It is 6:30 p.m. and I just got home from a week away in Arizona and Vegas. I have so many thoughts running through my head that I want to post about. I will get to them probably early next week as I have to catch up at the office.

Here is some random thoughts in no real order:

1. The Conference was nothing new. It was good and a good reminder but I have heard it before. I love Ed Young so just being in the room with him gets my creative juices flowing.
2. Greg Rohlinger is a great friend and one of the sharpest pastors I have ever been around. It ended up working out where DeAnna and I were able to go hang with Greg and the staff at Palm Valley for a few days. They are the real deal. They treated us like royalty and I left there refreshed and renewed. I have a lot of thoughts on Greg and his staff that I will post soon. Thank God for Ed, Andy, Bill, etc. but I am becoming more and more convinced that some of the great church leaders of our time are people that very few of us have heard about. Greg is one of those guys. 5 years old. 2100 in attendance. Countless lives being changed. Awesome work. Thank you Greg for the week, it was great!
3. Vegas is off the hook! I know it is sin city, blah, blah, blah. I loved it! The creative ways they get their message out is amazing. They have nothing to say and know how to do it. What is wrong with the church? My creative juices are flowing like they haven’t in a while.
4. Anthony Coppedge ran a 4.3 40 in High School. I have known Anthony online for about a year and had the pleasure of hanging with him this weekend as well. GREAT guy who knows his stuff. He has a great 411 service for churches. I think many church planters should look into this.
5. I love my Bride. I don’t talk much about DeAnna here but I have the most wonderful wife in the world. She rarely travels with me but she did this time and I had a blast.
6. I love my staff. I was gone and church didn’t miss a beat. To me that is awesome. I am very blessed to have the guys I have serving with me.
7. I love my church. I missed my church so bad this weekend that it shocked me. I can’t wait for this Sunday.
8. I love Georgia. No trees or grass in Arizona. Not cool. Plus it was like a 100 degrees. Even more non-cool.
9. I didn’t miss blogging. I love to write but to be honest I didn’t miss blogging. I love it but I need to decide where this fits in my list of things to do.
10. I love pastoring. That is a big step for me to say. I have often said I could plant churches the rest of my life, I could start a church planting training center, I could go on staff at the right church but after spending time with Greg, I realized how much I love pastoring RSC. I can honestly say if no one outside of Canton every knew of our work, I don’t care. That might seem simple to many of you but that is a huge step for me.
11. Church Planting is about the unchurched. It is that simple. I have a a huge rant coming up about idiot church planters that don’t realize this.
12. True friends and mentors are important. I have some guys God has sent me that have really molded me and the church I pastor. I thank God for them.
13. You learn a whole lot more by doing and by being around those doing then you do from reading a book about someone who did it.

Well, that is it for now.

Peace.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2005 at 6:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.