Asian Theological Seminary

2ND ANNUAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM: NAMING THE UNKNOWN GOD

LETTER FROM BISHOP PUNZALAN (OIC), January 16, 2006

Dear Friends,

Asian Theological Seminary is pleased to invite you all to the 2nd Annual Theological Forum this February 23 and 24 at Union Church of Manila, on Legaspi cor. Rada Streets in Makati. The title of the two-day conference is Naming the Unknown God: Christians and People of Other Faiths in Dialog."

I write to personally enlist your support.

First, please pray for the success of the Forum. The title of the Forum is inspired by Acts 17, and the theme is motivated by our realization that Christians in the Philippines, and indeed all of Asia, are surrounded by people of many faiths, including people who belong to non-Christian sects that have Christian roots. We believe that pastors and lay people need good Biblical guidance as they think about how best to live among these people while also serving them as Jesus' ambassadors. Last year, the Forum had 500 participants. This year, we pray for upwards of 700.

Second, please endorse the Forum to your friends, especially to pastors, Bible College instructors and students, missionaries and any church member who wants or needs to know more about "Gospel neighboring." The conference will have 3 plenary sessions and 30 break-out seminars! As with the 1st Forum, selected papers from the 2nd Forum will be published into a book. The first book, Doing Theology in the Philippines, published by OMF Literature, is selling so well, it is going into second printing and will be available for purchase at the 2nd Forum-our vision of stimulating dialogue and debate, and generating theological literature for Asians by Asians is bearing fruit-praise God! We pray that God grant all our speakers extra measures of grace, strength, perseverance, insight and wisdom as they work on their papers.

Third, please attend the Forum with a friend, or buy tickets for two people whom you know will be equipped and blessed by the event, but may not be able to afford to go. Tickets for the entire event are P500.00 each and are available by contacting Asian Theological Seminary at 928-6717, 928-6709, 928-5105, 0916-7766387 or by emailing forum@ats.ph. We pray that God would direct the steps of those who would benefit most from this Forum to Union Church on February 23 and 24!

Finally, please sponsor the Forum! In addition to ticket sales, we are raising P300-500,000 through sponsorship. A full page ad in our souvenir program costs P10,000, and the half page, P6,000. One third to one half of funds raised from advertising sponsors will go to Forum scholars. We pray for the means to cover a substantial part of the travel expense and allowance of frontline missionaries and Bible teachers from the Visayas and Mindanao to come to the two-day Forum in order to make this a truly national dialog.

We would be very happy to hear from you. Download the Fax Reply Form or the Sponsorship Contract Form and fax it to us, or contact forum@ats.ph. We thank you for your prayers. I look forward to seeing you there!

Blessings,

Bishop Cesar Punzalan
ATS Officer-In-Charge