Register for the Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference

We're about half-way through summer and before we know it, fall will be upon us. That means it's time to register for the 10th annual Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference to be held on Saturday, October 26th from 10:00 am to 4:30 at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Flint.

Keep your eyes open for more detailed information that will be released soon, but as I have mentioned here before, the theme of this year's conference is "The Glory of Christ" and our speakers will be:

• David Crabb of First Baptist Church in Lapeer
• Jason Helopoulos of University Reformed Church in East Lansing
• Chuck Jacob of Knox Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor
• Don Galardi of Community EPC in Owosso

The entire event (including a hot lunch) is free of charge, but we do need to have an idea of how many will be attending, so we ask that you click here and fill out the quick and easy online registration form.

Feel free to shoot me an email with any questions.

Registration Open for Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference

Even though it's not yet June, you can already register for the 10th annual Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference to be held on Saturday, October 26th from 10:00 am to 4:30.

As I have mentioned here before, the theme of this year's conference is "The Glory of Christ" and our speakers will be:

• David Crabb of First Baptist Church in Lapeer
• Jason Helopoulos of University Reformed Church in East Lansing
• Chuck Jacob of Knox Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor
• Don Galardi of Community EPC in Owosso

The entire event (including a hot lunch) is free of charge, but we do need to have an idea of how many will be attending, so we ask that you click here and fill out the quick and easy online registration form.

Feel free to shoot me an email with any questions.

Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference...Save the Date

On Saturday, October 26th our church will be hosting the Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference. This will be our tenth year hosting the conference and we are very excited about it!

This year's theme will be "The Glory of Christ" and as has become our custom, we will once again have four gifted pastors from our region coming to speak to us. Our guest speakers will be:

• David Crabb of First Baptist Church in Lapeer
• Jason Helopoulos of University Reformed Church in East Lansing
• Chuck Jacob of Knox Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor
• Don Galardi of Community EPC in Owosso

One big change that we hope you will be excited about is the fact that THIS YEAR'S CONFERENCE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY FREE! We will gladly accept donations to help support the conference and enable us to continue to provide it, but we wanted to remove the possible obstacle of cost so that as many people as possible could be a part of this thoroughly enjoyable and edifying experience. 

So make sure you mark October 26th on your calendars now. In the meantime, feel free to email any questions to me at Pete@CalvaryFlint.com, and keep your eyes open for further information.

Hope to see you there!

Exciting Conference News!

On October 26th we at Calvary Presbyterian Church will be hosting our conference for the 10th time and we have a number of developments to share:

1) The conference's name is changing. To this point, it has been called the Mid-Michigan Conference on Reformed Theology. Beginning this year it will simply be called the Mid-Michigan Reformation Conference. The name change reflects a number of things. While we are still unquestionably Reformed in our theology, our intention is to have a Gospel-centered conference instead of having a Reformed Theology-centered conference. The teaching will still be from a Reformed perspective, but we hope this change will reflect our realization that we are not saved by having really sound theology, but by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

The reality also is that, perhaps since we have always held the conference on Reformation Weekend, many (most?) of the people we spoke with already referred to it as our "Reformation Conference." Perhaps this was also because of the fact that it's less wordy, which is another benefit of the new name.

2) This year's theme will be "The Glory of Christ" and we will once again have four gifted pastors from our region coming to speak to us. David Crabb of First Baptist Church in Lapeer, Jason Helopoulos of University Reformed Church in East Lansing and Don Galardi of Community EPC in Owosso have already agreed to speak. We are still waiting on confirmation from our fourth speaker and will pass along word as soon as we have it.

3) And the biggest news is...THIS YEAR'S CONFERENCE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY FREE! We will gladly accept donations to help support the conference and enable us to continue to provide it, but we wanted to remove the possible obstacle of cost so that as many people as possible could be a part of this thoroughly enjoyable and edifying experience. 

So make sure you mark October 26th on your calendars now. There will be more information coming out soon. In the meantime, feel free to email me with any questions at Pete@CalvaryFlint.com.

The Importance of Secondary Doctrines

In an age where many are (rightly) emphasizing the centrality of the gospel and uniting around this common focus, it can become all too easy to minimize "non-essentials" to a status of "non-importance." I really appreciated the helpful  corrective friend and fellow-Michigan pastor Jason Helopoulos offered in a guest post at Kevin DeYoung's blog today. His post included the following quote from 19th century Scottish Presbyterian Thomas Witherow:

Let a man once persuade himself that importance attaches only to what he is pleased to call essentials, whatever their number, and he will, no doubt, shorten his creed and cut away the foundation of many controversies; but he will practically set aside all except a very small part of the Scriptures. If such a principle does not mutilate the Bible, it stigmatizes much of it as trivial. Revelation is all gold for preciousness and purity, but the very touch of such a principle would transmute the most of it into dross.

Jason went on to write, 

Let us unite around the Gospel. Let us be clear in emphasizing and proclaiming it. Let us underscore the importance of justification by faith alone. Let us continually point ourselves and others to the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

But as we do this, let us never say or act as though the other doctrines and teachings of the Scripture are unimportant. “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). We can continue to uphold that which is at the heart of our faith and all the while not neglect or relegate the “secondary” doctrines to that of unimportance.

Click here to read the entire post.