Sovereign Grace Bible Conference (African-American), 30th annual . . . August 4-8, 2013 in Chattanooga, Tennessee . . . Elder D. J. Ward, conference founder

Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. Chattanooga, Tenn.

I am set to attend the 30th annual Sovereign Grace Bible Conference, August 4-8, 2013.

The host church (2009- ) is New Home Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

New Home's pastor is Elder G. M. Spotts, one of the many ministerial students of the conference founder, the late Elder D. J. Ward.

I will be attending the annual conference with a budding African-American preacher from my new home church in Louisville, Immanuel Baptist Church. He is a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a graduate of the University of Louisville.

It will be my first time attending the truly unique African-American conference since 2004. I had attended also the 2003 conference that had the then-Minneapolis pastor-author John Piper as one of the 12 or so mix of white and black preachers. This was when the conference was held in Lexington, Kentucky.

I first learned of the Sovereign Grace Bible Conference in the mid-1990s from John G. Reisinger of Sound of Grace ministries. I had become a Christian in October 1992 and soon thereafter a believer in God's sovereign electing grace (Calvinistic/Reformed Baptist theology, especially as it pertains to soteriology, the doctrine of salvation). I had initially learned the Doctrines of Grace (T.U.L.I.P.) through Reisinger's video tapes, as shown to me by friend and spiritual mentor, Daniel R. Green (1947-2006), of Port Angeles, Washington.

John G. Reisinger.
June 2014. Canandaigua, NY.

It was at a Sound of Grace-sponsored John Bunyan Conference in Pennsylvania in April 1995 that I first heard Elder D. J. Ward preach in person. What a blessing! At the time, I was 23-years-old and had just completed my first year of studies at Prairie Bible College in Alberta, Canada.

For the history of the annual Sovereign Grace Bible Conference that began in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, moved to the historic Main Street Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, and is now held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, see here.

And here is the Lexington Herald-Leader obituary for Elder D. J. Ward, and here is the April 29, 2008, online tribute to Elder Ward by Dr. John Piper. Lastly, here is the entire Homegoing and Memorial services for Elder Ward.

UPDATE

Click here to listen to and/or download the sermons and music sessions from the 2013 conference.

Elder D. J. Ward. Conference founder, Sovereign Grace Bible Conference.

New Home Missionary Baptist Church. Chattanooga, Tenn.

Chattanooga, Tennessee. USA.