Gospel-Centered Preaching Conference
Gospel-Centered Preaching Conference
October 28-29, 2024 | New York City
Explore and experience how the gospel can transform our lives, ministries and preaching, and the communities in which we live and serve.
This transformative event promises to inspire and empower pastors, ministry workers, and believers alike to renew the gospel in their preaching. Dedicated to the legacy of Tim Keller, the gathering will be held at Church of the Advent Hope, where the church he planted first gathered for worship.
Kristian Hernandez is the lead pastor of Hope Astoria in Queens, NY. He is the author of Beholding and Proclaiming and the founder of The Kerygma Group. He serves as the Senior Director of Partnerships at City to City NYC. He and his family love enjoying the beach whenever they can. Coffee is probably his best friend, and reading books makes him pretty happy. If laughing and finding humor in things were a crime, he would be sent away for life without parole.
Collin Hansen serves as vice president for content and editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition, as well as executive director of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He hosts the Gospelbound podcast and has written and contributed to many books, most recently Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation and Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential. He has published with the New York Times and the Washington Postand offered commentary for CNN, Fox News, NPR, BBC, ABC News, and PBS NewsHour. He edited Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor and The New City Catechism Devotional, among other books. He is an adjunct professor at Beeson Divinity School, where he also co-chairs the advisory board.
Jonathan Henderson has served as a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church for over 25 years, with stops on the campuses of Loma Linda University and Pacific Union College. He spent 17 years in the Bay Area of California, pastoring in downtown Oakland for 12 of those 17 years, where he saw a congregation grow from 25 to 400 in membership and attendance.
Jonathan is currently the senior pastor of the Glendale Vallejo Drive Church in Los Angeles County, where he has served for the past year.
Jonathan is the author of the book Worth Every Drop: God’s Relentless Pursuit to Prove You Matter, which is the second edition of the book, released in 2021.
Sam Leonor is the Chief Mission Officer, playing an integral role in ensuring that Adventist Health’s mission and deeply cherished values are woven into every facet of strategic planning and day-to-day operations. Mr. Leonor previously served as Adventist Health’s Mission and Spiritual Care Executive since 2009, responsible for leading market mission alignment and the team of chaplains that provide spiritual and emotional support to patients and their families, employees, and community members. He has 30 years of experience in Adventist pastoral ministry, higher education, and healthcare. Prior to joining Adventist Health, he was university chaplain and adjunct professor at La Sierra University, where he taught classes in theology and spirituality in the workplace. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious education from Southern Adventist University and a Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University. He enjoys exploring the connection between spirituality and vocation through research, writing, and speaking to a wide range of audiences in church, business, and academic settings.
Kendra Haloviak Valentine, Ph.D., is professor of New Testament Studies in the H. M. S. Richards Divinity School at La Sierra University. She earned bachelor’s degrees in Theology and English from Columbia Union College and a master’s in New Testament from Andrews University Theological Seminary. Haloviak Valentine completed her doctorate in New Testament and Ethics at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley in 2002.
Haloviak Valentine has served as a pastor in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland, and taught at Adventist colleges and universities in the United States and Australia. Through her experiences as a pastor and teacher, her interest in the book of Revelation grew. She has presented over 40 seminars on the book of Revelation for clergy and lay audiences.
Haloviak Valentine has published in journals, magazines, and books. Publications include “The Book of Revelation” in The Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (2011), Signs to Life: Reading and Responding to John’s Gospel (2013), Worlds at War, Nations in Song: Dialogic Imagination and Moral Vision in the Hymns of the Book of Revelation (2015), and “Liberating Legion: An Ecocritical, postcolonial reading of Mark 5:1-20,” in Ecotheology and Nonhuman Ethics in Society (2016).
Recent projects include an article on the tragedy of Waco twenty-five years later (2018), a paper on Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians presented at a theology conference in the Philippines (2019) at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies (AIIAS), and an exploration of “truth” in John 19 presented to the Society of Adventist Philosophers (November, 2019). A sabbatical to Australia, Thailand and Cambodia included collecting over 120 surveys on how people read the gospel of Mark. She is currently working on a book that evaluates and reflects on this research.
Kendra has been teaching at La Sierra University since 2002. In 2009 she met Gilbert Valentine, Ph.D., while guest lecturing at Avondale College, and they were married in 2010. Gil has written a number of books on Adventist history and theology, including a recent biography of John Nevins Andrews (2019). Gil and Kendra have enjoyed becoming grandparents to Bronte, Hayden, Tess and Caspar Valentine, whose parents, Lincoln and Janine, live in Australia. They are also proud of Andrew, the oldest son in the family, who is working on a Ph.D. in economics at the University of New South Wales.
Hotel Discount
Group rate discounts at Voco, which is one block from Church of the Advent Hope, may be available using this link.
Affordable lodging for those in vocational Christian ministry is available at Hephzibah House.
Another affordable option is the interfaith Retreats hostel.
