This coming weekend, our annual January conference will take place. Ryan Fullerton, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and a former roommate of Pastor Clint’s, will be preaching on the subject of “Abiding Love: Learning to Love in a Cold World.” I’ve said before that God has blessed this man as a preacher; here’s a message I had the privilege of hearing in person as an example for anyone who is interested.

Some of you may be fairly new to our congregation and wonder why a church as small as ours would go to the trouble and expense to run such a conference each year—and why we’re actually, as October demonstrated, hoping to expand this ministry. It’s actually quite simple. Since the beginning, we’ve always understood a key part of our purpose as a church in Calgary as being an encouragement and a resource for other churches. While there are other faithful, Gospel-proclaiming churches here in Southern Alberta, “our list of allies grows thin,” to borrow a phrase. There are not enough healthy churches and there are not enough qualified workers. Providing a conference with expository preaching and a healthy theological focus is one way we believe we can encourage those like ourselves who are laboring to till some very hard soil and sow the Word, as well as giving a good example to other evangelicals of the kind of preaching and theology that results in true spiritual growth. Furthermore, as folks come from across Western Canada to attend, these conferences provide a great chance for a time of fellowship with believers outside our immediate region.

So as the conference approaches, we ask that you join us in prayer, for the following things:

1) Ryan will be preaching on the subject of love, and so this is a good reminder to us in our prayers to praise and glorify the God who, by virtue of his Trinitarian character, is himself Love—and to ask him for greater apprehension and understanding of what that means.

2) Ask that God would prepare our hearts for the Word he providentially will have proclaimed for us next weekend—that we would be convicted of our failures to understand and practice biblical love, and that we would be moved to pursue greater sanctification in those areas.

3) Pray for those who are traveling to join us for the conference—Ryan and our guests from other places—that God would grant them mercy in their travels both to Calgary and then back to their places of ministry and their families.

4) Intercede for any who may not know the love of Jesus Christ who may be attending, that their spiritual blindness would be lifted and their hearts drawn irresistibly to the Son by the Father through the Spirit.

5) Pray that our imperfect efforts as a church in holding this event will be used, in spite of our failures, to strengthen Christ’s Bride in Western Canada and make known more clearly the glory of her Husband to the world around us.

6) Ask also that those who are involved in the practical matters of preparing and running the conference would be blessed and strengthened for their work, and that the Lord would grant that everything runs smoothly.

We will be having a time of prayer for the conference tomorrow after the main service, for anyone who would like to join us!