SGC Conference to Home

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Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, next to Christmas. If I were to power rank holidays, it would be Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July. You’ll notice that all of those holidays involve eating. It’s a pretty simple formula. Eat, don’t do much, and hang out with those you love the most. How would you rank the holidays?

In this week’s musings, I’ll give you some insights from the SGC Pastors’ Conference and other random thoughts that pop into my head.

SGC Pastors’ Conference

There isn’t anything like being in a room with 700 church leaders singing songs that we all know and celebrating our glorious Savior. Sure, it would be cool if every Sunday was like this. But the reality is, at a pastors’ conference like this, people deeply desire to be there, have planned to be there, are all leaders, and they’ve been looking forward to this all year. It is a dose of heaven. It’s not fair to compare the SGC Pastors’ Conference with a regular church service in the middle of July:).

As always, the preaching was good. The sermons I got the most out of were CJ Mahaney’s sermon and Jeff Purswell’s sermon on theological integrity. I’ll admit it…Jeff is my favorite preacher in SGC. His sermon particularly struck a note with me when he said that we must not only teach sound doctrine but delight in it. Humbling, convicting, and exactly right! I needed to hear that.

Jeff also did a breakout session on “The Pastor and Politics,” which I thought was excellent. In that session, Jeff said, “People are immersed in a politicized culture. When they come to church, they need a transcendent perspective in a temporal culture.” Pure gold.

Here are the links for all the sermons and breakouts: https://www.sovereigngrace.com/2023-pastors-conference-resources. You can look on this page for a variety of resources.

In recent years, the SGC Pastors’ Conference has become a place for me to connect with other pastors and ministries going on in SGC. I’m involved with the Philippines, the Small Town Initiative (caring for and planting churches in small towns), the Executive Committee (providing assistance and support to the SGC Leadership Team), and regional leadership assistance. I was able to meet new pastors who are interested in SGC, and I was able to connect with good friends. It makes for a busy but fruitful week.

But my biggest joy is hanging out with the people we take from CLF. This year it was Dave Quill, Dave Ruble, Stan Welch, Robert Sidlo, Luis Castellanos, and Andrew Crawford. For Robert and Andrew, it was their first pastors’ conference. It was great spending extended time with these guys and talking through the things we were learning and were challenged by. This time with these men gave me new ways to pray for them and joke with them (those who know me well know that I like to joke around with people).

Home

The last Saturday I wasn’t out of town or didn’t have a ministry event was September 2nd. Since September, I have traveled to Denver, Manila, Bend, and Orlando. In between, we’ve had local conferences and weddings. I realize I’m weak compared to many of you who travel a lot, but I’m happy to be home now for a while. I don’t have another travel week planned for ministry until March. It feels nice to unpack my bags and put my feet up finally.

The other reason I’m grateful to be home is so that I can preach more regularly at CLF. It’s humbling and exciting to do ministry away from home. But, as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.” I thoroughly enjoy preaching at CLF. I love my church, and it’s good for my soul to preach weekly. I looked over the preaching schedule for this year and found something interesting: since the end of May, I have only preached back-to-back Sundays twice. This was an odd year. I planned the summer without thinking through my fall travel schedule. Usually, I’m preaching at CLF more regularly. From November 26th through February 18th, I’m scheduled to preach every Sunday.

Looking Ahead

With that in mind, we will start a 5-week study for Advent this coming Sunday. This week, we’ll be in Isaiah 9:1-7 and look at hope. Beginning in January, we will jump back into Genesis and start in Genesis 17.

From the Cheap Seats

Have you heard…The Texas Rangers are still the World Series Champions! I’m still stunned. It’s been 21 days since Game 5.
The Civil War will be interesting. Oregon is playing very well. Dan Lanning is an excellent coach, and I’m sure he will not allow the Beavers to run over the top of them again. Jonathan Smith is also an excellent coach and always seems to scheme up the other team well. Right now, the state of Oregon has excellent coaching.
Not an NBA fan…If you are, can you explain it to me? I know it’s basketball…but is it?
This is how I remember baseball: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzM1OzULjZa/