Evangelists' conference audio now online

Last week I attended the Northern Evangelists' Conference in Leyland. The audio of the plenary sessions from the conference, given by Tim Keller, are now online here. It's well worth downloading.

I was particularly struck by one point that Dr. Keller made in his final talk. This was that a necessary thing for real church growth is a radical grasp of grace. It's grace which converts nominal Christians and 'wakes up' sleepy Christians to the fact that we're accepted by God through no merit of our own in any way. When a church starts to realise this, then 'religious' unbelievers are challenged with the truth of the gospel, and then those who falsely think that Christianity is just a series of rules begin to realise nature of the true gospel of grace.

Since the conference took place, I've unexpectedly had the opportunity to meet and study the Scriptures with a couple of lads who are both churched and both 'religious'. Yet it's already become evident that neither of them have grasped the essence of Christianity. They are trying to be Christianity but have no spiritual life (something I wrote about a few weeks ago here). I'm excited and prayerful that these young men might come to know the reality of grace in their lives, and that in turn this might impact the lives of others too as they see the difference it makes.