The Asian theological movement has been active for nearly six decades. There are numerous organizations promoting Asian theology, such as the Christian Conference of Asia, the Association for Theological Education in Southeast Asia, the Programme for Theology and Culture in Asia, and the Asian Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology. Minjung theology, Homeland theology, Water Buffalo theology, Dalit theology, Tribal theology, Third-Eye theology, and a variety of Asian feminist and postcolonial theologies are now widely accepted around the world. Nonetheless, theological movement in the name of Practical Theology remains largely unestablished in many Asian countries. The West, on the other hand, has already seen decades of thriving practical theology movements.

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However, there have been a number of significant changes in the recent past. Cross-cultural practical theology is given a lot of emphasis in international academia, just as practical theology is being developed in the majority world. Accelerating these changes is the main objective of this conference, which has as its theme "Doing Practical Theology with Asian Resources."

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The practical and contextual aspect of practical theology is inherent to its essence. Without addressing the praxis context in which the Christian faith is lived, no practical theology can be constructed. Asian practical theology is done in Asia.  However, what is Asia? In his edited volume titled Christianities in Asia, Peter Phan notes that the diversity in Asia—geographic, linguistic, ethnic, economic, political, cultural, religious, and even ecclesial—is mind-boggling, and it is impossible to comprehend Asia without addressing these differences. Asia, as a highly diversified region, is endowed with an abundance of cultures and religions. Asia can be both singular and plural. The purpose of our conference is thus to bring together practical theologians from various Asian cultures to discuss how they theologize practically using local resources and experiences, as well as what concerns them practically-theologically in their respective situations.

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In this conference, the term "Practical" refers to a broad variety of Christian practices that transform human life, both within and without the church. More precisely, it may refer to sociopolitical liberative practices, social ministries, theological/religious education, pastoral/spiritual care and counseling, preaching/homiletics, liturgics, Christian aesthetics, interfaith practices, evangelism, mission, etc.

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The term "Resources" is used broadly in this conference and includes, but is not limited to, Asian religious traditions and practices, Asian cultural worldviews and epistemologies, people's stories, Asian festivals, and Asian customs. It also refers to historical experiences, such as those associated with colonialism, Asian people's movements, Asian women, and Asian diasporic/hyphenated experiences.

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To summarize, the primary objective of this conference is to bring together theologians who have a strong interest in Asian practical theology, to create opportunities for networking between these theologians in order to facilitate the establishment of practical theology academies at national and regional levels, and to investigate ways to incorporate Asian wisdom and traditions into Christian practice and theology in order to make a contribution to the worldwide movement of practical theology.