John Piper's Invitation
Dear Friends,
God has been merciful to us for twenty years in sustaining the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors (now the Desiring God Conference for Pastors). We will mark this twentieth anniversary conference with a focus on The Holiness of God. I am honored that R.C. Sproul is willing to come and lead us into this greatest theme. It is fitting that a conference that for twenty years has focused on biblical truth and theological issues should celebrate the highest attribute of God on our twentieth birthday.
More than ever I believe in the original vision of this conference to spread a biblical understanding and passionate embrace of what the Puritans called “the doctrines of grace”; to strengthen the drooping hands of beleaguered pastors; to inspire God-centered preaching; to advance the cause of missions to the unreached peoples of the world; and to help us all get serious (not sad) in Christ-exalting worship. I know of no theme that could advance these aims more than the holiness of God—if God would come and give us eyes to see. Pray that he would.
To help us ponder these things in relation to the church and the world, Thabiti Anyabwile and William Mackenzie plan to join us from the Cayman Islands and Scotland, respectively.
Thabiti Anyabwile (maybe he will explain why he was once called Ron Burns) has recently moved from being an elder at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington to the pastorate at First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman. Not only have I profited from hearing him preach, but when I was in Cambridge last summer I took the time to write a foreword for his book The Faithful Pastor: Recovering the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Preachers (Crossway, 2007). The book is a one-of-a-kind introduction to a part of the Reformed tradition almost no one knows about. I am deeply thankful that God put it in his heart to come all this way to join us at the conference.
William Mackenzie is the founder and head of the global publishing company, Christian Focus, which has its main offices in Inverness, Scotland. Never before have we had a publisher speak to us at the conference. Why now? The short answer is that William and his wife Carine gave Noël and me two of the most historically and spiritually enriching days of our time in Great Britain earlier this year. The larger answer is that he is driven by a passion for global literature outreach. This is a way of looking at the world that few of us are familiar with. It could revolutionize your thinking.
My own part in the conference this year will be a biographical study of Andrew Fuller, the main rope-holder for William Carey and the main influence in England for overturning the icy grip of Hyper-Calvinism on the Baptists of his day. As I read his works and his life, I am astonished (as I usually am in biographies) how relevant he is for our day. His wrestling with the nature of saving faith and the meaning of justification by faith is more illumining than the fading new perspective. I hope to spill over with some of my happy discoveries.
Weaving it all together into a fabric of worship, we will sing and pray. O how I love to hear you sing at these conferences! This will be a sweet memory on my dying bed. The bookstore will be overwhelming. The conversations will be stimulating. Old friendships will be renewed. New ones will form that will last for a lifetime. I pray that you will come, as God enables you, and that we will meet him together with refreshing power as we tremble before his holiness.
Your friend and partner in the great work,
John Piper
