propelled him to graduate with a Masters in Engineering at the University of Nottingham in Malaysia. Through an on-campus interview which he was strongly motivated to attend by his then professor and late-mentor, he landed a job as an oil & gas engineer in the USA and then Australia, traveling 80% of the time, learning different cultures and demographics of people from all over the world. Arun is essentially a storyteller who is passionate about bridging the gap between technology and society. He has spoken on BFM’s Raise Your Game 4 times where his talks on topics like Industry 4.0, Talentism, Language & Cultures and Mentoring have attracted invitations for corporate speaking engagements. He is currently a Product Manager by profession where he bridges business goals, user needs and engineering capacities to build and innovate tech products. Arun is also the Founder of Waymaker (www.waymaker.works), a peer-to-peer support platform to facilitate the transactions of help within the community, that was built and launched in late 2020 and has since facilitated help to hundreds of individuals and families as well as being featured on several major local publications.

Dr. Kyungwha Hong

Dr. Hong officially joined Torch Trinity in 2011. Her higher education has focused mostly on understanding children, adolescents, and their environments. She received her BA in educational psychology from Ehwa Womans University (Seoul) before going on to receive her MS in marital & family therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA, USA). She also earned an EdM & EdD in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education (Cambridge, MA, USA). Before coming to Torch Trinity, she was with the Talent R&D Center for two years and worked with the Global Talent Research Center at Seoul National University. Together they developed the Global Talent Indicator (GTI) which is a self-report measure that assesses adolescent capacities needed to work in today’s global society.

Focus:

• Understanding the theology of holistic formation
• Revisit and explore the role of theological education in holistic formation
• Understanding the process/practice of holistic formation in the context of digital education or an increasing digital community.
• Discuss some best practices, concrete examples?

Principal and Professor in Church History and Historical Theology at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Singapore. He obtained his PhD from Durham University, UK. He is the author of The Dao of Healing: Christian Perspective of Chinese Medicine and a certified Belbin coach. Pak-Wah was previously a full-time lecturer at the School of Business, Singapore Polytechnic, and engaged in investment promotion work with the Singapore Economic Development Board. He worships at Mt Carmel Bible Presbyterian Church where he serves as Elder overseeing the Hybrid Church Initiative. Pak Wah enjoys engaging in Tai Ji and Wing Chun martial arts as a form of spiritual formation practice.

Program Director for graduate studies in Christian education at Bandung Theological Seminary in Indonesia. She has a PhD in Education Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, USA. She has spent 25 years in teaching and educational administration while also extending her scholarship about the understanding of Christian faculty in Indonesia regarding the integration of faith into their educational callings. She is the author of Faith-Integrated Being, Knowing, and Doing (Langham, 2020).

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Focus: Shaping a holistic theology of church in a digital age

• What is the theology of “church?”
• How is church done in the digital age and how does that inform or contribute to the present theology of “church’?

Resource material:

“Ecclesiology for a Digital Church: Theological Reflections on on a New Normal” edited by John Dyer and Heidi Campbell. John wrote the chapter “Exploring Mediated Ekklesia: How we talk about church in the digital age?”

Dr. Imad Shehadeh has a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary (1990), followed by post-doctoral studies at the Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven, Belgium (2001-2004) and the University of Edinburgh (2005-2008). He serves as the Founder, President and Senior Professor of Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS). He has authored numerous books and articles in both Arabic and English, and has a growing number of online video and audio lectures and sermons. He has a heavy speaking schedule in colleges, seminaries, churches and conferences in several countries, but especially in the United States and in the Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East. He has provided several teaching series on television that covered apologetics and the Trinity. Dr. Shehadeh is an active member of the board of Dallas Theological Seminary.

Principal, Filadelfia Bible College, North India. Finny completed his Ph.D in New Testament from the University of Durham under the mentorship of esteemed New Testament Scholar, James D.G. Dunn. He is the author of the book The Origins of Pauline Pneumatology. He served as one of the theological editors for the recently published South Asia Biblical Commentary: A One Volume Commentary on the Whole Bible. He also serves as the International Deputy Director (IDD) for The Lausanne Movement, as the Editor and Director for Christian Trends, a bi-monthly magazine that tries to bring the evangelical Christian thinking and writing at a popular level, and as the Director for Open

Coordinator of the WEA’s Theological Commission. He is a thinker and a communicator whose writing and active online engagement bring together people reflecting on contextual theology, holistic ministry, and the impact of digitality. He also teaches these subjects in several seminaries in the Philippines. His experience in connecting people and forming collaborative work include his role as advocacy coordinator for Micah Global’s national expression in the Philippines and a regional coordinator role for Tearfund’s theology network in East and Southeast Asia. Rei is passionate about helping develop theological conversations that are marked by strong prophetic conviction rooted in Scripture while being reflective of the rich diversity of voices from within the global evangelical community.

Focus:

Shaping a holistic theology and praxis of witness and discipleship in a digital community and age. (Going beyond the default mode of using digital as a tool of mission, about the environment we are shaped in – being real for example).

