It’s been a great joy to attend The Gospel Coalition National Conference here in Chicago with 5,500 others to celebrate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rarely do I get to reconnect with so many old friends, and make so many new friends, than at this conference.

But it’s also very easy to get lost in the now-ness of the conference and to forget that this gathering (and others like it) are the realized dream of a previous generation of Christians, many of whom have now passed on to glory. One of those men was Dr. Carl F. H. Henry (1913–2003).

For several years my friend Owen Strachan served as the Managing Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. While recently sifting through Henry’s old letters, Strachan found a letter from Henry to Mark Dever written on September 12, 1989. In the letter, Henry wrote the following comment:

I may see Al Mohler at Southeastern. He has many gifts. Who knows how our Lord may bring together a core of young evangelical spirits for some dramatic breakthrough a half generation down the road. While we move under His banner who are, in any case, destined for victory.

We are now about a half generation down the road. It was quite fitting that the 2011 TGC conference opened this afternoon with a message from Dr. Mohler.