Jeff Burns
Puritan Board Freshman
Anyone here familiar with James MacDonald's Elephant Room conference? Last year's conference was billed as follows:
"The Elephant Room will feature blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who share a common love for the gospel but take differing approaches to ministry. No keynotes. No canned messages. The purpose of the Elephant Room is to model loving confrontation and gracious disagreement that honors relationship and allows diversity of opinion but stands without compromise on the revealed word of God. As Proverbs 27:17 instructs us that iron sharpens iron, so we want to sharpen each other for effective ministry. You’ll be stretched and challenged in your convictions while gaining practical insights from a variety of pastoral perspectives."
Last year's speaker lineup was Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Steven Furtick, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Greg Laurie, and Perry Noble.
I was saddened that the folks who put this on think the only difference between Furtick/Noble and Driscoll/MacDonald/Chandler is methodilogical. Furtick and Noble are leading many people astray in the Carolinas, and it's truly sad to see it happen.
That said, the Elephant Room Round 2 has just been announced. Only 3 speakers scheduled so far: Driscoll, MacDonald, and Mark Dever. Now I'm really concerned... Dever has a considerably good track record as well as a nicely tuned "discern-o-meter." But this seems like he's just trying to step on a syncretistic land mine. I don't know if there will be any out and out heretics there this year, but I just don't understand why Dever thinks it's a good idea to associate himself and his ministry with this type of event.
Thoughts?
"The Elephant Room will feature blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who share a common love for the gospel but take differing approaches to ministry. No keynotes. No canned messages. The purpose of the Elephant Room is to model loving confrontation and gracious disagreement that honors relationship and allows diversity of opinion but stands without compromise on the revealed word of God. As Proverbs 27:17 instructs us that iron sharpens iron, so we want to sharpen each other for effective ministry. You’ll be stretched and challenged in your convictions while gaining practical insights from a variety of pastoral perspectives."
Last year's speaker lineup was Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Steven Furtick, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Greg Laurie, and Perry Noble.
I was saddened that the folks who put this on think the only difference between Furtick/Noble and Driscoll/MacDonald/Chandler is methodilogical. Furtick and Noble are leading many people astray in the Carolinas, and it's truly sad to see it happen.
That said, the Elephant Room Round 2 has just been announced. Only 3 speakers scheduled so far: Driscoll, MacDonald, and Mark Dever. Now I'm really concerned... Dever has a considerably good track record as well as a nicely tuned "discern-o-meter." But this seems like he's just trying to step on a syncretistic land mine. I don't know if there will be any out and out heretics there this year, but I just don't understand why Dever thinks it's a good idea to associate himself and his ministry with this type of event.
Thoughts?