The Shepherd's Conference - Initial Reflections (03/06/06 - 23 Comments)
There is always something a little bit strange about returning from a conference. When at such a gathering one's mind is set on a particular topic for a day, two days, five days. And what's more, there are hundreds or thousands of other people in attendance, all of whom are focused on this same subject. For the duration of the conference a whole group of people are living in a little world nearly all their...
Session 9 - Ligon Duncan (03/04/06 - 20 Comments)
This is the final session of the 2006 Shepherd’s Conference. J. Ligon Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi and chairman of The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, will bring us the final address. It is interesting to see that this place has cleared out quite a bit already as clearly many of the pastors have needed to leave early to return for Sunday worship services in their home churches. Chris Taylor,...
Session 8 - Al Mohler (03/04/06 - 3 Comments)
This is my final day at the conference. The conference proper will end at lunchtime today, though attendees are encouraged to remain until after a communion service tomorrow afternoon. However, I will be spending the day in and around Los Angeles before heading to the airport to catch the redeye flight home so that I can celebrate my son’s sixth birthday with him tomorrow. I made my way into the worship center a little bit...
Session 7 - R.C. Sproul (03/03/06 - 40 Comments)
This has been an encouraging week. It has been a powerful week. I have learned a lot this week, but perhaps more about service than anything else. I have seen young men, so often the type of people who are proud, joyfully traveling with older men in order to serve them. I have seen a whole church commit itself to the service of thousands of people who are strangers to them. I have met leaders...
Session 6 - Question and Answer (03/03/06 - 7 Comments)
Over the lunch break this afternoon I elected not to go anywhere off-campus, but to just sit and relax. This was much needed and was very rewarding. Near the end of this time I was privileged to be given a tour of the seminary library by the librarian, Dennis Swanson. Of particular interest was a room containing a multitude of old, valuable Bibles and other books. The library even has a first edition of John...
Seminar 5 - Carey Hardy - How To Raise a Pharisee (03/03/06 - 7 Comments)
This morning finds us at the fifth and final seminar. I have chosen to attend one led by Carey Hardy, which he has entitled How to Raise a Pharisee: Avoiding legalism in the home.� Carey is senior executive pastor at Grace Church and an adjunct professor at The Master�s College and Seminary. The pharisees were the original legalists. �Pharisees� means �separated ones� and this is something in which they took great pride. They separated themselves...
Session 5 - Steve Lawson (03/03/06 - 9 Comments)
There is a little newsletter given out here at the conference called (not too originally) The Conference Chronicle. This morning it listed some “food facts.” Apparently thus far the conference attendees have gone through 835 gallons of coffee (0 of which can be attributed to me), 6,580 donuts (1 2 of which were consumed by yours truly), 10,000 hard boiled eggs and 750 pounds of potatoes, which were used in a potato salad they will...
Tim Meets Phil, C.J. and Tommy (03/02/06 - 19 Comments)
Tim meets Phil: Tim meets C.J.: Tim meets Tommy: Tim also met Mark Dever today but forgot to ask for a photograph. Maybe next time....
General Session 5 - Albert Mohler (03/02/06 - 14 Comments)
That’s it! From now on I’m deciding where we eat for dinner. We ended up going to a great little deli that was supposed to be nearby. It was not exactly nearby and after eating what was admittedly a nice meal, we raced back across town, or attempted to race, through L.A. traffic. We made it with about a minute to spare. I’m sure Dr. Mohler would not have begun his speech tonight without me...
Seminar 4 - Phil Johnson - Dead Right Part II (03/02/06 - 4 Comments)
Phil, evidently enjoying a conversation, showed up late for this seminar. It took a tap on the shoulder from his wife to get him down to this basement room. Phil, it turns out, likes to talk. Who knew? This session is called “Dead Right Part 2.” Part 1 was a seminar from last year’s conference and Phil gave what he felt was a good critique of the fundamentalist movement. It turned out that it was...
Seminar 3 - Phil Johnson - The Fad Driven Church (03/02/06 - 15 Comments)
This seminar deals with the tendency of so many churches today to be driven by fads and pre-packaged programs to influence the agenda of the church. Phil will attempt to show why this is a really bad strategy. There are many pastors and leaders who feel that, to be convincing to their audience, they need to keep abreast of what happens to be the latest craze. There are many web sites that package sermons around...
General Session 4 - John MacArthur (Q & A) (03/02/06 - 14 Comments)
The sense of anticipation in and around this building has built to a crescendo. No, it has nothing to do with the speaker who will next take the pulpit, nor with the topic he will address. It has to do with books. The patio outside the worship center is filled with tens of thousands of books and everyone knows that in just another hour, the doors will fling open and all of the pastors will...
General Session 3 - Mark Dever (03/02/06 - 15 Comments)
Perhaps one of the most amusing aspect of this conference is the regular “pastor rushes.” Every time a session begins, a crowd gathers around each of the ten or twelve doors to the worship center. At the moment the doors open, a crowd of pastors rush to the front, seeking to nab the premier spots. They will, quite literally, sprint to the front, sometimes even pushing and shoving a little bit to get there. It...
Second General Session - John MacArthur (03/01/06 - 25 Comments)
I have not visited very many churches that are as large and important as Grace Community Church, but I have been inside a few. I was not prepared for the “plainness” of Grace. The church is, to be honest, quite unremarkable but for its size. The inside is not at all exciting - the walls and ceilings are plain. The walls are unadorned and the entire focus of the church is a rather simple pulpit...
Seminar 2 - Nathan Busenitz - Evangelical Charismatics (03/01/06 - 40 Comments)
It is interesting to look around and see how many people travel alone, and how many travel in groups. There are a great number of people, it seems, who travel to this conference on their own. These people tend to sit quietly on their own, sneaking into the auditoriums before they are supposed to be open to the public and sitting quietly with their books or laptops. There are also plenty who have come with...
Seminar 1 - Phil Johnson - Is The Reformation Over? (03/01/06 - 16 Comments)
It has become quickly apparent that this conference exists not merely to equip pastors, but also to serve and honor them (and perhaps even spoil them a little). At the close of the earlier session one of the organizers announced that there was an area for “shoe-shining and everything else a pastor needs.” I don’t know too many pastors that need to have their shoes shined (or who need to travel to Los Angeles to...
First General Session - John MacArthur (03/01/06 - 20 Comments)
I would not have expected John MacArthur to begin the conference with a comedic monologue, yet that is what he did. He made jokes about the length of his tenure at Grace and even his age. He asked for how many people this was their first Shepherd’s Conference. When at least half the men in attendance stood up, he asked, “So whose conference have you been at?” He remarked, though, that looking at the number...
Conference Kickoff (03/01/06 - 14 Comments)
So here I am. I'm sitting in the worship center of Grace Community Church. Apart from the orchestra, which is doing some last minute practicing, and a few scattered conference staff, talking in small clusters, the auditorium is empty. The Master's Seminary choir, which must number at least 100, just finished practicing a few of the songs they will lead us in later today. I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon and immediately met up...
The Shepherd's Conference (02/28/06 - 20 Comments)
I have been given the great privilege of liveblogging this year's Shepherd's Conference. The conference, which is geared primarily towards pastors and is sponsored by Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, is composed of both General Sessions and Conference Seminars. The General Sessions "are times when we gather as one great congregation to worship the Lord in music and sit under the teaching of godly men—men who have proven themselves to be passionate teachers...
