Catalyst 2019
26 Jun 2019
I am very grateful to be ministering in a church which sees the value of sending their minister on conferences. A couple of weeks ago I was in London for “Catalyst”, the conference I have been to for the last few years, and certainly the conference I value the most of all I have ever been to.
It is organised by the International Presbyterian Church, but it was really encouraging that amongst the 180 delegates were people from all kinds of church backgrounds - there were other people ministering in an EFCC setting, as well as Baptists and Anglicans and other Independents.
Why do I value this conference so much? Partly there is the opportunity to catch up with folk I know well (the location was the new church building of my old church in Ealing), but mainly it is the quality of the teaching. It’s an intense few days - four talks (pitched at a high level, not remotely patronising) per day, but with a great mix of doctrinal teaching, expository preaching, and challenging application. There’s none of the discouragement and “woe is me” that can be so common a feature of some ministers conferences. There were also free books!
The four speakers were all excellent. The days began with Andrew Randall from Grace Church, Larbert (in Scotland). He preached to us on the gospel, life and cost of knowing God - giving us all the challenge that if the gospel is the gospel of knowing God, then we should be those who know God. “You can’t introduce someone you don’t know”.
The second speaker each day was Scott Swain, the president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He taught us through the second chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith - unpacking for us the supremacy, sovereignty and trinity of God. These were rich, detailed sessions.
After lunch Kevin DeYoung, the pastor at Christ Covenant Church in North Carolina. You may have heard of him as an author (he’s a great writer). He spoke on the decrees, creation and providence of God, both teaching what Scripture says about those things, and also helpfully teasing out the pastoral implications of each of them.
The days finished with Sinclair Ferguson from Scotland giving some powerful challenges from 2 Timothy on what the servant of God should look like. It was especially challenging when he shared Calvin’s comment that the laying on of hands in the New Testament seems to link back to the laying on of hands on the sacrificial offering in the Old Testament - meaning that the minister is given over to death for Christ’s sake.
I left the few days tired, but with a greater appreciation of our God, and a stronger conviction that, as John Piper has put it in a title of one of his books, “God is the gospel.” So often we can focus on what God gives us, and even what he has done for us, to the exclusion of adoring and delighting in who he is. It made me wonder whether our present day suspicion of creeds and confessions so evident in many churches has cut us off from the riches of biblical teaching and understanding about our God that has been passed down through the centuries. It is no wonder that the church is so weak in this country if we know so little of our God.
Do see Dan Greens blog for further reflections -