Early bird registration for SVS 2016 is now open

We are thrilled to announce that registration for the Seventh Annual Society of Vineyard Scholars Conference, “Hospitality, Holiness, and the Kingdom of God,” to be held in Raleigh, NC, April 21-23, 2016, is now open!

Register today for the 2016 Society of Vineyard Scholars conference at http://svs2016.eventbrite.com.

“Early Bird” registration rates of $50 are available for SVS members until March 1st, when they will increase to $65. Register today and save!

Also, please remember to make sure that your SVS membership is current, so that you are eligible for the reduced SVS member rates on conference registration. You can check your membership status at https://vineyardscholars.org/join-svs.

For International Participants: Due to the generosity of VineyardUSA and the support of the Raleigh Vineyard, registration fees for non-US based individuals who want to attend SVS 2016 have been waived. However, non-US based individuals who want to attend SVS 2016 must still register at http://svs2016.eventbrite.com, as well as pay SVS membership dues at https://vineyardscholars.org/join-svs.

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SVS 2016 Program Information

A full draft of the SVS 2016 Program will be published on March 1st, but until then, there are many available details to share.

What’s This Conference All About?

The sixth annual Society of Vineyard Scholars Conference will be held April 21-23, 2016 in Raleigh, NC, USA. The theme of the conference is “Hospitality, Holiness, and the Kingdom of God.” The conference will be hosted by Raleigh Vineyard in Raleigh, NC — a wonderful church in north Raleigh, twenty minutes from Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

The conversations at this year’s conference will be framed around scholarly and pastoral interdisciplinary reflection on the following themes:

• Hospitality, Holiness, and the Kingdom of God: Bridging Theory and Praxis
• Hospitality and Multiethnicity in the Kingdom of God
• Hospitality and Public Theology: Equipping the Church to Engage in Public Spaces
• Hospitality, Worship, and the Arts: Welcoming Strangers, Entertaining Angels  

In addition, focused, disciplinary conversations — “SVS Seminars” — around a wide variety of topics will allow people to engage deeply with others who share a similar area of expertise.

We hope these two kinds of engagement have a mutually beneficial relationship, allowing for a “whole” that is greater than the sum of its “parts.”

What Are We Going To Do?

This year’s conference is abundant with fantastic speakers, panels, and events.

Plenary talks on various aspects of the theme of hospitality and holiness will be given by Dr. Luke Bretherton, Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University, Dr. Christine Pohl, Professor of Church and Society/Christian Ethics as Asbury Theological Seminary, and Dr. Charles Montgomery, Pastor of the Vineyard Columbus East Campus in Columbus, OH.

As in previous years, there will also be numerous panel sessions featuring presentations of and responses to papers written by SVS participants spread over Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning. This interaction forms the heart of what we do at SVS.

Finally, in keeping with our theme of Christian hospitality, we are planning a dinner together on site during the conference, prepared by the excellent chef on the Raleigh Vineyard staff. The slight increase in the cost of registration for the conference reflects the cost of this dinner.

What About Worship, Prayer Ministry, and Time To Hang Out?

As always, we will make significant time for prayer, worship, and prophetic ministry.  We highly value the essential relationship between worship, the presence of God, and the life of the mind, and we will bear that value out in our time together. Many people have found that God speaks to them with profundity and power during worship and ministry times at SVS.

Worship will be led throughout the conference by Tina Colón and Julian Reid, worship leaders at Elm City Vineyard in New Haven, CT. Prayer ministry at the conference will be facilitated by Josh Williams, pastor of Elm City Vineyard in New Haven, CT.

Finally, we will allow plenty of time at this conference for people to hang out and form relationships. There will be a reception on Thursday night, lunchtime breakouts for people with particular shared interests, and so on.

Across the board, our goal is to develop and nurture a community of theological discourse in the Vineyard, and we are committed to allowing the time and space that it takes to do so.

What about food, transportation, conference hotels, conference scholarships, nursing children, ridesharing, allergies, and more?

The answers to all of these important conference related questions will be posted, as they become available, at https://vineyardscholars.org and at http://svs2016.eventbrite.com.

Please check there first, for the answers to your questions. If the answers that you need are not yet online, please send an email to