National Founders Conference 2027 Will Examine Law and Gospel

The 2027 National Founders Conference, titled “The Law and the Gospel,” is scheduled for January 21–23, 2027, at McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Florida. Founders Ministries states that the gathering is open not only to pastors but also to ministry leaders, families, and other Christians who want to think carefully about the relationship between God’s commands and God’s saving grace. The published speaker roster includes Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Conrad Mbewe, Tom Hicks, David Mitzenmacher, and Graham Gunden. The program frames law and gospel as a practical theological issue rather than a narrow academic debate. How a church understands that relationship shapes evangelism, preaching, assurance, sanctification, counseling, and the way Christians respond to both conviction and failure. Confusing law and gospel can produce several distortions: people may treat obedience as a way to earn acceptance, dismiss God’s commands as irrelevant, or speak of grace without calling anyone to repentance and new life. The conference’s announced themes are therefore closely connected to ordinary ministry. Pastors must proclaim God’s holiness and human sin without implying that sinners can save themselves. They must announce free justification in Christ without presenting grace as permission for spiritual indifference. Christian parents, teachers, and lay leaders face similar questions when they explain obedience, discipline, assurance, and forgiveness. The Fort Myers meeting is an in-person event, and the official conference page also advertises a livestream option. Prospective attendees should consult that page for current registration terms, travel information, the complete schedule, and any updates before making plans.

A conference on law and gospel can be most useful when participants arrive with specific ministry questions and leave with a plan to test what they heard in Scripture and in the accountable life of a local church. Pastors might listen for ways to make the distinction clear in preaching: the law reveals God’s character and exposes sin, while the gospel announces what God has accomplished for sinners in Jesus Christ. Ministry leaders can consider how that distinction affects counseling people who are burdened by guilt, complacent about sin, uncertain of salvation, or tempted to measure Christian maturity by rule keeping alone. Parents and laypeople can use the sessions to sharpen everyday conversations about obedience and grace without turning the home or small group into a theological debating society. The range of announced speakers brings pastoral, theological, and international perspectives, but attendees should still read biblical texts in context, discuss applications with their own church leaders, and distinguish confessional commitments from personal preference. A practical reason to attend is the concentration of time: three days of teaching, worship, and conversation can help a church team develop shared vocabulary for issues that appear every week in sermons, discipleship, evangelism, and care. The event’s value will be greatest if participants resist collecting quotations and instead ask how clearer doctrine can produce humbler ministry. Sound teaching about the law and gospel should not make Christians proud of knowing a distinction; it should deepen repentance, strengthen assurance in Christ, encourage holiness, and make the good news more intelligible to others. Those outcomes provide a constructive standard by which pastors, families, and congregations can evaluate what they learn in Fort Myers.