Immersion Retreat -- October 28, 29, 30

October 28
Let me begin this post by again offering congratulations to my friends in St Louis. The World Series win was certainly a great thing, but now, how about achieving the #1 ranking for America's most dangerous city? St Louis beat out Detroit, Compton and Camden! Philly's not even on the list. So I don't want to hear it from any of you St Louis people any more. When I was a youth pastor at Hope, parents would always freak out about being really safe on the overseas mission trips. I always said the most dangerous mission trips we took were to our own city -- guess I was right.

I realized a lot of you that read this weren't at Cornerstone the Sunday before I left for this immersion retreat, so you have no idea why I'm in Texas or Hawaii. I was selected to be a member of a team of six pastors from south-central PA sponsored by a scholarly grant from the Lilly Foundation to research how to lead and perpetuate missional churches and church movements. It is a two-week research project called an "immersion retreat" where we travel across the country and interview leaders who are currently leading missional churches and movements and glean information and principles to formulate a deeper understanding of missional leadership in order to be missional and transformational leaders ourselves. It's a great opportunity with lots of learning and community, and it's obviously sweet being in Hawaii to interview leaders at Kauai Christian Fellowship and New Hope Fellowship.

So, like I said earlier, writing about the full content of all that's going on with the learning side of things would be very unprofitable because it's essentially information overload and I'm going to need to process for a while. But I wanted to include my friends and family on the travel side of things.

A few weeks ago at Cornerstone, I taught John 4 -- Jesus and the Samaritan soman -- had everything to do with living water. I started off that teaching by talking about people who love water and are part fish, like my buddy Tim, he's a surfer dude. I on the other hand, do not like water. It's not that I'm afraid of it cause I'm a relatively strong swimmer. Saturday I went body surfing. This is me before going body surfing.

This is me after going body surfing.

One of the most painful experiences of my life. I was in the water with my friend, Dave and we got wrecked by this huge wave -- 20 feet high! (actually, my buddy Tim on the shore said it was about five feet high, but what does he know?). I lost my body board and ended up getting pounded into the sharp, lava hewn rocks making a huge divot in my leg and depositing large amounts of sand into my bathing suit -- very uncomfortable. I remembered once again why I don't do water: too much work and lots of pain.

October 29
Today was a cool day. Went to Kauai Christian Fellowship and spent the afternoon with its pastor, Rick Bundschuch talking missional leadership and ministry.

Sunday evening consisted of some very cool community time with the guys on the team.
Spiritually invigorating and draining.

October 30
Have some down time today and tomorrow before getting to New Hope Fellowship in Honolulu. So we went hiking today in an incredible canyon in Kauai.



After driving through the canyon, we hiked about one and a half miles back into the canyon to Waipoo Falls. They were intensely beautiful, as is all of Kauai.

Immersion Retreat - October 25, 26, 27

Hey Everyone in blogland.

Let me begin this post by congratulating my St Louis friends on winning the World Series. It couldn't happen to a nicer city and you folks deserve it, especially the way the Rams and Blues have tanked in the last four or five years. St Louis is the greatest baseball town in America.


So, the immersion retreat is going well. On Wednesday morning, we traveled from Corpus Christi to Houston. We spent all Wednesday afternoon at Ecclesia, a church in Montrose -- metro Houston area. It was a really cool experience to talk ministry philosophy and purpose with the guys at Ecclesia. Their church reminds me so much of Cornerstone. Doing great kingdom work.

Wednesday I got a real treat. Mike Taylor is a former student from my youth group at Hope Church in St Louis. Mike went to Moody and is now a youth pastor in Sugar Land, a suburb of Houston. His wedding to his wife, Lacey, was one of the many I was privileged to do this summer. Anyway, I got to spend all night hanging out with Mike and Lacey at their crib. Literally all night -- didn't go to sleep at all. I loved it.

Thursday morning we flew from Houston to San Francisco. San Francisco is another city I love and another location of a wedding I performed this past summer. We had a six hour layover in SanFran, so we took off into the city to hang out in Union Square. Was very cool. Tried to hang out with another former student and intern -- actually, the girl from the SanFran wedding -- but she was working.

