Art of Shepherding 2026

It was good yesterday to be with about 40 others at the annual Art of Shepherding conference at St Giles in Islington. The conference for ministers is quite laid back with a flexible but predictable format that includes plenty of coffee and an excellent pulled pork lunch.

The fixed points are the first and third sessions - Phil Heaps on the Bible - this year from 2 Corinthians and Brad Franklin on a historical pastoral theme - this year from Bonhoeffer’s Shared life.

With that this year we had one session on politics and one on envy. For the first they invited John McDermott over from Magherafelt in Ulster who drew on his experiences in that divided world to help us think through our situation. Finally, we had Rob Pickering on the subject of ministerial envy a common enough phenomenon but one rarely touched on in conferences.

All four speakers did well and along with the opportunity to chat to fellow Reformed Baptists new and old the conference proved both challenging and encouraging. The very last thing was a meal with several conference attendees. The usual curry was not possible this year so we headed to the holloway Road to a Lebanese grill and very enjoyable it was. Big thanks to all involved in organising this year's conference.

The Art of Shepherding 2025

It has been good today at the St Giles Christian Mission in Islington for the Art of Shepherding Conference. Perhaps we were a litte less than last year (35?). The four speakers were Phil Heaps from Highbury, Dan Green from Banstead, Brad Franklin from SGM and Robert Strivens from Bradford on Avon. The messages were on Proverbs and pastoring, shepherding and the whole counsel of God, David Brainerd and pastors and retirement. All of them had very useful things to share. Audio will I guess appear here at some point.

The Art of Shepherding 2024

Aaron

Jonny

Brad

I have spent the day at my second Art of Shepheding Conference. About 60 ministers met in St Giles Mission, Islington (up from 40 last year). This free conference had four sessions and plenty of time for coffee and chat and even a mid-day meal. We also met at the end of the day for a curry. The sessions were led by Phil Heaps, Aaron Prelock (visiting from the USA) and Brad Franklin with a final session from Jonny Prime. Phil took us to Acts 20 and the lessons for pastors there and Aaron spoke on pastors and authority. Brad brought us some insights from the writings on pastoralia of Eugene Peterson. Jonny Prime spoke form his own long experience on the priority of patience, the protection of purality, the problem of professionalism, the pain of pastoring and the peril of power. So a great day.

Calvin's Sermons on Titus

Up at the Pastors Academy on Monday for the reading group. The book this time was the recent translation of Calvin's sermons on Titus, published by Banner (by Robert White). About ten of us met to discuss the book, led by Phil Heaps. We agreed that these were excellent and apposite sermons for their time though not without their flaws and idiosyncracies. Next time (January) we plan to look at Matthew Robertson's book Pride.

Day Off Week 23 at The Art of Shepherding Conference

My day off this week was rather different. A good friendship has grown up between Andrew King and Phil Heaps at Highbury and the Americans Brad Franklin and Aaron Prelock at St Giles Christian Mission. Last year they organised a conference for ministers and this year they met again St Giles. About forty ministers and prospective miisters were there. All Reformed Baptists I guess.

Phil kicked us off with an appropriate trek through the very relevant and stimulating material in Ezekiel 34. Aaron then took us to the much neglected Pastoral Rule by Gregory the Great. We had an excellent Mexican lunch and then Brad took us to Bunyan's Mr Greatheart. The final session was a discussion period led by Andrew, which went well. Several of us then crossed the road for an Indian meal to rounf off the day.

It was good to meet people I've not met before especially several young men, including two whose fathers I know and one who turned out to be the grandson of a former pastor of Childs Hill (ie the late Tony Sandys). Most of them have parents born on other continents, which is a fascinating dimension of life these days. This is a good addition to the roster of conferences for ministers, not that we are short of them. as I've thought about it the phrase "Art of shepherding" sound more and more pretentious but it was not like that at all. The very opposite.

Affinity Study Conference 2023

On Wednesday I caught a train up to Northampton for the Affinity Study Conference. About eighty of us have been gathered over three days to look at the subject of A form foundation: priorities for the rising generation. The conference is unique in that all the papers (five altogether) are written and printed beforehand. The speakers then briefly present their papers before we break for group and then plenary discussion. So on the first day we had an introductory sort of paper from pastor and teacher Peter Sanlon on identity and worldview, the current scene. We then had a second paper on genuine conversion by Robin Gray, a Free church man from Aberdeenshire. The paper drew chiefly on Jonathan Edwards. This was a great start. We were then free for the evening. There was an impromptu quiz, which is one of my great loves, so that was fun.

On day 2 we had the rest of the papers - Phil Heaps, the London based Baptist, on sanctification; Mark Thomas from Wrexham, on pastoring; Dr Patrick Fung, leader of the OMF based in Singapore, on persecution. We were free in the afternoon - time to take advantage of the excellent bookstall here, provided by the Evangelical Bookshop, Belfast. All this was very interesting and stimulating. I had hoped that there would be more cohesion to the papers but that was not conspicuous. In the evening, we had a prayer meeting, first a plenary one then in our groups. Two men were quite emotional as we prayed for the rising generation.

For the last day, we had all five speakers on the platform under the chairmanship of Paul Yeulett, pastor in South London. People asked their questions. Then after a cuppa Pete Campbell from Penrhyndeudraeth in North Wales preached on Ephesians 3:14-21. Through most of the conference, it was snowing or there was snow on the ground, which is a nice thing to look out on.

Carey Conference 2016 Day 2

Today has been our main day at Swanwick and it has been a good one. Mike Bullmore gave his second address in the morning and a third one in the evening. He spoke on the gospel and pastoral character and the gospel and pastoral labour looking at dealing with criticism, truthfulness and taking responsibility as well as dealing with five heart challenges - laziness v happy labour; self pity v joy; manipulation of Scripture v integrity and right handling of Scripture; pride v contempt of praise and unbelief v belief. This was all very helpful.

We also had a paper from Phil Heaps on Trinitarian communion with God and a question and answer session looking at praying to the Holy Spirit, accountability among elders, etc, etc.

Programme for Carey Conference 2016

The programme for the Carey Conference, January 5-7, has now been published.

Tuesday 5th

Registration from 12.00 to 13.00 and 13.45 to 14.30 13.00

Lunch (if pre-booked)

14.30 John Owen - Gary Brady / Women’s Track – Julia Jones

16.00 Tea 16.30 The Functional Centrality of the Gospel - Mike Bullmore

18.30 Evening Meal

20.00 xxxxxx

Wednesday 6th

07.45 Prayer

08.30 Breakfast

09.30 The Gospel and Pastoral Character – Mike Bullmore

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Communion with God – Phil Heaps

13.00 Lunch

14.30 Free Time

16.00 Tea 16.30 Q&A / Women’s Track – Julia Jones

18.30 Evening Meal

20.00 The Gospel and Pastoral Labour – Mike Bullmore

Thursday 7th

07.45 Prayer

08.30 Breakfast

09.30 Confronting & Connecting: The Gospel as the Subversive Fulfilment of Culture – Dan Strange

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Conference Sermon – Andrew King

13.00 Lunch & Depart

GBA 2013 Thursday Morning 2

Our final session at assembly was with Phil Heaps who took us to the end of Matthew's Gospel and instead of doing what we might have expected exactly encouraged us to focus on greatness. He had nine great things for us to focus on altogether - the great God himself, Christ our great Lord, the great saving event of his death, the great possibility opened up, the great standards of obedience expected, the great task, the great sphere of activity, the great promise and the great promise.

It was a fitting end to an excellent conference and assembly.