Carlos said to me at the end of the conference this year, 'After all these years of you inviting me to the conference I finally understand why you've been inviting me every time. Finally I've come along this year and it has been great, save me a place for next year.' This was one of a few comments along the same theme, and really, in my opinion, this year's conference was the best one yet.
The theme was Application in a sermon and those who attended had to work hard to get from the text to the application via a little work on worldview and the implication of the text at hand. Sounds technical, however the speaker for this year, Cristobal Ceron from Chile, did a fantastic job of walking people through this process in such a way that they can now go home knowing that they have a chance of making the application part of their sermons more applicable to their hearers. YAY!!!
One of the things that really impacted people was that Cristobal took people to the gospel time after time after time. In some areas of the world this is normal, yet in other areas it is not. He did a great job of showing us how necessary this is in every sermon we prepare.
Once again I am convinced that this is an event that must continue as more and more people are challenged to work hard to make sure the can explain the bible well to those they are teaching and to keep Christ and the gospel central in all they do.
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