Conference Completed

I was away from blogging most of last week with my duties at our “Southern Baptists, Evangelicals and the Future of Denominationalism” conference. I was very pleased with the way things came together. I think ti was an important conversation about the future of the SBC with implications for broader evangelicalism.

Several bloggers gave summaries including:
Trevin Wax
Steve Weaver
Micah Fries
Baptist 21

Also audio of all the sessions are now available.

My paper was an exposition of the central thesis of this blog: that the oversight of souls is the heart of pastoral ministry. In the context of this conference I argued that the future of any broader church movement (any denomination or ‘evangelicalism’) is dependent on the health of specific local churches, and the health of churches will depend on (among other things) faithful pastoral ministry. Yet, this vision of caring for souls, it seems to me, is not a common idea in the church today. I am calling for a recovery of this vision, arguing that is the command of Scripture and the testimony of the church through the ages.