Back in 2007, at The Gospel Coalition’s first national conference, I was 27 years old and just about to begin seminary. I was mesmerized by Tim Keller’s tour through the Old Testament to show how these heroes of the faith prefigured Christ. I’d never read anything like TGC’s foundation documents, which offered a comprehensive and compelling theological vision of ministry for all of life.
At the conclusion of TGC’s 10th national conference, in this 20th anniversary year, I think of the young men and women I met among the more than 7,000 who gathered in Indianapolis. What messages will stick with them for the rest of their lives, and into eternity? What music did they sing in the car as they returned? What long-term friendships were just formed? How will their churches and families back home benefit from their spiritual rejuvenation?
By now, I think I’m the only person who has attended all 10 TGC national conferences and 7 women’s conferences. Our cofounder Tim Keller died in 2023. Our other cofounder, Don Carson, retired from public ministry at the end of 2024. We felt their absence in this first national conference without either of them.
But as I talked to people who have attended many TGC events—and the nearly 50 percent who attended the national conference for the first time—I heard reports that would encourage TGC’s founders. This conference was characterized by conviction and affection, defying a time when it seems you need to pick one or the other.
Immeasurable Riches and Greatness
After 20 years, TGC remains rooted in a confession that praises God and prioritizes his work in the local church, which is “the body of Christ, the apple of his eye, graven on his hands, and he has pledged himself to her forever.” Under the leadership of TGC’s new president, Mark Vroegop, TGC25 foregrounded our mission to help renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel, under the leadership of 45 pastors and theologians on our Council.
This conference was characterized by conviction and affection, defying a time when it seems you need to pick one or the other.
Many commented to me about the beauty of singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” under the direction of Keith Getty with the assistance of the choir from College Park Church, where Vroegop served as senior pastor. As the hymn so eloquently expresses, theological conviction leads to affection for God.
John Piper, still a fixture at TGC national conferences, underscored this point in a jaw-dropping illustration. He asked ChatGPT to praise God in the writing voice of Don Carson and asked us, “Is that praise?” Not from a computer, Piper explained. We’ve been created by God to feel the praise we offer him.
In a breakout hosted by Beeson Divinity School, the other panelists and I explored the apologetic pastoral ministries of Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and Keller. “True religion, in great part,” Edwards wrote, “consists in holy affections.” Augustine modeled those affections in his groundbreaking Confessions. Building on their work, Keller was never content to impart information in his sermons. He wanted us to feel God’s love for us.
Walking around the convention center over four days, you couldn’t help but see and hear how those affections for God spill out in affection for one another. College and seminary alumni caught up. Families reunited. Ministry leaders gathered face-to-face to discuss collaboration. Readers thanked their favorite authors. TGC’s national conference is an appreciably warm, boisterous, exuberant event. People are happy to be there and not eager to leave. By the time David Platt led us in prayer on Thursday morning, the room and exhibit hall remained full.
TGC’s national conference is an appreciably warm, boisterous, exuberant event. People are happy to be there and not eager to leave.
It was Ephesians 1–2 in action. This group loves singing with thanksgiving for redemption, the spiritual reality of Ephesians 2:4–7, which gave our conference its “Alive Together” theme: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
The experience felt like an answer to the apostle Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:18–19: “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, [I pray] that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”
Still the Same
During this event, I heard the same report from two competing publishers. They can barely keep up with surging demand for Bibles, especially purchased by young men. In our writers’ gathering, we applauded three young men who have made substantial contributions to our publishing. And I think back to when I was their age, attending the first TGC national conference. Sure, the size is different—TGC25 was 14 times bigger than our first conference. The city has changed. Back in 2007, there was no website that reached 30 million annual users, no regional chapters, no Coalición with the largest Spanish-language Christian website in the world.
In 2007, there was no website that reached 30 million annual users, no regional chapters, no Coalición with the largest Spanish-language Christian website in the world.
But when I think about Gen Z, I notice what hasn’t changed in the last 20 years. As our founders wrote in 2007, we stand on the conviction that the 66 books of the Bible “alone constitute the verbally inspired Word of God, which is utterly authoritative and without error in the original writings, complete in its revelation of his will for salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in its authority over every domain of knowledge to which it speaks.” And we link arms with affection under the “lordship of Christ over the whole of life with unabashed hope in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform individuals, communities, and cultures.”
I don’t know everything those pastors and theologians expected when they convened on Tuesday, May 17, 2005. But by 2007, they’d cast a vision for the next generation. “We desire to advance along the King’s highway, always aiming to provide gospel advocacy, encouragement, and education so that current- and next-generation church leaders are better equipped to fuel their ministries with principles and practices that glorify the Savior and do good to those for whom he shed his life’s blood.”
May this vision of conviction and affection continue for another 20 years, to the next generation that already shows such promise, and beyond.