Paul Tripp delivered a message during TGC's Pre-Conference at the 2018 Bethlehem College and Seminaries Pastor's Conference titled “Danger of Familiarity.” Directly addressing the pastors in the room, he directed their attention toward a single danger of life in ministry—familiarity with the gospel.

The overwhelming privilege of spending a life dedicated to understanding, declaring, and ministering the gospel can have the adverse effect of numbing pastors to the splendor of God and the gospel. Knowledge and experiences that once led to worship subtly fade and actually become irritants that produce selfishness and self-worship. The danger is that, in the midst of serving God in a life of ministry, pastors often lose their awe of God—the principal shaper and motivator of pastoral ministry.