Some thoughts on The Gospel Coalition Conference

We got back from The Gospel Coalition conference early Friday morning. And after a brief time of sleep and catching up with the family it was right back into the flow of a week that includes much ministry so blogging has been sacrificed on the altar.

Here is a little postcard from outside the chapel (sorry ’bout the quality, taken from my Treo). I don’t know this guy (green T-Shirt) and evidently he was not looking for me, but he cooperated nevertheless…

I want to say that the conference was, in a word, special. We (the pastoral staff at OBC—Pat, Chris, & I) quickly realized that this was unique. This thing (The Gospel Coalition) would never be this small again. To have only five hundred or so attendees in Trinity’s chapel was something special. You became familiar with the unfamiliar faces that you saw and the familiar faces became more familiar. Typical conferences have the speakers surrounded by gaggles of attendees. But I bumped into DA Carson (literally) and stepped on Mark Driscoll’s foot (accidentally) in the cramped lobby. Ligon Duncan talked on his cell phone as John Piper talked to a young man. It was just a special and undoubtedly unique time.

Dr Carson explained a bit about The Gospel Coalition on Thursday morning. He articulated that this was not to compete with Together for the Gospel or Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals or any other gospel centered ministry, but rather to provide a resource for a networked community of gospel centered ministries. Further Carson noted that they wanted to recover the gospel from contemporary fragmentation and assert it in the confessional center. It seems that the website will be geared towards providing a resource for people who serve in ministry and subsequent annual conferences will also aim to equip and encourage men to recover and maintain this confessional gospel centeredness. Be sure to check out the doctrinal statement produced by Don Carson.

If you are going to listen to the audio (which will be out in June on their website—for free) I recommend Carson’s talk (has he ever preached a bad sermon?), then Piper’s (I just saw this am that Piper’s is online with Desiring God). We went to the breakout session with Mark Driscoll and a pastor from Capital Hill Baptist talking about mentoring young men. That is definitely worth the listen (this is a pic from the humorous debate that ensued over whether or not single guys should be elders)…

Andy Naselli (an assistant to Dr Carson) was very kind to give us a tour and answer tons of questions. Check out Andy’s blog where he has a great Don Carson resource page.

It was cool to chat with Justin Buzzard for a bit. Evidently he live blogged the conference (links below). He was banging away on his keyboard like a stenographer, so drop by his site and give him some props.

Colin Adams of Unashamed Workman has compiled some helpful linkage which I just copied and pasted here. If you are a preacher or like preaching go to his site; he has some great stuff.

Here are the links:

Colossians 3:16
* What is the Gospel Coalition?
* Day one
* Day two
* Personal reflections

Justin Taylor
* session one (Carson)
* session two (Keller)
* session three (Lorritts)
* Wilson: Christ and Culture in the Light of the Gospel
* final session (Piper)

Possibly Related posts:

1. The Gospel Coalition Site is now up
2. The Gospel Coalition Conference
3. D.A. Carson video on the Gospel (from the Gospel Coalition Conference)
4. The Gospel Coalition :: DA Carson
5. Gospel Coalition 2009 Conference Audio

4 Responses to “Some thoughts on The Gospel Coalition Conference”

1. Seth McBee says:

   May 26, 2007 at 8:58 am

   erik…thanks for the breakdown…

   I swear one of these days we’ll get together…

   So when you stepped on Driscoll’s foot did the real antichrist come out and brand 666 on your forehead?

   It is cool to remember that these dudes are just normal Jesus loving freaks.
2. Worlds Apart Some thoughts on The Gospel Coalition Conference « says:

   May 26, 2007 at 3:34 pm

   [...] Some thoughts on The Gospel Coalition Conference May 26th, 2007 — Jeff de Ruyter Irish Calvinist has posted some thoughts and links from the Gospel Coalition Conference.  Worth reading. Posted in Mark Driscoll, Posts from other Blogs, Reformed, Conference, Theology, Christianity. [...]
3. Steve says:

   May 27, 2007 at 9:51 pm

   Thanks for this.
4. The Gospel Coalition Conference at PastorBlog says:

   May 29, 2007 at 12:36 pm

   [...] Erik Raymond: Some thoughts on The Gospel Coalition Conference [...]