by Sandy » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:03 am
This is interesting. A friend of mine in Texas, a conservative who is vocally supportive of the conservative resurgence leadership most of the time, told me at an associational meeting that he quit going to the pastor's conference several years ago because, his words, "it bores me to tears." He said that it is basically the same thing as watching TV Land, reruns of reruns of reruns of the same stuff, and that he'd heard just about everything fresh and useful that Al Mohler, Charles Stanley, Jerry Vines and Mac Brunson had to say. I suspect that this newer lineup is the result of a lot of discussions about doing something that would rescue the event from oblivion because of sagging attendance. I attended a few of them back in the 80's, when the attendance packed out large convention halls. In Indianapolis a couple of years ago, we went to one of the evening sessions and in a hall that was set up to hold about 12,000, you couldn't even tell anyone was there, maybe 500 or 600 people total. I guess they figure that someone like Piper or Warren, who have large followings in the SBC, might bring people to the conference and convention, and someone from Jakes' ministry might interject some genuine spiritual enthusiasm into it. And I guess they figure that younger pastors and church leaders are more interested in hearing from someone successful in evangelism and outreach, like Driscoll and the emergent movement, than from aging old men who pastor large congregations of mostly senior adults and baptize a few kids here and there.
From a theological perspective, there's really not very much difference, not any that warrants the whine.