Here's a trolley from San Francisco, the home of Rice A Roni, the San Francisco treat, which is the product placement I think of when I think of San Francisco.


Thursday night we flew from San Francisco to Lihue (pronounced Luh-hoo-we), Hawaii on the island of Kauai. This place rules. I've been a lot of beautiful places in the world, and this place is right up there at the top. We are on Kauai to learn from Rick Bundschuh, pastor of Kauai Christian Fellowship a church that started as a youth ministry gone nuts. Kauai is where we'll spend the most solid time block in our trip which is nice cause all this traveling is really taxing, even in Hawaii. So today we were at KCF for a while and then spent the afternoon seeing some of the north shore. Here's some pics from the day.








Tomorrow, we're going on a three hour tour. I may or may not see you all again.

Immersion Retreat - October 24

Met with Bill Easum today. It was a great meeting. Trying to download any or all of the different meetings we will be in on the spot like this, without processing, is not going to be helpful to anyone. So I'll focus on the travel part.

Here's the other guys on this team I'm on. Most of you know the other dude in the middle...Tim Doering. Left to right of the other dudes you don't know is Rob Eshelman, Dave Ulm, Dave Weiss and Galen Hackman.


I couldn't resist this one...you Napoleon Dynamite fans will love it! Vote for Pedro! And he's a real dude running for a real office!


We toured the USS Lexington, a WWII aircraft carrier that's now in Corpus Christi harbor. It was so cool. Here's a few pics.

The mighty USS Lexington...


That Japanese flag on the tower is the spot where a kamikaze fighter attacked it!

Here's me being tough sailor-dude.

Here's me in the brig. I was so tough it broke a rule of some sort.

I also operated a 50mm cannon. You turn it with your hands and shoot it with your feet.

This is an F14 Tomcat. It is so tough looking and it's what Maverick and Goose flew in Top Gun which is one of my top five movies of all time.


For those of you who were worried about us, we did get all our luggage today, so I was able to change close. Good thing too, cause I think things were starting to get a little pungent.

This evening, we spent some time in our study of the book of Acts and discussion around what it means to re-discover what a New Testament church looks like. The trip has been great so far, thanks for praying for us.

I feel the need...the need for speed.

Immersion Retreat - October 23

So I'm on a study trip funded by the Lilly Foundation to Texas and Hawaii with five other CoB pastors. I know, I know...rough life. I thought I'd keep all you Cornerstoners and other friends up to date with what's going on with a pictorial review of our time together.

Today, we left at 6:00am to fly to Corpus Christi, Texas. Tomorrow we meet with Bill Easum from EasumBandy Associates -- church growth consultants. Texas is a wild place.

Lots of oil.


This is the view from my hotel room.


But Corpus Christi is right on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and it is beautiful and warm. Looking forward very much to meeting with Bill tomorrow.



Oh, by the way, Delta lost all our bags in Atlanta...all six of us. I'll be wearing the same thing tomorrow that I'm wearing right now, and that's kind of gross.

One more pic...

Being Versus Doing Part Penta

Before you read this post, read the first comment by my buddy Jimmi (aka Joshua) on the last post, Being Versus Doing Part Quatro (yes, he's the guy who compared Anne Lamott to Bruce Springsteen -- please offer him some grace). Jimmi makes some deeply profound points in his thoughts.

The best thing Jimmi says is that the starting point is the cross. I take no exception to this observation and deeply agree with it. How I view the cross is very important and is the starting point for all belief. I jive with all that, to a point.

Jimmi puts it like this:
"I think the point is that it is not us acting out our AM-Devotional Truths by will-power, and it's not us tapping in to our wishy-washy emotions. Instead, it's God grace allowing us to come along for the ride.
So, I guess my argument is that there is a difference in evangelizing, being married, doing funerals and counseling, when your brain is tuned to the “belief” of the all-encompassing grace of God vs. an emotion or passion.
Can the Spirit use passions? Yes. Does He? Yes. But, is that the starting point for our actions? Depending on how we define our words...I'm inclined to say "no". Because our passions should spring from our belief in the cross."

