Brehm Events

The Brehm Center

Brehm Events

The Brehm Center has always been a place of meeting and integration between artists, scholars, ministry leaders, and culture-makers, and our conferences offer such opportunities annually. Rotating between our three locations, our gatherings also focus on an annual theme and are led by Brehm faculty who specialize in areas of worship, theology, and the arts. We also offer occasional smaller gatherings, such as film screenings, concerts, lectures, and more. Now more than ever, the Brehm Center is considering ways to make events accessible to as many people as possible, experimenting with multisite and livestream conferencing opportunities. Read about conferences and events below.

Well-Formed Worship Conference

Pasadena, CA + Online

February 26–27, 2021

In our rapidly changing world, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, what does it mean to worship? Exploring essential characteristics of formative Christian worship––both inside and outside the sanctuary––the Well-Formed Worship conference will examine spiritual, cultural, liturgical, and technological dimensions of worship in today’s changing church. Presenters will include artists, scholars, ministry, and technology leaders.

Cultivating Faithful Worship for a Changing Time

More conference information, including presenters, coming this spring.

Past Conferences

Sacrament and Story Conference

Seattle, WA

April 5, 2019

In the Pacific Northwest, we believe that artists have a unique capacity to recast God’s Story in ways that are experiential, accessible, and enlivening. The arts can create spaces for worship that encompass a broader understanding of the nature of the Triune God––with room for joy, lament, fear, delight, and mystery. Together we explored how the arts can help us reimagine and more fully engage God's Story in our worship and in the world.

Recasting Worship Through the Arts

This one-day conference invited pastors, artists, leaders, and culture-makers into a space for conversation, imagination, and relationship as we explored worship and the arts, and how these things might shape our shared Cascadian context.

Worship, Theology, and the Arts in a Divided World Conference

Pasadena, CA

February 9, 2019

To say that we live in a divided world is to state the obvious. Less obvious, perhaps, is to believe that worship might become a vehicle for reconciliation, that theology might serve as an invaluable aid to mend our personal and social brokenness, or that the arts might forge unity across the divides—whether political or economic, racial or relational, linguistic or cultural, whether in the academy or in the public square, whether inside the church or outside of it. But that is exactly what this conference suggested.

Presenters included David Bailey, Makoto Fujimura, and more.

Ongoing Events

Reel Spirituality Film Screenings

Pasadena, CA + Online

Reel Spirituality seeks to raise visual and spiritual literacy. Image-driven, educationally focused, and spirituality-centered, Reel Spirituality brings together filmmakers and film viewers, Christian leaders and laity, scholars and students for dialogue between our culture’s primary visual stories and the Christian faith.

Screening events take place in local Pasadena theaters just a few blocks from campus or in the 250-seat Travis Auditorium in Fuller’s Psychology Building. Directors, producers, and writers join the Reel Spirituality codirectors for post-screening panel discussion. Special guests have included some of film’s greatest minds: Martin Scorsese (Silence), Paul Schrader (First Reformed), Valerie Pachner (A Hidden Life), Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange), and David Bazan (Strange Negotiations).

In addition to live events, Reel Spirituality also releases film reviews, courses, and podcasts in conjunction with FULLER Studio.