An Evening with Piper

One of the wonderful things about my time in Seattle was getting to spend an evening (about fifty of us total were there) with a man who I’ve looked up to for quite some time. His name is John Piper. He is a pastor in Minneapolis and has written many books that have profoundly impacted my walk with Jesus. His passion for Christ is unparalleled and his mind concerning how that faith is to be understood and lived out is a gift to the church.

With great thanks to Darrin Patrick, our church crew was invited to an Acts 29 Network Church Planters get together which included dinner. It provided us a chance to speak with the leadership of this great church planting network to see if there might be a possibility of a future partnership. We had a great time talking with Scott Thomas and Tyler Powell discovering more about who they are and what they do. Wow! It seems that A29 is chock-full of great leaders!

Towards what seemed to be the end of the meeting Darrin invited us to stay for dinner. We had eaten earlier due to the fact that A29 hadn’t initially planned on us coming and we didn't want to burden them by taking up three more plates. We just wanted to attend so we could get to meet as many of the guys we could. Little did we know that the dinner was to be with John Piper. Mark Driscoll, who had Dr. Piper as a guest speaker for the conference, had graciously arranged it so the man, who has impacted many if not an entire generation (or two) for Jesus, could spend an evening pouring himself into these church planters. For the next two hours he fielded questions and was a combination of being graciously admonishing, intensely passionate and painfully transparent - qualities I've admired in him for quite some time. While I’d like to share what was said, the private and personal nature of the gathering guides me to refrain but rest assured, from my humble vantage point, there is no duplicity between who John Piper is publically and who he is privately.

Needless to say, it was a memorable evening and I'm grateful for Acts 29 and DP for allowing us to be a part of it.