…the 2011 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference:
Traveled here yesterday with men from the church. With the big storm coming, we drove straight through and ended up getting in around 12:45AM today. Got into the hotel and slept pretty well. Today, we will have the conference later today, but at Noon, we are meeting with one of our church’s supported missionaries.
If you think of us, pray that God would encourage us as we think about being people of prayer and leading Crestview in this regard.
…is now in the books…
The audio is online, featuring sermons from C.J., Kevin DeYoung, Dave Harvey, Rick Gamache and others.
It looks like they had some amazing books circulating as well.
Continue to take advantage of the medium of free audio and watch your soul be changed and sharpened.
We arrived here in Dallas Metro around 5PM (after getting away from Hutch around 9:30AM). Pretty uneventful traveling.
We went and grabbed supper at Chipotle and then walked around a mall a bit and now, some are on a WalMart run while some of us are just resting at the hotel. What brings us here? Student Life Missions Camp 2010. In previous years, we’ve done missions camp and been involved in various projects. This year, we get to serve a local church who are putting on a kid’s sports camp. Of course, we’ll have Student Life to lead us as our church serves in this way.
Parents, you may want to visit Student Life Experience 2010 (if it doesn’t log you in, select our camp location Texas Women’s and Date Aug 1-5). At this site, you can email your student (or one of the adults with your group) words of encouragement or send them gift cards, as well as stay updated on the happenings of camp. I’ll have some updates here as well.
Finally, we look forward to the morning. We are visiting the Flower Mound Campus of The Village Church (where Matt Chandler pastors). Pray for a good morning for us there…(we’ll be thinking of you as well). Blessings.
Today, Meg and I are in St. Louis for an Acts 29 training event at the Journey Church. This particular event is a Quarterly Meeting for training purposes with Deep Church author Jim Belcher.
There will be 2 sessions:
Session 1 — Introduction to Deep Church
Session 2 — Deep Culture
While our group was coming home from T4G, we took advantage of Don Whitney’s 10 Questions to Ask to Benefit from a Conference or Special Event. I had printed this off before we left for the conference, anticipating a need to intentionally apply what we had learned. And, I found it helpful for sparking discussion on the way home. We discussed these questions for probably an hour or two and it gave everyone an opportunity to get down to the precise nature of what they were taking away and, better yet, helped establish some accountability in our group as we took the “next step” after the conference. I would commend it to you, not only if you attended T4G, but anytime you have a special event at your church.
Both audio and video from T4G 2010 are now up. Enjoy!
We just finished up a very full day, which began with us checking out of the Galt House Hotel & Suites in Louisville and loading the cars.
We headed over for the morning sessions. Ligon Duncan kicked us off with a call to read the early church fathers, highlighting how helpful they were in so many different theological areas.
After this, Matt Chandler came and testified of God’s amazing grace in his (and his family’s) life. C.J. came after Chandler’s testimony and urged us to prepare our people for suffering. Finally, the speakers of T4G came and prayed over Matt (and others with serious illness) that God would grant healing for His glory and Matt’s good.
The final session was a deeply personal charge from C.J. from 2 Timothy 4:1-5, urging ordinary pastors to be faithful to their calling. Particularly relevant was the insight given in exposing our heart through our lack of patience. Pride was revealed (again sadly) in my life. But it was an encouraging exhortation to faithfulness.
After this session and some singing, we headed to St. Louis. We are spending the night here and in good tradition, ate a German meal at the St. Louis Gast House. After this, we slid over to Park Avenue Coffee for gooey butter cake and coffee. It was an amazing day of fellowship, teaching and encouragement.
Day 2 ended with an extended meditation (dare I say Expository Exultation) by John Piper on Luke 18:9-14 and how Jesus and Paul preached the same message: Justification by faith alone. We ended singing a summary of the message: Hallelujah! All I Have Is Christ! Hallelujah! He Is My Life!
Read the manuscript and look for the audio.
Just got back in the room from eating an early dinner to prep for tonight’s session with John Piper. My breakout session featured Brian Habig on the Fears of the Minister. I chose this breakout, specifically, because I have seen how I tend at times to be overly concerned with what people think (in a sinful, debilitating way). This session did not disappoint as Habig diagnosed the problem, highlighted the depth of it and then pointed to Gospel remedies to help. Came out very encouraged by it. Now, just one more session tonight and this day will be done…
