
Bible by the Beach is a new Bible-teaching conference that begins in May 2009. The event runs over the bank-holiday weekend, 1st-4th May 2009, and is held at the Congress Theatre complex in Eastbourne. It is best compared to Keswick - you come to Eastbourne, find your own accommodation and then come along to as many or as few sessions as you like. The cost of an adult delegate pass is just £50, with children (under 16) just £1!!
The conference is the initiative of the Bishop of Lewes, Wallace Benn and has been organised by a number of local ministers from different denominational backgrounds, including my dad. In the first year there is already a strong line up of speakers including;
And some more… plus Stuart Townend will be leading the music, and performing a concert.
For more information and to book in please visit the 85% complete website (nearly there) at: http://www.biblebythebeach.org
Adrian Warnock interviews Mark Driscoll - videos here
Mark Driscoll reflects on his time in the UK here and here
My posts on Together on a Mission 2008
My posts on the Dwell London conference
Mark Driscoll’s pastors training track (audio) - Be Radical Plant Radical Churches
Together on a Mission 2008 (audio) - Main Sessions
Off to CYFA camp in Colwyn Bay (sunny North Wales tomorrow) - 10 days of fun, hard work and learning lots about Jesus from John’s Gospel.
Mark Driscoll concluded the Dwell London conference on the subject of Preaching Jesus, and then finished with a short Q&A session. He gave 6 points about preparing to preach:
On the 6th point Driscoll went on to talk a lot about how we can preach Christ from the Old Testament by using; prophecies, Christophonies, types (Adam, Priests, Prophets, Kings), services (tested in a garden, tested in wilderness etc.), events (Passover, Day of Atonement etc.), titles of God.
Mark simply concluded by saying:
“It’s all about Jesus” “Love Jesus” “Talk about Jesus lots”
He said, “If it’s about Jesus, it works… and it makes up for a lot!”
He then addressed a Q&A session mainly answering questions about the role of a wife and family life in church planting ministry. He also had time for a quick jab at us Brits, he said two of our biggest weaknesses were our “fake niceness” and our “cowardice” particularly in addressing big questions - like sex. All in all great conference, watch this space for more stuff from the Acts29 and Porterbrook Network partnership…
Mark Driscoll kicked off the Dwell London conference by explaining the gospel - highlighting the difference between the Gospel of Grace, and the Religion of Works.
Mark began by quoting Martin Luther from his lecture on Galatians 2:14 -
“The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine…. Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”
Driscoll then went to 1 Corinthians 15, asking - What is the Gospel?
Under the PS point, Mark alluded to his knowledge of the NWA foundation, and told the story of how his church grew by 800 people on the week he preached PSA! He said that he wants to be a ‘truth teller’ - “I’d rather be hated than ignored - that’s my ministry!” Mark then moved on to look at the two enemies of the Gospel - Idolatry and Religion.
Idolatry
Driscoll quoted Luther who said that idolatry was “the sin”, and that it all came down to the first two Commandments - if we disobey the first two we have an idol, and will break the other commandments.
An idol is that which takes pre-eminence, which receives our worship. We’re all spiritual people because we all have our own definitions of heaven and hell, and the a ‘Functional Saviour’ (our idol) to take us from hell to heaven. He then goes on to reference Tim Keller who has a set of questions to expose our idols:
What are you afraid of? What do you long for? Where do you get comfort? How do you introduce yourself? Whose approval do you seek? What makes you happy/sad?
Religion
Mark started off by showing the clear differences between the Gospel of Grace and the Religion of Works:
If I obey God loves me vs. God loves me, his Spirit enables me to obey
Good and Bad People vs. Repentant and Unrepentant Sinners
What you do vs. What Jesus has done
He then explained the result of religion, it either leads to pride and self-righteousness (these people stay in the church), or despair at not being good enough (these people walk away from church). Rather, the Gospel ends in joy, those who receive grace are humble and happy.
