Church Planting Retreat

Wow the last 24 hours were intense.  My good friend, Chuck Frank was recently hired by our region of the denomination to oversee church planting and he invited me to a retreat to brainstorm how our region can do a better job getting new churches started.

Glenn Smith, Executive Director for New Church Initiatives out of Houston, Texas was our facilitator.  Glenn is a great guy and many new ideas were brainstormed and pondered.  Please pray for Chuck and the Commission on church Planting that God would continue to lead them in how to plant at least 20 churches by the year 2020.  By the way, if you or someone you know is interested in starting or helping with a church plant, please let me know and I’ll put you in contact with Chuck.

As for the time away, here were a couple of personal highlights:

• Always nice to get up to the Doubling Gap Retreat Center which our denomination owns…it was beautiful weather.
• Nice to meet some other pastors from our denomination.
• Monday night we wrapped up our meetings at about 9:30 and then Chuck, Glenn, Matt (pastor at Mercersburg COG) and myself went to the game room to watch MNF, play ping pong, air hockey and shoot some baskets.
• Didn’t hurt that the staff put out some great snacks for us.
• Glenn and Matt beat Chuck and I at table tennis…but we let them…at least that’s our story.   :)
• Chuck and I stayed up until 1:30am talking and brainstorming.
• Uhhh…7:30 had to be up to get breakfast and then start our 2nd day of meetings.
• At one point we were asked to take 20 minutes to get alone with God to think about some of the stuff we had been talking about.
• I took that opportunity to climb about 1/2 way up the mountain.
• I love being in the woods alone like that…although I was walking at a pretty brisk pace and really got my heart pumping…I thought…”mmmm, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming up here…hope nothing bad happens…they won’t find me for days.”
• The morning sessions were very interactive so I didn’t have problems staying awake.
• After a big lunch, Glenn did his one and only powerpoint presentation for the 2 days.
• While it was great info, I’m sitting there telling myself…”Concentrate…keep your eyes open.”
• Wasn’t long after that that things got interesting as the 7 pastors present were carrying each other, rolling on the floor, doing the crabwalk, hopping on 1 foot, etc.
• Don’t ask it’s a long story, but illustrated a wonderful point…just glad Chuck had put his camera away.
• All in all a productive trip…got to make some new friends and catch up with some old ones…again would appreciate your prayers as Chuck as his team proceed forward.