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The death of my dad in March 2007 prompted the theme for this year's conference. After he died, and I began to think later that summer about who my biography would be about this year, it occured to me that I could do it on my dad.

I thought that I would tell the story of my father, and his ministry as an evangelist, and my relationship with him. And it hit me that maybe the whole conference should be built around fatherhood.

Then I remembered that Don Carson, a professor at Trinity, also lost his father recently. And I heard through the grapevine that he is writing a book about him (which should be ready for the conference) and I thought that he might come and be the keynote speaker. He could focus on the issues of the pastor as a father of a congregation, father of a family, son of God, and son of a father.

So it all began to come together that the whole conference would relate to fathering and pastoring. Then we got the idea to invite the fathers and sons of the pastors.

So this is going to be a very unusual pastor's conference. People will be bringing their sons and their dads, and the whole thing will be to talk about those dimensions of ministry.