A Unique Conference

For parts of the past 3 days, I have enjoyed attending the "Promoting the Gospel" Conference at LaGrange Baptist Church, 25 miles outside of Louisville, KY. I have attended conferences before. At T4G (Together for the Gospel) last year, I joined about 5,000 other believers as we sat under good teaching and sang our hearts out together. I have been to the annual conference of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation outside of Philadelphia, where several thousand of us were priviledged to hear Ed Welch talk about fear, worry, and the God of rest. This was different . . .

Two days ago, on Monday, I pulled up to the church just a few minutes before the start of the first session; regular registration was about to be over. I pulled into the parking lot of the beautiful LaGrange Baptist building and only saw about 10 other cars! What was this?? Well, to cut to the chase, there were 20-25 men in attendance at the conference this week. Aside from the free night sessions, where about 50 people from the church showed-up, we spent our day sessions in the youth room of the church building--just 20 pastors (I was one of the few men there who is not currently serving in a pastoral capacity), Tony Rose (LaGrange head pastor), Paul David Tripp, and Justin Taylor.

I'm glad that I attended this conference. Most of the men, including myself, were greatly surprised at the turnout; why shouldn't we be with the caliber of speakers and the incredible marketing that LaGrange had undertaken to promote the conference? Nevertheless, the smallness of the gathering was to our benefit. We had an intimate time with the speakers, with each other, and with the gracious God of the gospel.