• What is a biblical and theological understanding of witness and discipleship currently?
• How does this apply to the digital community?
• What can we learn from discipleship and witness in the digital age that can inform our biblical and theological understanding of witness and discipleship?
• How is witness and discipleship nurtured in the digital community?

DMin, MDiv. eq., MABS, Dallas Theological Seminary; Doctor of Engineering in Automation and Robotics, Lamar University; Post-Graduate studies, Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, St. Edmund College, Cambridge University

Served in Space industries/academics as a research engineer for 25 years, including 15 years in NASA, Johnson Space Center, to lead a group of 38 scientists/engineers doing robotics research works; established 8 robotics laboratories, taught many university courses, won numerous science/engineering research awards, lectured in a number of research institutes.

In 2001, he retired from his professional career and has since dedicated to full-time Christian ministries. He served as Senior pastor of Clear Lake Chinese Church for 14 years (2001-2014) and as Executive Director of FEBC Chinese Ministries (2014-2021). He serves as conference speaker leading evangelistic meetings, retreat, workshops, and training sessions in many cities all over the world (2001- present), and a radio broadcaster, hosting many programs and produced a series of “Science and Christianity”, “Apologetics”, “Contemporary Ethics”. He is also an adjunct professor in several seminaries. He authored a book titled, “Amazing Universe, Amazing Good Fortune”.

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Ivor Poobalan, Principal at Colombo Theological Seminary (CTS) in Sri Lanka, and Co-Chair of Lausanne’s Theology Working Group. He graduated with honours from the London School of Theology (UK) with a BA in theology and from Trinity International University (Illinois, US) with a ThM in Old Testament and semitic languages. In 2015 he was conferred a PhD by the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Ivor is the author of Everything Has Become New! Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, and has contributed to several major works including the Langham’s South Asian Bible Commentary (2015), Christianity Today’s NIV Understand the Faith Study Bible (2015), and Biblica’s NIV God’s Justice Bible: The Flourishing of Creation and the Destruction of Evil (2016). He is currently writing two books on Genesis.

An internationally recognized speaker and Bible expositor, Ivor served as a resource person at the Lausanne III Congress in Cape Town in 2010 and was featured twice at the Keswick Convention, UK.

Questions:

• Who is your community?
• How do we create a broader and sustainable learning community in Asia?
• How do we expand our thinking and vistas and reshape the understanding of community and context in digital education?
• Developing a theology of healthy partnership
• How do we develop healthy partnerships, networking and collaboration within ATA?
• What are some examples of practices of collaboration and partnership in the bible and in church history?
• What are some present day healthy practices of collaboration and partnership?
• With digital education, the geographies have changed. Seminaries can offer programs to students in other countries. Seminaries in the US are flooding the Asian context with online programs (not just extension programs). The reality also is that this is an uneven playing field. Established seminaries have more resources to develop digital education. What are the implications?

Dr. Calvin Chong is Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Singapore Bible College. He has been part of the SBC faculty since 1995 first teaching in the OT department, then serving in academic leadership, and now teaching across multiple disciplines including pastoral ministries, educational design, as well as intercultural studies.

He is author of several articles and book chapters focused on changing global realities that impact church and society, youth and young adults, ministry with diasporic peoples, and ministry amongst oral and visual learners.

Dr. Chong serves on the boards of the Evangelical Alliance of Singapore and the migrant NGO Healthserve. He is also on the leadership team at Covenant Community Methodist Church where he serves as Worship and Music chair. He regularly serves as spiritual director on tours to Bible lands.

An analytical appreciation and critique of pre-digital age

An analytical appreciation and critique of Digital Age.

Moving forward holistically in a digital age.

Answering the key question: Shall the digital turn in TE lead to a new kind of TE or is it just an upgrade of the old?

Dr. Alexander Chow is co-director of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, co-editor of the journal Studies in World Christianity (Edinburgh University Press), and editor of the Liu Institute Series in Chinese Christianities (Notre Dame Press). He completed his PhD in theology at the University of Birmingham, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Renmin University of China, where he was doing research in Chinese Christianity and teaching in the School of Liberal Arts before he joined the University of Edinburgh in September 2013. He has written a number of articles on Christianity in China, and more broadly, in East Asia. He has written two books, Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; Chinese edition: Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, 2015) and Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Dr. Chow is very much into digital theology having a background in the IT industry before turning to theology. He delivered the keynote lecture for 2021 Yale-Edinburgh Conference on “Oral, Print, and Digital Cultures in World Christianity.”

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Responder: Dr. Stephen George 

President, Asian Christian Academy – Evangelical Theological Seminary in Hosur, India. He earned his BS at Texas A&M University, (2000), MTh at the Evangelical Theological Seminary (2007), MA at the University of Texas at Arlington (2010), and his PhD at the University of North Texas (2017). His doctoral work focused on non-native speakers of English as adult learners and online theological education. This work has led to the development of the online M.A in Christian Studies at ETS. Prior to his theological education, he worked for Air Liquide as a Chemical Engineer. He is married to Rachel George and they have two children Ashish and Anjali.

Several schools will share about their journey in online TE.

Focus:

• Impact of the digital turn
• Challenges
• Opportunities
• Best practices

South Asia Institute for Advanced Christian Studies