On the road...

So all of last week I was away from home. It's been a long time since I've been away that long and although the girls (my wife and daughter) were with me for half of it the week still wore on me. It was both trying and refreshing at the same time. Over all however I came out of this week of travel refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.

Our first stop was Myrtle Beach as we traveled north to visit some of our dear friends and worship at St. Paul's for the first time since I resigned as their Youth Minister a year and a half ago. We were really blessed to see how the community of youth has matured and see old friends that we had lost touch with due to the distance.

From our time at Hotel Goff we headed slightly south to Litchfield Beach and Golf Resort for the Diocesan Leadership Forum where I was sitting on a panel discussion titled "People Not Programs" It focused on integrating families as the main disciplers of their students and children. Our time there was good ironically keeping with the theme of the panel my time at the Forum was marked more by great conversations with people than listening to the key note speaker. Lots of laughter and life were shared.

Tues evening we headed out of Litchfield south to stop over at home to do laundry and pick up or 2 dogs who were away at summer camp (boarding kennel ) Wed I spent getting packed again as at 6:00 AM my ride to Durham NC picked me up and we were off again. This time we headed north into NC for Advance09 . Advance is a conference focusing on the advance and resurgence of the local church. Originally the focus of the three day conference was church in the new south. I really enjoyed my time learning and being challenged. I have a journal full of notes and phrases that i'm sure will continue to challenge me for years to come. Including the use of "voltron" as a verb to describe how the church should be formed together. Several people commented on the fact that Advance was like drinking out of a fire hose. If anything there was too much to take in and not en ought time to process. All the teaching was from a solid scriptural base no show no pushing books or cd no flash just a continual challenge for the bride of Christ to press into who she is. All the audio from the event can be found for free here.

One aspect that made the event really memorable for us was that after the evenings were over we passed a eclectic coffee shop on the way to our car. In it was a two day "poetry slam" where spoken word poet teams from all over the state had gathered to throw down. I have some of it on video and will post it once i can edit it a little. It was an amazing juxtaposition of all the theory we were learning during the day paired with the raw emotion we saw demonstrated through poetry. Really cool.

Finally last week held a lot of time in the car which for me translated into a series of video devotionals we'll be using to challenge our students as they travel this summer. I'll embed a few below if you'd like to see the rest head to... http://www.youtube.com/user/studentsofsamp