I’m on my way home from Together for the Gospel (T4G), a biennial conference for pastors and church leaders. This was my first time attending, and I find myself refreshed and re-energized for the next season of ministry.
T4G is big. It’s held in a big arena (KFC Yum! Center, home of the University of Louisville basketball team). It draws a big crowd (over 7,000 this year). It sends every attendee home with a big stack of books (I have 44). There’s a big screen, big singing, and big lines for the restrooms.
The biggest thing about it, however, is the lineup of speakers. Perhaps you’ve heard of some of these men:
- Mark Dever
- Thabiti Anyabwile
- Al Mohler
- Kevin DeYoung
- David Platt
- Matt Chandler
- Ligon Duncan
- John MacArthur
- John Piper
These men have big ministries and big personalities. I imagine most attendees are drawn to T4G for the opportunity to sit under such colossal preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Therein lies what I found to be both the best and worst thing about T4G: our time in the word of God.
Some of the speakers delivered the word with such clarity and power that I’ll feel the effects for years to come.
- David Platt spoke of Moses’ intercession for the people of God in Exodus 32 and 33. Moses knows the perfections, purposes, and promises of God are unchanging, but the plans of God are unfolding. Therefore, he pleads for God’s mercy on sinners. He pleads for God’s presence and power among his people. He pleads for God’s glory in the earth. Now, every time I read Exodus 32-33, these points will stick with me.
- Ligon Duncan spoke of Numbers 5:1-4 and God’s purpose for expelling from the camp people with skin diseases, discharges, and contact with dead bodies. But Luke shows Jesus touching lepers, bleeders, and the dead. He does what the Old Testament code could not do: He makes them clean. How does he make the unclean clean? By going outside the camp himself to suffer their reproach (Heb 13:10-13). Thanks to Dr. Duncan, I’ll never read Leviticus and Numbers the same way again.
- John MacArthur spoke of the mass defection of Jesus’ disciples in John 6, and he drew out piercing implications for our ministries in our churches. He showed me how to read and understand this long and difficult chapter.
- John Piper explained why Romans 9 comes after Romans 8, and how the incredible promises of Romans 8 would mean nothing without the truths of Romans 9. So many Jews in Paul’s day didn’t believe Christ. Did this mean God was being unfaithful to his promises to them? And if so, how could we ever be certain of his promises to us (no condemnation, no separation from his love)? Piper gave me a broad context in which to read Romans 8-11, and that context will help me to study these chapters in greater detail on my own.
These were the highlights for me.
What was the common thread? These best parts of T4G all came when speakers gave me confidence that I could do what they were doing. They showed me how to see what they were seeing in the Scripture. I learned how to read and study and apply and teach these texts. I won’t need to listen to the recordings of these talks over and over to be filled with the truth. These men launched me into deeper study of God’s word, increased hope in Christ, and more fervent desire for the salvation of unbelievers.
What was the worst part of T4G?
It came at those times when I found myself sitting there thinking:
- “I could never do what this guy is doing.”
- “This speaker is way smarter than anyone else in the room, especially me.”
- “Wow, praise God for raising him up to have such influence for Christ, but no-one else listening to him will ever be able to replicate his teaching when they leave this conference.”
Now there is much sin in my heart, and sometimes my inability to get moving simply results from my own dullness.
But I wonder, too, if there’s a downside to the “bigness” of such a lineup. While some teachers are more skilled at “showing their work”—thus inspiring their hearers to continue what they have begun—others do a better job of wowing and impressing. And what can I say? I usually love to be wowed and impressed.
T4G had its fair share of wowing and impressing. But the wowing and impressing will be forgotten as soon as I get home and have to help with the backlog of dishes and yard work and play time with my kids. I’ll also have to get right to work on a pile of projects at work.
The moments of real training, however, will bear fruit long into the future.
Well, if you’re planning to do dishes when you get home, I’ll be sure to save some for you. 🙂
Dear Pastor Krol:
Thank for your reflections. It is a great thing to see one of God’s under-shepherds blessed by other laborers of the Gospel. I was a little saddened, though, by your words concerning your ability to replicate what these men are able to do in their ministries. The reason I am saddened is, because these man have resources that the common pastor just cannot possibly have. You have to remember, these men have large churches, have paid staff to research topics for them, and even hire organizations like Docent Group to basically do a lot of the lifting for them. Now, I am not saying that these men do not labor faithfully in the Word; rather, I am saying that, given the resources available to high profile pastors, you, as a faithful laborer of the Lord, should not feel as though you have to measure up to what high profiles pastors are able to do. In my estimation, if you are feeding God’s people the unadulterated Word of God, then you are faithful minister, worthy of double honor, as Paul puts it. There was a time in the church when every minister only had the Scriptures to labor with, and often times, faced terrible “failure,” if we were to judge them by our modern context. That time was, of course, New Testament times; yet, Paul saw these pastor/elders as successful, faithful men of God. Blessings, brother. May God bless your ministry.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment, Roberto. I really appreciate your encouragement and exhortation.
To be clear, my lament here was not that I couldn’t replicate the quality of their research or minister with the same degree of pizzazz. My concern was more that some men were better at “showing their work” than others, such that the rest of us could replicate their conclusions the next time we study the same text. I hope that, in the end, we believe truths because we’re convinced of them from Scripture, and not just because an influential preacher espoused them.
Some of the men, of course, preached with this sort of vision, and did it fabulously.