I'm between Colorado and Atlanta

Well, right now I’m in the air between Colorado and Atlanta in an airplane perhaps practicing for the rapture one day. I just got finished with a few day retreat in Vail with the Acts 29 church planters and their wives. I want to thank the folks at Mars Hill for covering the expenses for the retreat for nearly 100 church planters and their wives. Mars Hill has always given 10% of our offerings to church planting and this retreat is part of that support. The young couples I spoke to were exceedingly grateful. Most of the pastors wives are young women who are pregnant and/or already have young children and being married to a church planter means there is a great deal of stress on their family combined with little financial and emotional support. It is a humbling honor to serve young pastors and their wives, including allowing them to enjoy a paid retreat together to grow in their love with one another and friendships with fellow pastoral couples. Thankfully, my wife Grace joined me for the trip which is a treat as I don’t get to travel much with her now that we’ve got five kids. We flew into Denver and made the few hour drive to and from Vail in a convertible with the top down. Grace is so cute I still find myself driving off the road because, despite twenty years together, I just have to see her eyes dance when she smiles. One of the many reasons I knew Grace (aka Beauty) was the girl for me when we first men over 20 years ago is that I simply love her presence. Being a bit of an introvert, I find that people and crowds drain me and that silence and solitude renews me. The exception has always been Grace and having a few days with her was refreshing. One day when our kids are grown she’ll travel with me all the time and while we love the season we are in that one looks promising as well. The retreat was great and it was fun to connect with some couples we deeply love and respect. The only glitch was something called altitude sickness. Being, 8,500 feet in the air gave me a ripping headache and some nausea. One of the pregnant women diagnosed me as perhaps being in my first trimester. The most curious part of the trip was some elderly guru dude walking around our retreat center in a bright colored robe and a turban. I’m not sure who he was, but a bunch of old white guys in white robes with pony tails who looked like they really grooved on the sixties kept kneeling in front of him and bowing in reverence. It was an interesting contrast to our church planters retreat where men and their wives simply hung out as friends and none of us are regarded as any kind of guru as Jesus is the only dude we’ll bend our knee to in worshipful reverence. All Christians are just loving members of God’s family by grace. I’m glad I get to worship Jesus who is humble enough to serve and not some sinner dude who makes me wear a white dress and spend lots of time at his feet which are plodding a path to hell. Tomorrow I have a few television interviews in Atlanta with a show called Wretched and another with In Touch Ministries. I think we’ll be discussing the book Vintage Jesus and if the footage can be put on the net for free we’ll let you know where to find it. If you think about it, pray I don’t pull a Charlie Brown and fail to get my foot on the ball. It’s been a good but tiring trip and I’m really looking forward to being home to snuggle with my kids and see my eight year old son Zac in his baseball all star tournament this weekend. He’s a natural lefty and great ballplayer despite the fact that he has to grow up rooting for the Seattle Mariners which, if charged with being a major league baseball team, would have the case thrown out of court because there would not be enough evidence to convict.