Okay, it's VERY late. So this will be very short. I may expand on some stuff later, and I don't claim to be able to make sense of stuff so late.
Smokin' guns, Tim Keller just rocked. I'll explain this talk a bit, but the rest will be brief.
Keller's third and last session was up first this morning, "Doing Justice." Geez. A friend said it was the highlight of the conference. It certainly was one of the most important talks I've ever heard on ministry. Keller described injustice as that which damages the fabric of shalom. Shalom is the way things ought to be. When the body is healthy, it has shalom. All bits and pieces are harmonious. So with culture, as the bits and pieces do well together, there is cultural/city/neighborhood shalom. But when that fabric is damaged (as it always and often is) then we do justice, or reweave shalom.
Keller said that power has to be given to others if we are going to do anything good. Our job is to enable flourishing. We are born in certain circumstances we didn't look to be in. People haven't asked to be where they are. And Christians should give away power to those who don't have it as the work of justice. Keller said that biblical righteousness is about being willing to disadvantage yourself for the advantage of the community. His question for us: Does your city rejoice that your church is there? If they don't then we aren't working justice.
Matt Chandler of The Village Church of Dallas was next. I first heard Matt in Dallas last summer at Acts29, and he was great. But today, it may have been the most important message I've heard. I said Darrin Patrick's message was really good for me, and Matt's was like picking up where Darrin left off and pressing even harder toward Jesus. I wrote in my notes: "I would gladly let Matt start again and say it all over again." It was that good.
Eric Mason talked about reaching the hip-hop generation. Good, solid stuff. We heard a couple of rap songs. Very interesting on contextualization.
Mark Driscoll batted clean-up by talking about the Gospel, the Cross, and mostly about penal substitution. It was a "hot" talk, and he was pretty fired up. Good, biblical stuff.
Last things...We were able to hang at the Driscoll house for 1 1/2 hours tonight with about a dozen other guys. The conference audio should be online in a couple of weeks. And please pray for our trip back. We fly out at 2:30 central time. It has been a great, great trip but we really miss our kids.
