Acts 29 Quarterly - The Pre Party

Yesterday was an incredible day. The morning was busy taking care of necessary errands when you have a 7 year old about to start school and other such things when you move to a new area. After wrapping those up, we took off from Ozark and headed up to St. Louis for the Acts 29 Quarterly meeting.

It was a crazy car ride and I'll introduce you to my car mates in tomorrow's post. Needless to say with two church planters in the vehicle, Theology, Jesus, The Church, and many more things were thoroughly handled and discussed. World peace and hunger are on today's docket.

Last night, we had the chance to sit down with Trey Herweck (Refuge Church - St. Charles, MO), Steve Inge (Mystery Church - Joplin, MO), Dewayne Thompson (Fusion Church - Muskogee, OK), and then Lane Harrison (LifePoint Church - Ozark MO) and myself rounded out the group.

It was a great discussion with guys who are in the trenches. They aren't philosophying about how to reach people, they're working to reach people. BIG DIFFERENCE. They don't sit in offices and wonder about how to get involved, they wake up at six in the morning, read The Word, and then go to work reching people. Great guys, and all vastly different. But they all share one thing really important in common. They have a passion to see the Gospel get ahold of folks and radically transform them.

We covered all kinds of things. What to look out for in the first year of a church plant? What are the hardest things about planting a church? How church planting affects your marriage? How do you handle finances in the first years? But overall, it was a time of encouragement, support, question and answer, The Word, and just spending great time with like minded folks.

The one answer that stuck out to me last night that I'll take back home wiht me. I posed the question to Trey "What's the one thing you'd do over if you had the chance to in regards to you first year of Refuge"...

His answer was very revealing: "I wouldn't do anything over because I'm too scared to go back and have to do any of it over. It was hard the first time, and there wouldn't be anything appealing to me of having to do it again."

It wasn't that he didn't feel like they had made mistakes. But it was also that God had a plan, had a purpose, and that all the things they've gone through have made them stronger. He said God has shown up at just the right time in so many ways and to do it over again would be saying like God messed up the first time. Trey was a great guy and someone I'm looking forward to getting to know a whole lot better.

Well, we're off. Time to head to The Journey to meet more soldiers in the trenches. Today should be unforgettable. More to come tomorrow...