2008 Truth & Life Conference

Just a quick entry to say Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. As a result of your prayers, God truly blessed the seminar I gave at the Truth & Life Conference last week at The Master's College.

I spoke on "How to Fail at Life and Ministry" with the thesis that the bad reputation many doctrinally sound, Bible believing circles have for being cold, unloving, elitist, confrontational, disrespectful and self-righteous is directly tied to God's reputation in this world.

MANY are flooding away from our circles for other religions and cults, the New Age and occult as well as more liberal forms of Christianity either in mainline churches or the emergent movement / conversation, not because of prolonged exposure to God's Word, but because of interaction they've had with us.

By the way, the biblical way of talking about giving God a good name, a good reputation is a very common saying in our circles. Giving God a good name with our lives is EXACTLY the same as saying I'm living for the glory of God.

So, if our reputation is bad because of us (and not because of our message), we're not glorifying Him no matter how theologically rich we are, how much we love the Bible, how much we love preaching, the gospel and the local church. If you're still not convinced that God cares about our reputation, read Romans 2:24. In short, it is not optional for those who love the Word of the Spirit most to go above and beyond to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit most.

We'll see what the fall out ends up being on a message like that (especially when the podcast goes online), but as of now I've received nothing but positive feedback from everyone, and pray that God will use it to give us a better reputation since nothing less than His glory is on the line.