Tim Challies writes on the eagerness and anticipation that comes with attending conferences but wonders why it is absent on ordinary Sundays. It also feeds into the feeling that the people that really matter in the church are those who get to speak at big conferences.
Tullian Tchividjian presents the down side of accountability groups. They were all the rage once, but this is a serious warning.
Michael J Kruger challenges (a few weeks ago ) the apparent arrogance of urban church planting.
Finally, it is great to see that news of our own Presbyterian conference in London next month has got across the Pond. If you didn’t know about it, and you have a secret desire to understand more about we strange presbyterians, then check it out. Maybe even put it in your diary.
Doggie's Breakfast 
Do you think similar things could be said about giving “testimonies” as about accountability groups? It seems to me that these, especially in more formal contexts, pressure people into exaggerating how bad they were, how much they’ve cleaned up their act, and perhaps the emotional intensity (or whatever) of their conversion experience (especially in contexts when conversion and transformed lives are emphasized).
This sort of reminds me of what Carl Trueman wrote recently, “‘I was a basically well-behaved studious teenager from a good home and then I found Jesus and continued to be basically well-behaved and studious.’ Unlikely to make it to the Barnes and Noble Top Ten, I suspect.”
I’ve never been in an accountability group. I sometimes wonder if they’d be good for some missionaries and pastors I’ve seen in Kenya, who appear to be completely unaccountable. (Well, they’re accountable to people thousands of miles away, who have no real sources of information about them apart from themselves…)
However, having read the linked post, I didn’t think it was much of an argument. X can be abused, therefore X is bad – that doesn’t really follow, does it? Unless Tullian is arguing that the abuse is inherent and essential to X – but is it *really* necessary or inevitable for any accountability group to be like that?
I’d have thought that if such a group is a way for people in the church to try to apply Scriptural truth in each other’s lives, then good. If it departs from that purpose and becomes unhelpful, then it can be reformed, or another way can be sought. But if the cart breaks down do we need to shoot the horse?