Next Thursday, the twelfth annual Church & Culture Conference will take place via livestream from Mecklenburg Community Church (Meck) in Charlotte, NC.

If you have not attended before, you may be wondering what the vision is for this event.

Heaven knows the Christian world doesn’t need another conference that is just like every other conference. You know the drill: the same eight or 10 speakers currently hot on the circuit, the same “pep rally” atmosphere. Yes, they serve a purpose, but we have them in ready supply.

In its earlier years, Meck offered what we called the “New Work Conference.” It was for church planters, and we served countless numbers, but we stopped after a while because we had grown distant from our own church planting days and because the church planting world was changing rapidly. There were simply churches better positioned for that role.

But it was rich while it lasted. Why? Because it really did fill a niche. So we waited until another very clear niche presented itself.

It did.

There are conferences that bring the latest insights into leadership, but where is the conference that brings the latest insights into culture?

And not just cultural insight, but practical applications for the local church in light of those insights? If our mission is the evangelization and transformation of culture through the centrality of the local church, then two things must follow: we must understand the times, and then we must know what to do.

We must understand our culture and how best to respond to it,

… penetrate it,

… reach it,

… and transform it.

And we must understand how to do that through the local church. It is not that other means do not exist for the mission, but Jesus created and charged the Church to be in the vanguard.

So the vision for the annual Church & Culture Conference is simple: to bring the latest, best insights about culture to the surface and to explore how to practically respond as a church, being mindful of those insights.

This year is no different.

We’ll be bringing entirely fresh content and new challenges anchored by the living laboratory of Meck that experiences more than 70% of its growth from the previously unchurched.

We’re offering the event via livestream, with the option to watch on demand for six weeks. So, whether you’re joining from another time zone in the U.S. or from another country around the world, there is no need to worry—you can access the content whenever your schedule allows.

So what’s on the docket for the 2026 Conference?

In this session, I will present an overview of the seven biggest cultural realities facing Christians and the Church in 2026. You might be aware of some of them, others may surprise you, yet all seven are critical to both name and understand.

Dr. Ryan Burge is the professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. In this session, he joins me for a discussion of his new book, The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us.

Dr. Ed Stetzer, Dean and professor of Christian Leadership and Ministry at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, along with Corey Alderin, CEO and co-founder of Sermon Shots, join me in a wide-ranging discussion of AI and the Church.

Jonathan Emery White, my eldest son, serves as Pastor of Families and Children at Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jonathan brings his expertise on families, children and technology to give you actionable strategies to apply timeless wisdom, protect kids and confidently navigate an ever-changing digital landscape.

Dr. David S. Dockery, academic statesman and president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, joins me in a conversation about the role of women in ministry - one of the most explosive issues facing the Church today - and his latest book on the continuum of perspectives on men and women in the Church.

In this final session, I will dive into what is arguably one of the most important understandings of our current cultural moment - that we are living in an age of anxiety. What's really driving that anxiety, and how a Christian needs to live and think within this age, will both challenge and encourage.

Sound interesting and practical? That’s our hope.

Along with the hope that you will join us. You can access all of the registration details here.

James Emery White

A Different Kind of Conference