Which is one of the major ideas of Robert Webber’s Ancient Future series. So it is a good time to remind once again of the conference this weekend in the Chicagoland. Nov 30 and Dec 1, at Northern Seminary here in the suburbs of Chicago, The Ancient Evangelical Future Conference and the Grow Center are hosting an event dedicated to the primacy of the biblical narrative. There will be some papers — promised to be both academic and pastorally practical — by Kevin Vanhoozer, yours truly, and Edith Humphreys along with responses by both pastors and professors. My piece, called “Stories of the Story,” will look at how we are taught to read the Bible and how we really read the Bible.

A major highlight of this event is that it is smaller so you can interact with the speakers more than is often the case. There are only three sessions and so everyone enters the same set of conversations. Because the originator of this entire AEF vision was Robert Webber, and since he passed into the presence of our good God this year, it will be good to gather with those who loved and knew Bob to carry on his vision for a church that draws on the ancients in order to move into the future.