NCFIC Conference, Asheville, NC

This year’s National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC) was dedicated to evangelism. Approximately 2,300 people attended October 27 to 29—mostly conservative home-schooling families from various parts of the nation. Conrad Mbewe, Paul Washer, Doug Phillips, Scott Brown, Kevin Swanson, and I were the plenary speakers. Forty men joined us for breakout sessions. I spoke two times: first on “The Puritans and Their Evangelistic Method,” and second on “The Profile of the Evangelistic Home.” As a plenary speaker, I was also called upon (1) to give a preconference brief message on what was “burning in my soul”—that is, what issue or issues did we feel burdened or moved about; (2) to be filmed for an interview on worship—in anticipation of the next year’s conference; and (3) to do a video with Doug Phillips and Scott Brown on a forthcoming 3-volume set of William Gouge’s Family Duties, which Scott Brown and I have been editing. The first volume should come out in February, the Lord willing. It will be great to have the greatest Puritan classic on godly family living available in an easy-to-read format.

Our book table again did extremely well at this conference–$17,000 worth of books were sold, including 260 copies of A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life. (Soon we’re expecting the second printing of this book at arrive at Reformation Heritage Books.) I enjoyed meeting a family from near Lansing, Michigan, with eighteen well-behaved children—sixteen of them adopted from several cultures and ethnic backgrounds with various needs. Only eleven of them were able to come to the conference, and only nine made it on the picture I took. What a happy bunch they are! The children were all so polite and kind—the grace of God and the aroma of Christ seemed to emanate from them.

Then there was lunch with a couple from upstate New York. This brother started teaching Sunday school decades ago. The church enjoyed his teaching so much that they finally asked him to be their full-time pastor—a position he has happily and successfully for nearly two decades despite having no seminary education. Other old friendships were cemented deeper and new ones were forged.