Dr. Gardner Taylor died this week. For 42 years he served as the senior pastor of the 10,000-member Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. He was the author of many books and 2,000 sermons, as well as the recipient of 15 honorary doctorates. Gardner was named by TIME magazine as the dean of black preachers and considered one of the most influential preachers in the English-speaking world. As a close friend of Martin Luther King, he shaped the earliest years of the civil rights movement when in 1961 he and Dr. King founded the Progressive National Baptist Convention. This gave Dr. King a national base of hundreds of churches at a time when many older, more conservative black people and their churches were uncomfortable with the movement. Gardner, the grandson of a slave, was a wisdom figure, activist, spiritual leader and dominant figure in the black community for decades.
Gardner was also my preaching professor in seminary.  For good reasons, I did not see that mentioned in the articles on his passing.
During my first feeble attempt at a sermon I watched him sitting in the first row of the chapel making notes and staring off in the distance behind me. He would smile, grimace, frown and chuckle. I had no idea how I was doing, but I know how much it mattered to me what he thought. My only other attempt at preaching had been the week before at MIT. Afterwards, I was given a check for $5.00 issued by the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Anything he said would be more encouraging than that.
I stepped down and he handed me his notes on my manuscript. Turning to the class he said, “Mr. Smith has just illustrated what it is to have an embarrassment of riches.” I was elated. That Gardner Taylor would say such a thing was more than I could have expected. I thought about that phrase all the way home and could not hide the excitement from Carol when I shared it with her. “What would make him say such a wonderful thing about my sermon?”
The next day I looked up the phrase just to confirm what I had assumed he meant. What a surprise. It means, literally, too much of a good thing. When you have an embarrassment of riches, you have more of something than you need, and this makes it difficult for you to make a choice. In other words, I could have done a much better job of choosing and editing my material and improved the effect.
I’ve never forgotten Dr. Taylor’s comment and the wisdom that produced it. In fact, every year as we get to this point in the preparation of The Gathering conference, I begin to ask myself if we are in danger of having an embarrassment of riches—and have we been carried away by the desire to create so much content that people cannot make wise choices.  It’s easy to keep adding and think that will improve the conference while it may have just the opposite effect. I always wonder if we have unintentionally created too much of a good thing. I hope not. We have many good speakers and classes this year and, hopefully, the balance and pace will be perfect for our participants.
We will open The Gathering on September 24 in Dallas with Thursday afternoon Briefings. This year’s will be “The Wise Art of Giving” hosted by the Trinity Forum and “Philanthropy and Mental Illness” hosted by the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute with Kay Warren as one of our special resources.
Our good friend Andrew Peterson is back (by popular demand) to be our guest musician. He will open us Thursday night alongside our evening’s keynote speaker, Kay Warren. Our Bible Teacher this year is someone you might know more as a musical artist but whose love is Bible teaching – Michael Card. I was surprised when we talked about this role, and his teaching is going to be perfect for this year’s conference.
Last year, David Brooks was with us for our luncheon speaker, and this year we are thrilled that Gary Haugen will do the same. Gary is a longtime friend of The Gathering and is the founder of International Justice Mission. He has just spoken at the TED conference in Vancouver, and we are delighted he is able to be with us.
Lynne Hybels will be speaking with us on Saturday night, and we will close with family communion and Michael’s Bible teaching on Sunday morning.
Of course we have lots of classes throughout the weekend for you. We are adding more each week, but you can see a list of topics here. And, as always there will be surprises.  So, with Gardner’s words still fresh in the back of my mind, I am trying to imagine your smiles, frowns, grimaces and chuckles as you experience The Gathering this year. What you think matters to us!