Brothers, when the subject was chosen for this year's church officers and pastors' conference, we knew it would be a hard-sell. If American culture hides death, why would we pastors be any different? We don't want to go to a conference on death and dying. We look at Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying1 and wonder who on earth came up with that title? Surely not the marketing department!
And if I tell you the book was published back in the late sixteen-hundreds and is one of the all-time best-sellers of Christian devotional works, we smack your foreheads and exclaim, "Well that explains it! Lots of people died back then. What was their life expectancy—like thirty-five years? They had to talk about death and dying, but today we live in a happier time and pastors conferences shouldn't depress me. I need encouragement! Life is hard! Serving a church is hard!"
So why did the Puritan pastor, Jeremy Taylor, title his classic Holy Dying?
Because Puritan pastors used to spend themselves...
preparing the souls under their care for eternity and the judgment seat of God. And is this not what we are to prepare the precious souls under our care for, also? Isn't this what our sons and daughters and wives need from us?
So come.
The fellowship will be sweet, the food excellent, and the topic helpful. Click through, and register today. Come and be strengthened by brothers in Christ. The conference is for all church officers regardless of your title.
No speaker will be famous. No talks will be speculative. There will be no heterodoxy to titillate you.
Just prayer and worship and fellowship to help you stand. The day is evil and all of us are weak.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
Want to get in touch? Send Tim an email!
