Matt,

I enjoyed your post (in a perverse sense). It is interesting to see what kind of junk is being "sold" today to churches. It seems people have forgotten so much (if they ever knew?) about doing church the biblical way.

Thank God for 9 Marks and thank God that 9 Marks is not marked by a bunch of hucksters but Godly men seeking to do church God's way.

-Tim (son of Jeff and Barbara Girdler)

I second Tim's praise for 9Marks. Reading "The Deliberate Church" was a great experience for me, right up there with "Desiring God." Those are two books I can say really affected my theology.

And speaking of theology, I am just confused by Mark Batterson's statement, "Systematic theology is an oxymoron." I might say it's redundant, since theology means to think about God and good (critical) thinking is always systematic. But, how could it be an oxymoron?

I know nothing about Batterson, so I went to the White Board website and read Batterson is pastor of National Community Church and "the vision of NCC is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the metro DC area. NCC also owns and operates the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill."

These are all very good:

Mark Dever
1) "We don't pay staff to emotionally manipulate people to attend a weeknight meeting."

-I don't know how many times as a youth pastor I have been pressured to "chase kids" down for midweek meetings.

2) "Personal relationships are not at war with propositional truths."

-Unless you're emergent. Yes we do need both, it's a both and type of thing.

3) "Imagine if churches began to talk about quality the way we talk about quantity."

-Then we wouldn't be so program and market driven. We'd be people driven.

4) "God must laugh at us when we discover something that 'works.'"

-I love this. Very profound. He has told us what works all along, prayer, preaching, and proselytizing!

Thanks for the post!

I will be posting my thoughts on WiBo soon as well, but I agree with most of the sentiments here. There are things I disagree with here, but I agree with the gist of Schmucker's assessment. I not only enjoyed Dever, but Darrin Patrick and Ed Stetzer as well. But I knew that going in. The team I brought also enjoyed Perry Noble's speaking as well ( I think because he's a good speaker, perhaps not because of the profundity of what he was saying ). Good post, and as always, I enjoy and thank God for 9Marks.

BTW: Dever's quote about quality over quantity was my main takeaway from the entire conference.

Did you expect anything different coming from the majority of the speakers at the Whiteboard Conference? Why does this surprise anyone? I am still not sure why Dever even agreed to speak at the conference. In reading blogs since the conference, it seems many missed Dever's talk anyways. Perry Noble for one didnt catch Dever's talk and when you read others blogs they give bullet points from everyone it seems except for Dever. These speakers come from churches like the "marketer" churches that David Wells speaks about in Courage to be Protestant.

I was hoping to hear Dever say something along the lines of sufficiency of scripture and that pastors today should resort to gimmicktry such as Perry Noble being carried to the stage in a coffin. I was hoping to hear Dever challenger them to rely on God's sovereignity to call sinners to repentance through the preaching of the Gospel rather than these pragmatic pastors convinced that their cleverness will draw people.

What did Spurgeon say, "amusing the goats or feeding the sheep"

again, I just wonder why Dever spoke of this conference.

Matt,

appreciate the review of the conference. totally disagree that it was boring though. I found most of the speakers pretty engaging and inspiring. But I guess to each his own...

Thanks again,

Bryan
prayersforblowouts.com

Mark Dever was the only speaker I was familiar with when our family went went to Whiteboard.

Even though I may not agree with the other speaker's methods, it was greatly encouraging to hear of God's word being sown in the lives of many and fruit happening.

Best quotes from Wibo:

Dever:
"Greetings from the tucked in generation."
and
"I come with no fresh ideas."

Patrick:
"Turn in your Bibles to Romans...and if you don't have your Bible you cannot pastor or plant a church."

Noble:
"I feel like a one legged man at a butt-kicking contest..."

There are sessions at every conference that are less than enjoyable for different people, CHBC's weekender not excluded.

I cherished the opportunity to invite Mark to speak to a group of pastors he doesn't often get to address. From what I remember, this is precisely why he accepted this engagement.

Mark did a fantastic job, so that's a win for 9Marks I would think. Get your message out to more people, right?

I'd like to point out that CHBC sent more people to Whiteboard than any other church or group in attendance, so I thank you for your support.

