Weekender--Done!

After 5 days of intense lectures, question and answer sessions, prayer and observations, the Weekender put on by 9Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist church is over. Over 70 pastors from all over the world, England, Australia, Chile, Dominican Republic, and Canada, as well as all over the US met to get some wisdom on running a healthy church. The conference was about 5 blocks behind the Capitol Building, where some of the biggest decisions in this country, if not world are made. I won't bore you too much with details, but here's a some of the sessions that were discussed: church membership (this church takes this stuff VERY seriously, 'you don't serve cookies in this church unless you're a member'; with that comes church discipline--several sessions were on that topic alone. We discussed adult Christian education and talked about a 4 year plan for teaching; we looked at their vision for missions and I was blown away at their commitment to reaching the 10/40 window through business ventures, church planting etc. This is a church that strongly believes in structure, 'Good policy reduces hard conversations' one elder said. But they are not structure driven for structure sake, they truly believe in doing all things to the glory of God, and that a casual approach to ministry is not acceptable for the Christian church, Mark Dever the lead pastor said "We make a serious mistake when we treat casualness with intimacy, in fact, its just the opposite". They are a fascinating church to study, as they are Baptist, yet congregational and elder lead--those concepts don't work in my mind, but after 5 days of observing 2 elder meetings, a congregational meeting, two worship services, I have to say that something beautiful is happening here. One other thing really stood out: these guys loved their church, they live in the community and truly share their lives with each other--purposefully vulnerable for accountability but for love's sake. One last thing, they gave away a pile of books...I thought I had lots to get through, but now my load has truly increased. One book I'm excited to get reading (maybe because its the shortest) is "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God" by J.I.Packer.
On a couple different notes: the weather here has been HOT--sorry Winnipegers, we've had a chance to see a few of the sights here in Washington, but the weekender has taken up most of my time so far. One quick observation though, this is a fast city, everyone's in a hurry--even the folks at the church. There's very little green space, but Nate has found a little park nearby our hotel where he's made some friends with local kids. Another observation: being white and speaking English does not make you a majority in this city either. We have one more day in the Capital before heading west, tomorrow we hope to visit the Lincoln Memorial and then the Holocaust museum. I know Nate will not understand a thing in that museum, but I suspect it will be quite special to have him there as we walk the hallways of that sober place.
Ken