Southern Baptist Convention Day 2

Monday was the final day of the SBC's Pastors Conference. I came down to NOLA knowing that this (the Pastors Conference) would probably be my favorite part of the whole meeting time. How many times does one get to hear preaching from some of God's most gifted servants at one place?

I love conferences like this. There is just so much. It is true that many times you feel that you are trying to drink from a fire hydrant, but it is still good. There are all the booths in the exhibition hall where you have people trying to show you what they have to offer. The best part about these is that most of these booths have freebies.

You also have those people that you run into and haven't seen in forever. I believe that I ran into half of my graduating class from college today. It was good catching up with some. I had the privilege of talking with a seminary professor from NOBTS and letting him know that the prayers we prayed together about God opening a place for me to serve as pastor were answered. He returned that favor by introducing me to a couple of pastors who have been at it for a while. These great guys gave me some "words of advice" and prayed for me,

And what would the Pastors Conference be without the preaching? Today there were sermons from people like Johnny Hunt, David Jeremiah, Dennis Swanberg, David Platt, Jack Graham, James Macdonald, and Fred Luter, Jr. To say that my cup is overflowing is an understatement. It will take some time to go through what each of these men shared from the Word and let it get in deep to my heart. I will wait for future posts to flesh my thoughts on some of these messages out more.

One thing that I was grateful for was the way that some of the issues that may have divided some were handled by this conference. Yes, I am talking about the Calvinism debate that seemed to pop up right before the Convention in SBC circles. I believe that men on both sides of the aisle proved that we can be on either side and still be about taking the Gospel to the nations.