Ray Ortlund reflects on his experience at The Gospel Coalition conference:
Clearly, the Lord is at work. He is creating new conditions for the future. In the 90s, we had nothing of the magnitude of The Gospel Coalition, Together For The Gospel, Acts 29 and other obvious indicators of a new movement of God. We did have, say, Promise Keepers, which helped many. But PK was not explicitly gospel-centered, not aggressively theological. Its impact was unsustainable. But now the Lord is giving us something new, something better. Let's be thankful to him. This doesn't come along every day. Let's steward the blessing well. If we bungle this, I doubt we will see it again in our time. But if we are wise, not intruding our own self-centered complications but humbly putting Christ first, the blessing will grow. And maybe, in the mercy of God, we will see awakening in our time.May it be so!
4 comments:
I'm torn on this. I followed this conference and I know people that attended. So much of this type of crowd seems like "church for the churched, seminarians, and theologians." I wish we could find a balance. To me Jesus more than exemplified the kind of teaching style, relationships, and communicating methods and how to do that with real every day people, and still be biblical. (well, he was Jesus so hard for him to NOT be biblical!) But put yourself in the shoes of the every day joe and cross that path with this crowd. I'm just not sure the swing of the pendulum to this degree is where God wants it to be either. Again, really take yourself out of the crowd you run with and think of real everyday people from schooled academic types to truck drivers and factory workers. How did Jesus teach and convey His Father's message?
John, what about the idea/possibility that believers from different churches in the same city can unite together to advance the gospel? Churches aren’t exactly working *together* (practically) right now, at least in my area. The baseline theological similarities will be what causes the connection through TGC, then the mission will be to reach the city together. Of course, I don’t know what will come of all this, but, I’m really curious.
John,
This was a Christian conference which was meant, by design, to go into some deeper issues of theology and methodology in the local church. Certainly, a person doesn't have be a seminarian or theologian to be interested in such things (although we should remember that *all* Christians are theologians, ultimately).
However, the theme of this conference came from 2 Timothy, a letter specifically written to a young pastor. The concerns are those of an older brother in the faith (Paul), writing to a younger brother (Timothy), who is preparing to pastor a troubled local church.
In other words, the Gospel Coalition's conference this year was not necessarily *meant* to address the average joe on the street. However, the truths of the messages at the conference are meant to be taken by pastors and implemented for the benefit of "average joe's," both churched and unchurched.
I think I was mostly responding/reacting to the post Z linked by Ray Ortlund and his statement"But now the Lord is giving us something new, something better. Let's be thankful to him." And comparing it to PK, etc. Granted I was never a big PK guy, but I think it's mission was quite different and hard to compare to GC. It certainly tried to reach beyond the churched in it's evangelical efforts. I just hate to see someone comparing their affiliation with a group to other ministries/movements as "something new, something better" - there's no real reason/need for that in God's Kingdom - (unless it's seriously pointing out false teachers, etc.) and it's somewhat of a pompous/pious statement to make. I agree - movements/conferences/ministries need to band together and learn from one another and become of one accord, rather than constantly comparing themselves to past or present movements and holding onto a belief that they're somehow given by God as something better.
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