One of the biggest conferences of Pastors ever held in Australia gets underway in Sydney on Monday 28th August.
Oxygen, organised by the Katoomba Christian Convention, is being held at the Australian Technology Park at Redfern.
The conference runs for two and a half days until Wednesday lunchtime. It includes keynote speeches from John Piper, prolific author and teaching pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis as well as addresses from John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and Adjunct professor of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.
Keynotes will be delivered morning and night, and electives during the afternoon.
Elective topics include Engaging Atheism (John Lennox), The Pastor as Watchman (Phillip Jensen),Crossing Cultures: Reaching the World Around Us (Bruce Dipple, Jonathan Lilley, Ray Galea), Ministry Stress: Crisis or Catalyst (Grant Bickerton) and Fuelling the Fire in Midlife Ministry (Mike Raiter).
Dr Piper's wife Noël is travelling with him and will speak at an elective called "Faithful Women. Faithful God".
Sold out public event
A number of theological colleges have altered their timetables to allow students to attend the conference and pastors and full-time Christian workers are flying in from across Australia.
Among the thousands attending is the Rev Simon Manchester, rector of St Thomas’, North Sydney, who finds “sitting at the feet of Dr Piper humbling”.
He told the Sydney diocese newspaper, Southern Cross that Dr Piper is "..like a pastor to the pastors because he does hard thinking about God and himself, and everything in between,” Mr Manchester says. “Not only are people attending his church and downloading much that he writes and much that he preaches, but also pastors are going to his conference because many of us are glad to have somebody who’s seen a little further than we have. He encourages us not to settle for low views of Christ or to give up on Christ.”
On Wednesday, Dr Piper will address a sold-out Sydney Entertainment Centre at the “One” event. A quarter of the tickets were snapped up the week they went on sale. From there, they sold steadily until even an extra allocation of 500 tickets sold out within a day.
Katoomba Christian Convention says people can still buy tickets for the Monday and Tuesday night sessions of the Oxygen conference.
The theme of the night is "One Saviour. One Life. One Night. Don't Waste It" and organisers are hoping there will be 10,000 resolutions from those present.
Dr Piper says he’s honoured and that such “expectations always make me tremble”.
He told Southern Cross that the team at Desiring God, Piper's ministry, saw enough things come together to warrant the long Australian trip.
“We sense God’s leading in the friendships and partnerships God has given. My hope and prayer is that God shows up in power and makes himself great in the hearts of thousands.”
