When I have to speak in front of a lot of people, I feel the way I imagine I would if I were jumping out of a helicopter. It's just not natural—at least that's what my body tells me. Nonetheless, when Scott Anderson asked me a couple months ago if I would introduce my dad at this year's pastors conference, I said yes. (And for four days leading up to it, I questioned the sanity of my decision.)

But I'm glad I did it. I love my dad a lot, and it was an honor to get to say a few things before he spoke on Tuesday.

Below is the text for my intro. (I'm only mildly embarassed to say I had it prepared 5 weeks early.) If you want to see it, it's the first 5 minutes of the video of my dad's …

Continue Reading →

The pastors’ conference has become a tradition in the Piper family. Back in the days when the conference was small enough to be held in the Bethlehem church building, the sons who were homeschooled loved to hang out there. It didn’t take them long to figure out who the pastors were that enjoyed talking with kids and playing basketball during break. Oh yes, and there were killer snacks.

The big family event during conference is Tuesday evening when the speakers and their wives are invited to dinner at our house before the evening session. We’ve done this since the very first conference, because we wanted to give the speakers one time during the conference when they could visit with each …

Continue Reading →

(Listen to why we invited Crawford Loritts to speak at this year's pastors conference.)

Crawford Loritts served for nearly 30 years with Campus Crusade for Christ. I knew that anybody who has given that long to Campus Crusade must have a real heart for God and for evangelism.

Then I learned that he had become the senior pastor of a church in Roswell, Georgia. I was surprised to learn that it is primarily a white church (and he's not white!). I thought, "That's unusual!"

And on top of that he has written a book on fathering.

That was enough—almost—for me to call him. But then I went to hear him at the Gospel Coalition. In his message he alluded to his dad in a way that was …

Continue Reading →

(Listen to why we invited Greg Livingstone to speak at this year's pastors conference.)

Greg Livingstone is one of my heroes. He founded Frontiers, a mission to Muslims. He is not the president anymore, but he grew that mission into hundreds of people going to the hardest places of the world.

He has himself endured a lot, dealing with health issues in his family and serving in very risky places. Through the mission, he has had to deal with people getting thrown in jail and getting killed. And he has had to handle parents who are upset because their child is going to some crazy place like Iraq or Saudi Arabia because of him.

The reason I invited him this year—though I would have…

Continue Reading →

(Listen to why we invited D. A. Carson to speak at this year's pastors conference.)

I'll go out of my way to listen to Don Carson any chance I get. He is a scholar of the first rank, and a pastoral scholar who has a love for the church. He is an evangelist who does what he calls "missions" at universities where he argues for the cause of Christ and leads people out of their unbelief.

He is reformed and loves the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace. He is a family man and—so I've heard—he's also able to build just about anything with his hands.

He is also clear and articulate. He says things and you understand what he means.

So he is something like a renaissance m…

Continue Reading →

(Listen to why I'm going to be doing my biographical message on my father at this year's pastors conference.)

My father, Bill Piper, was an incredibly intense preacher of the gospel with a strong evangelistic bent. That's because he was an evangelist. He was not a pastor and never was a pastor. For 50+ years he served as an itinerant evangelist trying all the time to rescue people from perishing.

Because of this he always had the smell of hell singeing his garments and the aroma of heaven beckoning him on. The result was an amazing combination of blazing-eyed intensity as he preached with high levels of joy, praise, and exultation over the hope that he had in Jesus Christ.

My …

Continue Reading →

Listen

If you're wondering whether the pastors conference is for you or whether you should make the effort to come, consider a few things.

It is for any pastor or pastoral-type church leader, and we let you decide who that is. We're not going to pick your pocket and ask for your credentials.

Also, don't let finances get in the way. If you really want to come and can't afford it, we offer a whatever-you-can-afford policy.

The conference theme is "The Pastor as Father and Son," but if you don't have children or you're single and you think, "That's not for me," it might well be for you, because there is still a spiritual dimension of fathering that applies to single men. Joh…

Continue Reading →

Listen

It's hard to say what my favorite part of the pastors conference is.

I love the singing. I love to hear 1300 men sing at the top of their lungs about the greatest reality in the universe. So that's a big one. But I don't think that's the biggest.

Probably my favorite part is sitting with the other pastors under the preaching of the word of God around some great theme and growing in it myself.

A third thing would be that I love preparing my message. I love doing the biographies, so that I can stand up in front of these guys, with some great Christian saint behind me, and tell their story in a way that encourages me and them.

I also love getting reconnected with…

Continue Reading →

Listen

The target audience for our pastors conference is church leaders. We call it a conference for pastors, but in the small print it is for church leaders. We don't make anybody show their credentials at the door.

Our goal is to encourage pastors. The way we go about encouraging them and strengthening their hands to press on in the work is by focusing on theological issues rather than how-to issues. It's not a conference mainly on how to do church. It is mainly a conference about who God is and what are his ways in the world.

So it's reflective and theological. It involves a lot of singing, worship, prayer, and a big bookstore. We love to get pastors together and have them …

Continue Reading →

Listen

It seemed to us that if the focus of the pastors conference is going to be on the pastor as father—both of a church and a family—then having the sons along could enable them to catch a vision of what it is that their fathers are called to and what the challenges are that their fathers face.

Asking the fathers to come is, in part, a means of showing respect. And wouldn't it be awesome to see a few hundred three-generation teams at the conference, all hearing messages about God as our father, pastors as fathers, and missions as fathering? Asking fathers and sons to come is a way of building into the manhood of sons, fathers, and grandfathers a sense of what a great calling it is…

Continue Reading →