October 5, 2026
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Midwestern Seminary welcomed pastors, ministry leaders and students to Kansas City last week, Sept. 28-29, for the 2026 For the Church National Conference. Centered on the theme “The Work of the Word,” the conference encouraged attendees to trust the power, sufficiency, and enduring authority of Scripture in every part of the Christian life and ministry.
Throughout the two-day conference, speakers considered how God’s Word compels, convicts, triumphs, multiplies, illuminates, and is ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word.
The compelling Word
Preaching from 2 Timothy 3:14–17, H.B. Charles Jr., pastor-teacher at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church of Jacksonville and Orange Park, Fla., opened the conference by calling pastors to remain steadfast in Scripture amid changing and challenging times.
“Faithful ministry requires steadfast confidence in God’s Word,” Charles said. “Wherever the Lord has assigned you to ministry, faithfulness requires steadfast confidence in the Word of God.”
Charles offered two reasons Christians must remain committed to Scripture: “The Word of God saves, and the Word of God sanctifies.” Because Scripture is breathed out by God, he explained, its nature, character, and authority are rooted in the nature, character, and authority of God Himself.
“Things are bad and will get worse,” he concluded. “Stick with the Scriptures.”
The convicting Word
Monday evening, Midwestern Seminary President Jason K. Allen preached from James 1:17-25, urging pastors not only to believe the Bible’s inspiration, authority, and sufficiency but also to submit personally to its transforming work.
“The Word regenerates. The Word sanctifies. The Word mobilizes,” Allen said, emphasizing that faithful preaching must be textual, clear and marked by conviction. “It’s not just that the Bible has the best source material. The Bible is our source material. It’s not just that the Bible has better stuff; the Bible is our stuff that we preach, and it carries implications for our preaching ministries.”
Allen also cautioned ministers against allowing sermon preparation to become detached from personal devotion and application. Pastors are called to prepare sermons, he said, not merely to generate manuscripts. The joy of preparation includes what God accomplishes in the preacher through the Word before the sermon is delivered to others.
“You love your people? Give them the Word,” Allen said. “You want to grow your people? Give them the Word. You want to see your people sanctified? Give them the Word.”
The triumphant Word
Clint Pressley, most recent past-president of the Southern Baptist Convention, began the second day of the conference by preaching from Ecclesiastes 12:9–14.
Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., encouraged pastors to master the Bible so that they might increasingly be mastered by it. Scripture gives believers knowledge of God, truth for navigating a confused world, and a firm foundation for enduring the trials of life and ministry.
“When the Bible speaks, God speaks,” Pressley said. “Pick up the Bible. Grow in your knowledge of the Word. Grow in your knowledge of faithfulness.”
Describing Scripture as both a goad and a firmly fixed nail from Ecclesiastes 12:11, Pressley reminded attendees that God’s Word directs His people and gives them something secure upon which to build their lives.
“You can hang your life on it,” he said. “Develop the disciplines early in your life where you are taking God’s Word into your soul.”
The Multiplying Word
Afshin Ziafat, lead pastor of Providence Church in Frisco, Texas, followed by drawing from 1 Thessalonians 1 and Acts 2. Sharing how the Lord used a New Testament given to him as a child to bring him to faith in Christ, Ziafat traced the work of Scripture in individual believers, within the church and through the church’s mission.
“The Word of God forms you as a believer and a follower of Christ,” Ziafat said.
As believers devote themselves to Scripture, the Word roots them in the Gospel, calls them to repentance and discipleship, forms generous Christian community, and sends them into the world with the good news of Jesus Christ.
“The Gospel was meant to have this kind of multiplying effect through the Word,” he said. “The Word came to them, and then it went forth everywhere.”
The illuminating Word
Preaching from Deuteronomy 4:1-14, Jared C. Wilson, associate professor of pastoral ministry and author in residence at Midwestern Seminary, explained that Scripture illuminates believers’ commitments, circumstances, and character and, above all, reveals the glory of Christ.
“You may feel adrift in your life,” Wilson said, “but none of us can rightly say we don’t really know how God has called us to live. The clarity is here if we want it.”
Wilson encouraged pastors to open the Bible before people living amid theological confusion and moral darkness and to allow its light to transform their own lives as well.
“You cannot preach the Word that illuminates if you are not showing how it illuminates Christ,” he said. “If you have not preached Christ, you have not preached.”
The incarnate Word
Closing the conference, Kevin DeYoung preached from John 1:1-14 on the eternal deity of the Son and the wonder of the incarnation. He urged pastors to pursue robust theology that produces deeper worship.
“The more we know about God, the better we can worship Him,” DeYoung said. “Robust theology is what makes the deepest worship possible.”
Explaining that the eternal Son became what He was not without ceasing to be what He was, DeYoung emphasized that the divine Word assumed a human nature and dwelt among His people. He concluded by directing attendees to the person at the center of Scripture and Christian proclamation.
“The Word, who is God, has a name: Jesus,” he said. “This is the One that we proclaim.”
Pre-conferences and workshops
Prior to the beginning of the conference, there were two pre-conferences. Spurgeon College hosted the annual Student Pastor Summit, which focused on the theme, “The Sufficiency of Scripture for Student Ministry.” This year’s Student Pastor Summit featured speakers Sam Bierig, Campbell Terry, Kyle Hoffsmith, Zach Cochran, and Jonathan Meyer.
The women’s pre-conference, hosted by the Midwestern Women’s Institute, was led by Nancy Guthrie, who led two sessions: “Beholding Christ in Shadow in the Old Testament” and “Beholding Christ in Substance in the New Testament.”
Tuesday afternoon included multiple workshops and breakout sessions for conference attendees to choose from. Session leaders and topics were:
To learn more about the For the Church National Conference, visit mbts.edu/ftc.
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