THE PAUL AND TIMOTHY BIBLE CONFERENCE is a vision that was born in the basement of a living room, in an old part of town in Portland, Oregon. It began as a simple idea proposed by an elder at our church, to us four, twenty something guys. This has quickly become a vision that God has nurtured in our hearts… a vision that we believe can truly glorify God.
A basement may sound like a mundane place for an idea like this to be born, but in actuality, God had been cultivating this soil for some time now. That basement is where elders, deacons, students, and many other men in differing seasons of life aspiring to teach the Word of God, gather for fellowship, counseling, encouragement and deep digging into the rich soil of the Bible. It is our church’s own, unique pastor’s college. Our idea really flowed out of what we do at that meeting every week. In this meeting we critique the sermon that was preached on the previous Sunday and give constructive, honest criticism on everything from doctrine to style and effectiveness. After the critique we take time to discuss relevant senarios for pastoral counseling. When we are done with that, we end each Tuesday night laboring over the Bible passage that will be preached 2 weeks later, for the growth and edification of the group. One of the things that makes this meeting such a treasure is that us young guys are given opportunities to preach under the close guidance of veteran preachers of over 25 years. One of our elders, and a seasoned preacher, Gregg Harris, leads the meeting and provides an atmosphere where we can learn how to labor over and deliver God’s Word in a way that truly magnifies Him.
In reality, our first “Paul” was Gregg Harris himself, our elder. It is now our goal to bring the vision of what we have benefited to the Church at large. It has been a treasured blessing to receive coaching and encouragement every week from older men in our church. We believe we have grown in ways that few young people are able to simply because biblically qualified elders have stepped up and made the sacrifice to disciple younger men. We pray that this type of mentoring will raise up the Spurgeons, the Whitfields and the Lloyd-Jones’ of our day. We want to assist our brothers in the journey of becoming qualified, biblical elders who will feed the flock and fend the wolves. We want to see the next generation of elders in the church more qualified than the last. To this end we pour out our hearts toward the Paul & Timothy Bible Conference, our blog, and all that we do.
