That saying — “Don’t forget God’s grace” — assumes that grace is the forgiveness of sin that you once received when you became a Christian.

Willard contends that grace is not primarily about forgiveness for past sins. It is about being empowered to live in the present, to participate in God’s life here and now.

The whole video is well worth watching. The part where he talks about grace begins at about 4:40.

I thought about why in ubf it is so important to have all kinds of “trainings”. They all are military style and “just obey” style. To prepare a good message you don’t need the Holy Spirit. What you need is to write the message 4-5 times then rehearse it many times (sometimes 40?) and then maybe your drill sergeant will say “OK the message has been almost prepared”.

In order to increase “the number” you don’t need Jesus, “you don’t need to think”, you just need “the more you go fishing the more you will catch”.

Again I want to quote MacArthur, “In a couple of years our ministry was doubled. We did absolutely nothing for that”. Is the secret of increasing number in the work of the Holy Spirit who blesses those who really obey Jesus words (not a heritage) and seek first His kingdom? “And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:32)

And so every Tuesday sogam sharing meeting was the expression of that inner struggle, “I can’t believe but I believe that God will bring through me at least two new sheep to the conference!”. If you don’t say this words of “faith” you’ll likely receive a “training. It reminds me Brian’s lynk to a ubf presentation, “1:1 is natural! OK?” LOL

At the most recent Well conference, the coordinator for Canada was asked, “What do you think about this conference?” In reply, he said that he was going to withhold judgment until he saw what kind of fruit resulted from the conference.

He probably meant that he was going to wait and see if the number of 1:1’s or SWS attendants or the ratio of 1:1 to SWS would go up or down. (I say that because I know for a fact that he pays close attention to such numbers.)

If that were the standard by which conferences should be evaluated, I would have to say that many ubf conferences were counterproductive, because after conferences many people would leave.

I’m pretty sure that those people would have left anyway, but the conferences probably made them leave sooner.

Yes! Every Bible student I ever brought to an international conference quit almost immediately after. The same is true for national conferences. The only conference that didn’t lead to a mass exodus of members was the YDC. Go figure.

And frankly, I never felt that an adequate gospel presentation was given at any of the conferences I attended. Even the messages on Jesus’ death and resurrection I felt were aimed more at instilling a sense of indebtedness to pay back Jesus through our ministry devotion. Students were given a very hazy picture of the way of salvation, then asked to write a testimony in which it was expected they would “receive one word” and somehow “meet Jesus.” It was largely rather artificial and contrived and not organic or Spirit-led.

One summer in the early 1990’s, we got a phone call from Chicago UBF. The voice on the line was an American voice, speaking with a Korean accent: “Dr. SL says that every chapter MUST bring 12 sheep to the MSU conference. Those who don’t bring 12 sheep CANNOT COME.”

So we dutifully obeyed. We prayed and we pushed and we prodded and we pressured people to register for the conference.

In the end, Penn State brought 12 sheep to MSU.

And right after the conference, every single of those newcomers “ran away.”

I was always told that after a conference, Satan becomes jealous and tries to steal people away.

But those newcomers didn’t leave because Satan entered their hearts. They left because of what they heard and saw at the conference.

They heard messages that were amateurish and theology that was superficial, unbalanced, or just plain wrong. They saw the hubris, the lack of humility, the spirit of pridefulness about UBF. They didn’t like being pressured to “just believe,” to “just obey,” to just whatever. They thought that committed UBF members talked and acted very strangely. They got to see UBF people up close and just didn’t like what they saw. They realized that they had no future in UBF unless they put on those same unattractive characteristics. So after the conference, they just stopped coming.

Over the years, we lost a lot of members because of UBF international conferences.

Post-conference time was the most dreaded time for a ubf messenger…..