A few months back, I noticed that a big conference featuring John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer and others, and sponsored by the Acts 29 Network, was coming to a neighboring city. I don't quite consider myself Reformed enough to be a part of Acts 29, but I signed up for Advance 09: Resurgence of the Local Church anyway. Thursday was the first half day, and here are some highlights and reflections.

Speaker # 1 Mark Driscoll

I guess the way to get a few thousand conference attendees to show up on time is to have Driscoll kickoff the conference exploring the question "What is the church?" He threw a few jabs at emerging church folks, and poked fun at some virtual church, pajama wearing pastors (nothing too serious) before settling down to explore eight aspects of a true church: 1) regenerated church membership; 2) qualified leadership; 3) gather for preaching and worship; 4) sacraments rightly administered; 5) unified by the Holy Spirit; 6) discipline for holiness; 7) obey the great commandment ...