Saturday, May 12, 2007

Basics Conference

All of the audio sessions from the recent "Basics Conference" at Parkside Church are now available online for free.

The main sessions are also available in video.

Speakers included Alistair Begg, Derek Thomas, Edward Lobb, Voddie T. Baucham, Jr., Keith Getty, and Tim Challies.

No word yet on whether or not Tim live-blogged his own breakout session.

Fortunately, Russell Smith (HT: Adrian) took some notes. Tim talked about five things the blogosphere is doing well:
  1. Community – the blogosphere has fueled the resurgence of reformed movement.
  2. Sanctification – Tim approaches journaling as a spiritual discipline – now blogging is a part of his ongoing discipline. It is more public and less personal, but it has great impact.
  3. Teaching -- blogging gives teh chance to teac h good doctrine, but it is limited. Most blog readers only hang in there for 1000 words or so
  4. Information – blogging is useful for disseminating information about the reformed movement – conferences all over the country are seeing much higher attendance this year – blogging is a part of it.
  5. Unity – blogging is a great platform for bringing together different groups – groups that had been divided by mutual suspicion before.
Then Tim presented 5 things that he felt we could be doing better:
  1. Evangelism -- people gravitate to like interests – pagans will stay away from “Christian” sites” – our challenge will be to move out into other spheres – write about things that interest us, while still maintaining our identity.
  2. Filtering – we suffer from information overload – we have to ask what is worth reading. Don’t lose balance with reading, family, etc.
  3. Control -- just because you can say it doesn’t mean that you should
  4. Replacement – don’t make your most important relationships on the web – don’t neglect the church and family for
  5. Controversy – controversey may generates traffic but it isn’t helpful. Avoid dwelling in discouragement and gossip.