Down to D.C.
Last month I was blessed to attend a pastors’ conference in Washington D.C. Victoria tagged along to cover the sight seeing portion of our trip while I attended lectures and workshops. It was a jam-packed week of learning. There is a lot to process, but we both learned that we are not city people. Buses, subways, and taxis are not for us. Navigating the city was a thoroughly frustrating experience. Anyway, that’s enough public transit talk. Attending conferences are always encouraging and challenging experiences and it can feel like trying to drink out of a firehose. I want to share with you what the conference covered and a small portion of my experience. My hope is that I can drip drip drip what I have learned this week into my ministry. The last thing I want to do is water board you with change or information.
The conference I attended was a 9Marks Weekender hosted by Capitol Hill Baptist Church. The one-word summary of the conference would be Ecclesiology. I attended sessions on membership, church governance, raising up leaders, small groups, church discipline, and sermon prep. We also got to observe an elder meeting and a congregational meeting. I attended Sunday school, worship, and Sunday evening service. I sat in on a Sunday dinner and service review meeting. Like I said it was a jam-packed week away. Here are some stats from the conference. There were over 180 men in attendance. I was given 26 books for free and a 55% coupon code that I used to buy 13 books for less than $40. I also took over 20 pages of handwritten notes.
I want to share one encouragement, one change, and one challenge from this conference. There was a lot, but I think just sharing three things is sufficient for now.
Encouragement: Healthy Churches
There are a lot of churches seeking health. I spent the week at a healthy church with men from about 120+ churches from around the world. I think sometimes our context can be discouraging. We’re a large church in a rural context. How does that happen? A lack of healthy churches around us. If our surrounding communities had healthy Bible believing churches SRBC would likely not be as big as it is. I just want to encourage you that there are a lot of healthy churches out there staying faithful to the Word. I shook the hands of many brothers seeking health. Capitol Hill Baptist Church was about as unhealthy as they come back in 1994 when Mark Dever was hired. Now they’re a church that’s leading the way in equipping other pastors. I was deeply encouraged. God is still moving, calling his own back to himself, and bringing his Kingdom come. So much of what I heard testifies to the fact that God is moving in our midst in Steamboat Rock just as much as he is in the District of Columbia.
Change: Church Membership
I titled this change, but it’s more of a tweak. 9Marks has very high view of church membership. I got hear them teach on membership and sit in on three membership classes. As I learned I was encouraged that much of what we do in our membership process is great. Our great process is evidenced by the fact that we added so many members recently. The fruit of restructuring our class and process in 2021. We have a clear process with and engaging class. The tweak I’d like to make is highlighting certain aspects of membership in a clearer way. I’d also like to have resources available that line up with our discipleship process of Connect, Grow, Serve, and Go. The resources that would allow new members to dive deeper into how they can follow Jesus further. One resource would be on baptism. We have one person each class that struggles with understanding biblical baptism. This is a result of having received bad teaching or being “baptized” as an infant. This resource would help someone who’s letting baptism be an obstacle for becoming a member.
Challenge: Discipleship
This was by far the most challenging part of the conference. They have deep culture of personal discipleship. Notice I said culture not program. They do not have some sort of program or pastor led training for discipleship. They simply disciple one another. Their goal is for “the congregation to disciple one another in the Word.” The conviction is quite simple, discipleship is part of what it means to be a Christian. If Christians are powered by the Word to disciple one another they’ll do it forever. If Christians are powered by a program, they’ll do it as long as the program stays alive or interesting. My gentle challenge to our church is this, we’re a church that loves to be busy and have lots of programs. Good things come from that, but discipleship and care are the responsibility of every church member not just professional pastors. I say this not just for you, it was a challenge for myself as well. Have I been leading well here in engaging in one-on-one discipleship relationships? It’s a challenge I received that I found powerful and wanted to share with you as well.
All in all, it was great trip. I am very blessed to be part of a congregation that values its Pastors gaining new skills and encouragement. My hope is to begin to allow what I’ve learned to slowly leak into my ministry here at SRBC. Thank you so much allowing me to go and learn.