Colloquium at Southwestern: Pastors’ Conference Speakers Gather to Immerse Themselves in Philippians

After months of anticipation, our “colloquium” is finally here.

We have gathered here in Ft. Worth with the speakers for the Pastors’ Conference for 2017. D. Paige Patterson, Dr. David Allen, and the rest of the Southwestern Seminary family have bent over backwards to make us welcome and to help us make this two-day event a success! Since the day I was elected to this office, no one has been more gracious to us than Dr. Patterson. We are greatly in his debt.

Soon after my election last June, Bart brought to me with this idea – gathering all of the preachers together to immerse ourselves in the text we are preaching (later we settled on Philippians), get a common outline, and build some comraderie. I loved the idea and asked him to “make it so.” He did.

Dr. David Allen bowled us over with the work he has put into this. When we arrived, each of the 12 speakers (well, 11, one of our guys had a revival commitment) received a thumb drive overflowing with a wealth of information on the book of Philippians and on their passage – textual outlines, and other resources for study and sermon preparation. It is the result of Dr. Allen’s many years of study of the text, a thumb drive worth the price of the plane ticket!

We gathered for lunch today, enjoyed some “Cousins BBQ” and got to know one another. Dr. Patterson greeted us, and now Dr. Allen is beginning to give us an overview of the book.

I’m not going to try to give you all the information we are getting – my body and mind are tired I won’t be able to absorb it all myself! I just want you to know what we are doing.

We are putting on a Pastors’ Conference like none before. These men are serious about holding up that name that is “Above Every Name” and honoring the word of God as powerful and effective.

Pray for the men who are learning, studying, and growing!