I had a a great day today, which was worthwhile even if to just be reminded of some great quotes, like "'To me, the work of preaching is the highest and most glorious calling to which anyone can be called.' Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones"

AND preaching is 'Logic on Fire' (Again from The Doctor)

One of my great priviledges in life was to know a man called Henry Tyler who was one of the founding fathers of the newfrontiers group of churches of which I am a part. He would have been delighted by today.

Years ago he stated to me when he was dying that Greg Haslam stood out in his preaching ability beyond anyone else in our family of churches. Martin Lloyd-Jones being a hero of Henry's he would have been delighted to see Greg Haslam take up the Westminster chapel pulpit kept warm for him so ably by R T Kendall.

Anyway, todays preach the word event at Westminster Chapel was envigorating and inspiring.

Being a man of limited faith in the current state of the British church I excepted only a handful of attendees at a saturday conference on preaching. As it turned out 600 attended. There is hope for the church in the UK!

Greg so eloquently stressed the importance of preaching- 'God only had one son and he made him a preacher!'

My own preaching style is perhaps vindicated by this description Greg quoted of Finney- 'When he opened his mouth it was like aiming a gun, when he began to speak the bombardment began!'

John Stott who believe it or not I had never heard in the flesh until today, spoke on 'The paradoxes of preaching' having made the point that it was paradoxical that a preacher should preach to preachers about preaching! I especially loved his point that preaching is about building a bridge between the bible and its culture and our own. That is kind of why I blog.

He also quoted Chad Walsh who tells us to 'Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed'

Mark Stibbes diffined the annointing as being when its easy (quoting R.T.Kendall) . Liam Goligher brought up the rear and they all stressed that the old denominational labels mean almost nothing today.

It was a great conference, if you can get to London next month and are a preacher come, if you can't for goodness sake get the tapes- contact the chapel direct.