The Gospel Coalition

I'm feeling rather overwhelmed right now and have a ton of things to catch up on after being gone, so this will be brief, though much more could be said. Will, Dan and I just got back from The Gospel Coalition's first ever conference. It was my first experience at a pastor/leader conference and I was immensely encouraged and inspired by the teaching very much directed at what I'm pursuing.

Some highlights:

• Everything Tim Keller says is gold; the most quotable preacher I've ever heard and very practical with his theology and insights.
• Will and I talked over dinner with the director of an inner-city ministry in Chicago and talked about how a church like Riverview can impact the inner-city.
• Good times hanging out with Dan and Will.
  
• Food and beverages at Goose Island and Three Floyds, two of the finest breweries in the nation.
• Briefly met Mark Driscoll in the bookstore and later got to thank him for the way he has influenced over the last few years how I approach Bible teaching by making Jesus the center and hero of every text.
• John Piper encouraged everyone with the joys he has experienced in pastoral ministry and then gave an important exposition on Romans 8.
• Finally, I asked a question in a workshop and the response was a, in the words of another blogging conference goer, "slightly heated, interesting, and humorous interaction between Driscoll and Lawrence."

The Gospel Coalition will be launching their website in the coming weeks with audio and video from the conference, so be sure to look for that. In the meantime, three bloggers have posted fairly extensive notes here, here and here and the Coalition's foundational documents are here.

Edit: Piper's audio and manuscript are up now at Desiring God's website. I highly recommend the audio because of his speaking style and much of his introduction isn't on the manuscript.

(picture stolen from Justin Buzzard)