We tried to clearly describe the nature of the talks and the backgrounds of the speakers on the website to avoid any misconceptions people might have in advance. This was not meant to be another T4G.

It's very easy to interact with people who think/believe/dress just like you. It's much more challenging to engage with people who don't. That was one thing that attracted me to Whiteboard - the diversity: of ideas, people, & backgrounds. What I can't figure out is how we (as believers)have access to the fruit of the Spirit yet can't seem to get past the differences of others - even in an environment that is expressly intended for diversity. Sometimes what we call "using discernment" is really nothing more than being critical.
I received deep ministry from all of the speakers at Whiteboard & appreciated their differences: from each other & me - and found a way to honor each of them for the gift they are to the body of Christ, which I think was Ben's intent.
Speaking of Ben - if it is difficult to engage others who believe different from you, think of what he & Ainsley must have had to go through to bring all these schools of thought together in one place for one cause - my guess is warfare most in this thread can't imagine - maybe we ought to be a bit more thankful for events like Whiteboard - after all you already have your denominational gatherings where you can interact with others who think/believe/dress just like you.

Classless post Matt. It's not even your take on the speakers as much as how you framed it.

I was planning to be at the conference, but a plane delay in Ukraine prohibited my attendance. Everyone with whom I've talked from my church who went found something in the conference that will bless their church-planting efforts -- so I believe it was well worth the time and energy spent on their journey. Also, they each remembered the "tucked-in" comment, and each one found Perry Noble's thoughts helpful and encouraging.

Maybe the "flash-back" to Carnegie-esque moments tilted your perspective a tad :).

As with any speech or written work, context is critical. With that in mind, Matt, I'm not sure your statement ("Here are a couple of notable quotes from a few of the speakers -- you judge whether they're good or bad") is fair to those being judged.

In the end, I'm sorry you were bored, but I hope you gained a lot of new customers via your booth.

Matt,

I am sorry to read that you did not have an enjoyable experience at Whiteboard. I know it was important to Ben to have Mark, 9Marks, and the CHBC team there and I know I enjoyed meeting Mark and appreciated his message.

What bothers me about your post is not so much that you did not enjoy Whiteboard, but that you horribly misrepresented the speakers with the pull quotes you listed here.

Had I not been there, I would have no idea what each speaker spoke on based on the quotes you pulled. I would have no idea that Perry Noble spoke straight from scripture on being confident of God's call on your life. I would have no idea that Vince Antonucci taught straight from scripture about Jesus' call to become fishers of men and join Him in His work of seeking and saving those far from Him. I would have no idea that Ed Stetzer used the story of doubting Thomas to make the point that sometimes, we have to press through doubt to get to faith. To ask people to judge the merit of the conference based on the quotes you pulled is just plain silly. The fact that people followed your lead is even more unsettling.

I noticed a previous commenter criticized and cast doubt towards Perry Noble for missing Mark Dever's session. Perry missed the session in order to be interviewed on conferencechannel.org. The usual practice was for each speaker to be interviewed after their session. Perry had to leave immediately after his session to catch his flight, so his interview had to be scheduled earlier. As soon as his interview was over, Perry asked me if he would be able to get an audio or video copy of Mark's message because he really wanted to hear it. Say what you will, but that is fact.

Whiteboard was unique because the big idea/agenda was not set by the conference, but set by each speaker as they took the stage to share their one compelling idea. In a set up such as this, disagreement is inevitable. In fact, I can tell you that every speaker said at least one thing that I disagree with. But more importantly, every speaker said lots of things that I wholeheartedly agree with. Many attendees that I spoke to at the conference and that I have spoken to since have shared this same sentiment.

The challenge for us as the Church is not to avoid disagreement, but to share a willingness to press through smallish, pragmatic differences to understand and appreciate each other's contributions to the Kingdom. For me, this dream was on display when Mark and Tim Stevens had an enjoyable conversation when the conference was over. Different...you better believe it. Respectful, honoring, and appreciative of each other...you better believe it. There's a lesson for all of us...

zxnljhfbgkachtdqwell, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how's life? hope it's introduce branch ;)