Here I Go Again!

Well, tomorrow morning I'll be headed off to Cleveland for the 2009 Basics Conference for Pastors. Alistair Begg's annual conference, which I've attended since 2006, starts tomorrow afternoon and will feature Alistair, John Piper, and Dr. John Lennox. Can't wait! I'll be taking my laptop along to post reflections throughout the week, but you can also head over to Tim Challies' blog for a liveblog of the event.

Searching For God's Man

If you would, please pray for my church over the weekend, as we'll be having a pastoral candidate preaching Sunday morning. It's been a long and trying time since our previous pastor resigned back in August, and it's exciting to begin to look to the future. Pray that we would make a wise decision.

Consider Me Counting Down

One of my favorite times of every year is my annual trip with good friends in the ministry to Cleveland, Ohio for Alistair Begg's Basics Conference for Pastors. This past week, the brochure for this year's edition, held May 11-13, was released, and the lineup looks as good as ever. Alistair, my favorite preacher, will be speaking as always, and this year he will be joined by Dr. John Piper and Dr. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford (and father of songwriter Kristyn Getty) under the theme, "Minds Stirred, Wills Urged, and Affections Renewed." This will be my fifth year attending the conference, and if you've never been, I can't urge you strongly enough to go. It's an incredibly refreshing and challenging experience, and the people of Parkside are among the most hospitable you'll ever meet. You can now register online. See you in Cleveland!

Back From Basics

Well, the Basics 2008 Pastors’ Conference is in the books, and once again it was a great time of spiritual refreshment. As you may have noticed, I wasn’t able to post while at the conference, due to limits on time and wi-fi. If you’d like to get a good synopsis of the messages, I would encourage you once again to check out Tim Challies’ blog. Tim has really outdone himself this time by providing extremely thorough summaries of each conference session.

Voddie Baucham was really the highlight of the conference (which was on the theme, “Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves.” His two messages from 2 Timothy on enduring suffering for the sake of the gospel were powerful, and I’d encourage any Christian to head over to the Truth For Life website and order the audio. It was great getting to hear Alistair Begg preach after his absence last year due to prostate cancer. He is now cancer-free, doing well, and he offered some great advice from 2 Corinthians on the character of gospel preaching. Jerry Bridges simply exuded wisdom in his two messages. Though he’s not the most captivating speaker you’ll ever hear (his thoughts are much better suited to the printed page) his lifetime of following God makes itself evident in the advice he offered us all.

As always, the food alone was worth the price of admission (mmm, barbeque night), and the 20% discount at Parkside Church’s stellar bookstore is always too tempting to pass up. I bought Voddie Baucham’s Family Driven Faith and Jerry Bridges’ Respectable Sins, and look forward to reading both. Also, on our day off, we headed downtown and walked through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was pretty cool. If you’re a rock fan and find yourself in Cleveland, you’d do well to check the hall out. All-in-all, it was a great trip, and I would strongly encourage any pastors to check it out next May, when Alistair will be joined by ID scientist Dr. John Lennox and John Piper. Let the countdown begin!

How to Bless Your Pastor

A fantastic quote from John Piper on the greatest gift you can give your pastor...

Lead somebody to Christ. Live a holy life. Don't lose your faith when you get cancer. Bring up your kid to love Christ. Do something radical for missions. The common denominator for all of those is that you prove by your life that I haven't wasted mine.

HT: Desiring God