The 2008 Annual Conference of the MARBC was held earlier this week. Audio from the conference is now available on the MARBC.net website.

The topic of the teaching was “Effective Biblical Leadership”. Keynote speaker was Dr. Jim Jeffery, Baptist Bible College and Seminary. Also speaking were State Representative for the MARBC Ken Floyd and Pastor Randy Gilmore, Hamilton Hills Baptist Church, Fishers, Indiana.

The conference was held on Monday and Tuesday, October 27-28, 2008 at First Baptist Church, Rochester, Michigan.

MONDAY, October 27

General Session #1 - The Roots and Fruits of Leadership - Dr. Jim Jeffery

General Session #2 – Ken Floyd

Super Seminar #1 - Biblical Conflict Resolution, Part 1 - Randy Gilmore

Super Seminar #2 - Panel Discussion on Church Leadership Issues

General Session #3 – The Roots and Fruits of Leadership - Dr. Jim Jeffery

TUESDAY, October 28

General Session #4 – The Roots and Fruits of Leadership - Dr. Jim Jeffery

Super Seminar #3 - Biblical Conflict Resolution, Part 2 - Randy Gilmore

General Session #5 – The Roots and Fruits of Leadership - Dr. Jim Jeffery

Monergism.com is giving away 5 of the new ESV Study Bibles - ESV Study Bible Giveaway.

• Christianaudio.com has available for free download during November the unabridged audio book Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards — free registration required, use coupon code NOV2007 (see free audio page each month for a free download)
• Preaching Points Podcast is a fairly new and brief podcast from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, that seeks to encourage preachers toward preaching excellence — Haddon Robbinson is one of the participants (via UW)
• At Pulpit Magazine, Seizing Opportunities for Evangelism
• At The Baptist Bulletin, an update on a completely normal family — home of the McCaughey septuplets

Matt Perman writes at the Desiring God Blog, sharing their vision for making resources available online for free and challenges other Christian ministries to do the same:

The vision that we follow for our website is this: Post everything online, for free, without requiring registration, in a maximally usable interface. I’ve just written an article setting forth this vision in more detail. It is called Make it Free: Improving Online Effectiveness by Removing All Barriers to Accessing and Sharing Content.

Here’s a quote from the end of the piece linked to above that summarizes but you should go read the whole thing.

Ministry websites exist to be a major avenue for spreading your message. Your website will do this most effectively if you “make it free”–that is, if you maximize ease of access to all of your content and remove all barriers that get in the way of using and sharing your content.

This may not be feasible for ministries with fewer resources but as much as possible I believe this should be true of all ministries.

Update (10/30/07): Matt speaks to Objections to Making It Free

Update (11/5/07): The Value of Making It Free

For those who enjoy audio books, good sermons and free stuff ChristianAudio.com has just what you want. I’ve been enjoying some of their free downloadable audio books for a few months now and the November 2006 download is C.H. Spurgeon’s All of Grace. Registration is required and you’ll need to use the coupon code NOV2006 at checkout–no credit card required.