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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 not very well-received in some …
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 whatever is popular in our …
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 be invited to take one …
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 makes for sick comedy and …
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 The campus is large, but …
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 friends and co-workers. These people …
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 have them shined, at any …
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 of men in attendance, he …
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 with Doug McHone from Coffeeswirls …
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 of God’s Word and faithful …