Expository Preaching Trust’s Preaching Conferences 2024
Encouragement from The Expository Preaching Trust:
“The Expository Preaching Trust is sponsoring two Preaching Conferences in 2024.
The conferences offer an identical program, both will feature 6 sermons on the book of Acts and each delegate will be allocated to a preaching group for individual preaching mentoring.
The main speaker will be Simon Manchester who will preach three sermons and lead a preaching group.
David Burge, David Cook and Jim Mobbs will each preach one sermon and lead a preaching group, Janet Riley will also lead a preaching group for women preachers.
First Conference: Armidale
The Dates: Monday-Tuesday, 6-7 May at St Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, Armidale.
This conference will be co-chaired by the Bishop of Armidale, Rod Chiswell, and David Cook.
The conference will be fully catered.
Full cost $50.
Second conference: Wahroonga
The second conference in Wahroonga will be co-chaired by the Bishop of North Sydney, Chris Edwards, and David Cook, and the dates are, Monday-Tuesday, 12-13 August.
Venue Wahroonga Presbyterian Church. This conference will be fully catered.
Full cost $50.
The Monday night
The Monday night of each conference will be open to the public and both Simon Manchester and David Cook will preach on Acts 7 and Acts 8-9 respectively.
Venues: Armidale Cathedral 6 May; St Andrew’s Anglican Church Wahroonga, Water St, Wahroonga, 12 August – each evening begins at 7:30 pm.
These conferences are offered for all preachers and the Trust is delighted to offer them so economically as it seeks to promote expository preaching which is both faithful and engaging.
Links to register for either conference are on this page – and additionally for the Armidale conference here.
Expository Preaching Trust Activities 2024
From The Expository Preaching Trust:
“In 2024 the Trust will sponsor Preaching Clubs in Abbotsford, Armidale, Sutherland and Wahroonga.
These meet quarterly mostly on Mondays. There is no charge, please contact the coordinator of each Club to register your interest: …
Two of these Clubs, Armidale (May 6-7) and Wahroonga (August 5-6) will be holding two day Preaching conferences. The visitor for the conferences will be Simon Manchester and he will be assisted by David Cook, David Burge, Jim Mobbs and Janet Riley. …”
– See the details from the Trust.
Where did all this Expository Preaching come from?
“There’s no doubt that, at least within Reformed churches, this is an age of expository preaching – of preaching sequentially through books of the Bible while always ensuring that the point of the text is the point of the sermon.
Yet you do not need to look far into history to find that it was not always so and that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such preaching was rare.
I was intrigued by Bob Fyall’s explanation of how expository preaching became not only accepted but expected. …”
– Tim Challies writes of key figures who promoted expository preaching in England and Scotland. Let us never take such preaching for granted.
Related: Sydney Church History – David Cook.
Expository Preaching Trust opportunities in 2023
“Lord willing, the EP Trust is planning the following opportunities in 2023…”
– At The Expository Preaching Trust, David Cook shares what they hope to be doing to promote preaching in 2023. Lather and Shave Preaching Clubs, Mentoring, Preaching Workshops.
Take a look and register interest.
Photo: David Cook speaking at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, August 2022.
Expository Preaching Trust launches 2022 Programme
“2022 is the 11th year of the Trust’s ministry. Our ministry takes three forms …
1. Preaching Workshops …
2. Mentoring …
3. Preaching Clubs … ”
– Read all about it at the website of the Expository Preaching trust.
Preaching Clubs — update from the Expository Preaching Trust
David Cook shares some details of the Expository Preaching Trust’s Preaching Clubs for 2022 –
“If you are a preacher do come along and join in the supportive fellowship, you will get to preach twice each year and have your sermon critiqued.
The size of the club is limited to 14 members, we enjoy good coffee and food. …”
Expository Preaching Trust expands
David Cook writes:
“I am delighted to let you know that Janet Riley is to join the Trust as an encourager, especially of women’s groups, one day per week in 2022. …
Janet joined the Faculty at SMBC as Dean of Women and Lecturer in Greek in 2008 where she had involvement in the College’s preaching groups, encouraging students by critiquing sermons. Janet is one of the most insightful critiquers of sermons I know.
I am delighted that Janet is joining us to encourage preachers, she will be involved with some of the existing ‘Lather and Shave’ preaching groups and will establish a Preaching Club for women. …”
– Read David’s announcement here.
Expository Preaching on the wane? — David Cook
I studied at Moore Theological College from 1973 to 1975, under the principalship of D.B.Knox.
Those who studied at Moore under Dr Knox always anticipated his Doctrine 1 lectures, held twice a week for the whole of first year.
Dr Knox would usually open the lecture making reference to our text, ‘In understanding be men’, by a former principal of Moore, T. C.Hammond.
