LAST DAY FOR TPC EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT!!!

This is the last day to take advantage of registering for the Toronto Pastors Conference at the discounted rate of $110.  Take 45 seconds now to click here and register online.  You will pay $30 more if you wait until tomorrow!

Only Three Days Left! (for early bird registration)

I just realized this morning that you only have THREE days left to register for the Toronto Pastors Conference and still get the early bird discount!

Why a discount for early registration?  Well, if you have ever tried to plan a conference like this you will know that getting an accurate fix on numbers profoundly helps planning and keeps costs lower.  One of our aims is to keep TPC accessible to all and that means keeping the cost to a bare minimum, especially for those pastors that don't have a big conference line item in their budget.

So, I would urge you to think of early registration not just as a way to save some coin for you and your church (if they are paying), but also as a way to serve those brothers for whom the difference of $50 is a make it or break it deal when it comes to attendance.  If you register early, you save us money (since we can plan better), and that keeps costs down.

By the by, I did arrange to get a great new book for free from a certain publisher while I was at T4G.  The first one hundred registrants will be walking home with a good addition to their library!

Unashamed solidarity

I have often been shocked at the loyalty some parents will show a child. As a young Dad I sometimes watched parents bail out, rescue, house or pay for an adult child in trouble and, to be honest, thought they were nuts. I realize some of these scenarios may have been more the evidence of a strange “co-dependency” than the virtue of loyalty, but the older I get the more I think that is the exception. Parents love their children and they will do almost anything to help them.

There are exceptions. Some parents would rather be caught naked than have someone figure out the relationship between them and their kid. They are ashamed to own that child and will even go so far as to mock the kid – regardless of age. In other words, human relationships can only teach us so much about what it means to be loved by God.

But along comes the Word of God to tell us of Jesus of whom it was said, since “…the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

Unashamed solidarity. Jesus chose to become part of my family (flesh and blood humanity) in order to make me a part of His family. He is not ashamed to call me brother nor embarrassed to have me in the family. And this love of His is relentless.

When I think about all the times I have abandoned Him, been embarrassed about Him, contradicted Him and denied Him, I start to feel like the kid in scenario one – a kind of routine mess-up whom nobody should really pay attention to anymore. But because Jesus gave up His life in exchange for mine, taking all of the guilt for all of my sin on Himself, He never thinks of me like that. He is like a proud older brother who stands with glowing smile behind me and says, “God gave me this one!”

How glad I am that the solidarity that counts is generated out of Him, not me.