Acts 17 - God commands ALL men to repent (religious and idolatrous)
Romans 1:16 - Mark reminded us not to be ashamed of the Gospel we preach, and again to notice that it goes to the Jews (the religious people) and to the Greeks (the idolatrous people)
Steve’s second talk was entitled ‘Planting communities of Grace‘. He opened by reading 1 Timothy 3, and then briefly spoke about groups and the 5 stages of a ‘group’ defined by Dr. Bruce Tuckman:
Steve stressed that the forming stage was the time to build a ‘dynamic of Grace’ into the structure, the DNA of the group. Then in to 1 Timothy 3:
The need for stand-out godliness (v.1-13)
The means of stand-out godliness (v.16)
Where it comes together (v.15)
Steve then brought up two final thoughts:

Steve gave two talks about grace in church planting - ‘Church Planter as a Minister of Grace’ and ‘Planting Communities of Grace’. Steve is involved in lots of different things; Crowded House in Sheffield, Radstock Ministries, and the Porterbrook Network who had partnered with Acts29 to put this day conference on. Here’s the first talk:
Church Planter as a Minister of Grace - 1 Timothy 1
Identity
Ministry
Relationship between Identity and Ministry
Model Grace:
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;An extract from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If…’
Scott Thomas is an Elder at Mars Hill Church, Seattle and is the director of the Acts 29 church planting network. At the Dwell London conference he addressed the question - Am I a Church Planter? Scott introduced the session with two lists, and then 20 questions:
Top 5 issues faced at Acts 29 - Theology, Vision, Family, Calling, Character
Top 5 church-planter qualities (survey of NF leaders) - Leader/visionary, Missionary heart, Preacher, Generalist, Family man
20 Questions for a potential church planter
In the final session Terry Virgo spoke about Philip from Acts 8:4-19, 26-40. I was shattered at this point so was practically falling asleep, but the main point was to ask the question - What kind of Christ? - what Christ do we preach?
During this time I started to collect my thoughts about New Frontiers and the Together on a Mission 2008 conference. With the one exception of what I thought was a bad talk, and some genuine unresolved questions on the place and use of prophecy and tongues, I was incredible impressed with and very much enjoyed the conference. Here’s some things I loved:
Over the week at New Frontiers I’ve been going along to a series of 3 morning seminars led by Mark Driscoll entitled “Be Radical, Plant Radical Churches”. The structure of these have been for Mark to speak for around 15 minutes, drawing out a few issues, then that was followed by around 45 minutes of Q&A. Obviously because of the structure of the sessions I didn’t take extensive notes, but here’s a few little bits:
Session 1 - Mark spoke about family life, wives, elders and deacons
Session 2 - Mark spoke about the practicalities of church growth, starting new services, campuses and plants
Session 3 - Mark spoke again about elders, leadership and everything else
Here’s something I did write down, ‘a week in the life of Mark Driscoll’. Now it wasn’t always like this, there was a time when he did everything; finance, admin, visiting etc. But now, as Preaching Pastor he has a much more focused role:
Sunday - Preaching (live) 4 times a day, up at 6am, bed at 3am
Monday - Half day, time to exercise, a few meetings, time to plan week with Grace (his wife)
Tuesday - Breakfast with kids, Meetings all day
Wednesday - Goes off to a Christian retreat centre for silence, solitude, prayer and fasting
Thursday - Writing
Friday - Emails, Sermon preparation, Date night with Grace
Saturday - ‘Jammy day’ time to spend together as a family
In Mark Driscoll’s final main address at the Together on a Mission conference he spoke about ‘Movements’ (or networks of churches, like New Frontiers). In introduction he took us to Acts 1:1-11 to the beginning of the movement, with Jesus as the head and the Spirit at work. He spoke about Paul’s church planting strategy of establishing churches in cities and commented on the strategic significance of cities - they have more people, and culture flows from a city.
Driscoll talked a little about some historic movements and described them by 6 marks of movements:
Mark then went on to discuss the rather depressing cycle of a movement:
Driscoll then went on to talk about ‘going off course’, 7 ways that movements can turn into institutions, he credited these points to Larry Osbourne:
Points 2, 3, 5 and 7 were specifically aimed at the New Frontiers movement, point 7 in particular. Driscoll basically said that soon Terry Virgo will have to hand over New Frontiers to a new leader (he is quite old after all!) and that new leaders need to respect Terry and the founding vision, but also respect the future and new opporunities that open. I understand that people in New Frontiers love and respect Terry, while Driscoll saw this as a great thing I think he also saw it as a danger for growth, changing structure and a clear vision for the future. Mark was very gracious to what is clearly a delicate and emotional subject.
In conclusion, Mark gave 6 phases of renewal (from Rick Warrren):
Afterwards Mark received a standing ovation for his time with us, his honesty and his ability to clearly speak into the New Frontiers situation. Terry Virgo came up briefly afterwards to speak about momentous times at the Brighton Conference (this being one), and to give an emotional thanks to Mark. Exciting times for New Frontiers, for a vision of 1000 churches.