These remarks would usually take about 10 minutes and then the rest of the lecture consisted of questions and answers.
Knox would occasionally correct Hammond, who wrote his book on an ocean liner, travelling from Ireland to take up his appointment in Sydney.
Dr Knox would say, ‘the archdeacon may have been seasick at this point’.
What impressed me was that Knox, who rarely corrected Hammond, did so on the basis not of the Anglican doctrinal standard, The 39 Articles, but on the basis of God‘s Word, the Bible.
That was Moore’s enduring legacy to me, through lecture room and chapel service, the Bible was taught and preached as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
I have recently been part of a committee discussing what it means to be ‘reformed’.
The 5 Solas have been referred to, but finally, I think we have come to the conclusion that the foundation of Reformed theology and conviction, is that the Bible is God’s breathed out word and is our final court of appeal.
We believe what we believe, because that is what the Bible says.
This was the core of Luther’s argument with the Roman church in the 16th Century.
When called upon to retract his writings, Luther said, ‘Unless I am convinced by the text of the Scriptures or clear reason, for I do not trust in the Pope or the Councils alone…I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything…’
It is the influence of the Reformers and men like D.B.Knox, which have led me to seek to have the Scriptures at the centre of my life and preaching.
Calvin referred to the Bible as a pair of spectacles, ‘which dispel the darkness and give us a clear view of God’.
The point of these remarks for preaching is that we preach the way we do because of what we believe about the Bible and how God reveals himself. J.I.Packer said, ‘the text of the Bible is God preaching to us’.
The faithful preacher will be God’s mouthpiece, by explaining, expounding, declaring the Bible.
How foolish to have a word from the mouth of God and to displace it with our own thoughts and inclinations!
Does your preaching show your respect for God, your desire to honour him, by faithfully and engagingly proclaiming the Bible?
Is this consistently true, every time you take the pulpit?
My current screen saver is a quote from the late R.C.Sproul:
‘I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests his power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a programme, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it, His Word!’
David Cook.
David Cook launches Expository Preaching Trust website
David Burge, Chairman of the Expository Preaching Trust, commends their new website:
“For over 40 years, God has used the ministry of David Cook to strengthen the faith of His people through expository preaching, and to train thousands of other preachers to do the same.
This site, and the Expository Preaching Trust behind it, seeks to make David’s ministry and resources more accessible.”
– See the new website here, and pray that it will be an encouragement to faithful expository preaching (and listening).
Expository preaching — The antidote to anaemic worship
“Though most evangelicals mention the preaching of the word as a necessary or customary part of worship, the prevailing model of worship in evangelical churches is increasingly defined by music, along with innovations such as drama and video presentations. When preaching the word retreats, a host of entertaining innovations will take its place. …”
– Albert Mohler writes about the central place of expository preaching in the life of the church.
Reflecting on Fifty Years of Expository Preaching in Australia (1965–2015)
“I was a new convert when I attended the CMS Victoria Summer School at Belgrave Heights in January 1965, when John Stott gave those studies in 2 Corinthians. It was the first time I had heard expository Bible preaching.
My response was, ‘That is how to preach the Bible, and that is what I want to do!’
I knew that such preaching would grow churches, and when I went to London in 1972 and visited All Soul’s Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate, I saw that it worked!”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Peter Adam remembers the impact of expository Bible preaching, as exemplified by John Stott. (Photo: St. Helen’s Bishopsgate.)
Kevin DeYoung on expository preaching
Kevin DeYoung shares his thoughts on expository preaching in the latest edition of Preaching Matters from St Helen’s Bishopsgate.
Worth a look.
Why Expository Preaching Matters
“If preaching is central to Christian worship, what kind of preaching are we talking about? The sheer weightlessness of much contemporary preaching is a severe indictment of our superficial Christianity. When the pulpit ministry lacks substance, the church is severed from the word of God, and its health and faithfulness are immediately diminished.”
– Albert Mohler continues to write about the key place of expository preaching. Encouraging and challenging.
‘Why Expository Preaching is a bad idea’
Albert Mohler, at a 9 Marks conference at Southern Seminary, traces the history of the loss of confidence in preaching the text of the Bible. Well worth listening.
(h/t Colin Adams.)
Expository Preaching: Charles Simeon and Ourselves
“Expository preaching is the preaching of the man who knows Holy Scripture to be the living word of the living God, and who desires only that it should be free to speak its own message to sinful men and women; who therefore preaches from a text, and in preaching labours, as the Puritans would say, to ‘open’ it, or, in Simeon’s phrase, to ‘bring out of the text what is there’…”
– More than fifty years ago, J I Packer wrote this article on Simeon and preaching – for Churchman. You can now read it here online (PDF file).
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…