Charleston Southern University’s annual SYNC conference will be March 20 in the Whitfield Center for Christian Leadership.

“SYNC ’14 offers insight and inspiration at the cross-section of theory and practice,” said Rick Brewer, vice president for student affairs and athletics. “Pastors, pastoral staff and marketplace leaders will be challenged and encouraged to stretch their visions for gospel-centered, missional leadership and service.”

Conference speakers will address defining the culture, modeling a ministry of multiplication and church revitalization. They will also tackle the question: “What does the gospel look like?”

“The problem is that Christianity has been dead set on being downstream, fighting against culture,” said Will Browning, teaching pastor at Journey Church in Summerville and a SYNC speaker. “We must get upstream by sending disciples into the culture.”

Another speaker, D.A. Horton, executive director of ReachLife Ministries and national coordinator for urban student missions with the North American Mission Board, said saints can impact the culture by living a “gospel-centered life” marked by faith, hope, love and a healthy commitment to the local church.

D.J. Horton, senior pastor of Church at the Mill (Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church) in Moore, and president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, a keynote speaker, said the New Testament imperative to make disciples and glorify Christ can still be done today. “But it will take courageous leadership from people who love the local churches in our communities and refuse to allow them to drift into irrelevance,” he said.

Also speaking will be Michael Pigg, senior pastor of Philadelphia Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga.

Online registration is available at charlestonsouthern.edu/sync by clicking on the blue registration button. The $60 registration fee covers all sessions, breakouts, snacks and lunch. The conference begins at 10 a.m.