I'm falling back again on my Reformed leanings here, but I don't think that how I view the cross or what I believe about the cross is nearly as important as how the cross views me, because it is in that view that my identity is formed. There's a reason why Jesus died, because He loved me. It is in the reception of that love that my identity is formed and I am made new, not in an act of my will to believe anything (John 1:12).

When I am a new creation in Christ, when God births me again, I become more and more who Jesus made me to be. My identity in Him is concretely made manifest by who I am as I "work out my salvation with fear and trembling (Phillippians 2:12,13)". I'm not ignoring the battle between old man and new man, nor am I advocating a new Gnosticism, but I am saying that I believe that "our spirits bear witness with God's Spirit that we are the children of God born of water and of blood (Romans 8:16)". And that means that what my spirit feels matters and I believe that what my spirit feels comes from a place of deep redemption.

"The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)."
There is a difference between soul and spirit. I am still thinking this through, but I'm coming to a belief that the spirit is the place of regeneration where the fullness of my positional, soteriological blessings in Christ are held. The soul, for lack of better terminology, is the place where sanctification begins as a practical outworking of my new identity as my mind, will and emotions are made subject to my redeemed spirit.

And so, the more that I am deeply aware of my identity in Christ in my redeemed spirit, the more I am released to be, feel and know all that Jesus has for me.

I hope the Eagles win on Sunday.

Being Versus Doing Part Quatro

The thing about being vs doing is that it releases me to be who I really am.

Take this weekend, for instance. On Sunday afternoon I led the funeral service of a seventeen year old named Nick who died of an overdose. It was a terrible tragedy.

I don't consider myself to be very good in those situations that require an intense amount of shepherding -- I'm just not a natural shepherd-type person. My pastor in St Louis, Clint, is an awesome shepherd. He really connects with people at those darkest times of their emotional trauma and brings a lot of love and hope.

Do you know what my naturaly reaction is at a funeral? Anger.

Anger because it is not supposed to be this way. I don't know personally if Nick knew Jesus or not. Praise God that his mom says he did. All I know is that here is this beautiful young life with so much potential for the honor and glory that God made it for (Psalm 8), and it is violently ripped from us. This is not how it was suppposed to be. Nick should still be here, skateboarding and dreaming about a souped-up Volkswagen, not lying on his bedroom floor breathing his last breath because of cocaine.

I stood before a packed house at the funeral home...standing room only, mostly teenagers, and the primary emotion in my spirit was anger. But it was righteous anger, it wasn't sin. And because it was right, it didn't come out wrong. I think God used me on Sunday because I was being who God made me to be. If I had tried to change to fit a mold of "doing" like I had seen others doing, or like some class in seminary tries to teach me, I don't think I would have connected with the hearts of the people there.

The point is this...be fully who God made you to be. The thing is, the only way to be that is to deeply engage God intimately so that He can define you on the deepest level. The more superficial your relationship with God, the more you will do instead of be and the more empty you will be in the places you were meant to feel life most deeply.

The Evangelism Linebacker!

Tip of the hat to Matt Hershey with this one. Cracks me up!

Why No Posts? Being Versus Doing Part Tre

It's been a while. To be honest, I've thought a lot about posting in the course of the last three weeks. I've even logged into blogger and written some stuff and then deleted it.

So why no posts?

I have had nothing to give.

September was rough month for me, spiritually speaking. That rough time extended into some of the key relationships in my life and I started doing rather than being. Here's a window into my life: if I miss time with me and Jesus, just for the sake of loving Him and being loved by Him, I lose it spiritually.

One of the weak points about my driven type of nature is that I have an incessant need to work harder in order to fix stuff...even my relationship with Jesus. So when things are rough at home, and people at church are frustrating, and the prayer network has no one coming to pray, and the children's ministry fund is not going well...I know that the key to me staying "on top of things" is to get alone with Jesus and right things spiritually.

And so I do, but only with the intention of getting me "fixed" so that I can get back to doing. And so I do what is right and what I know to do, but there is no heart connection because the relationship is not flowing out of my identity, it's flowing out of my work ethic. I'm using Jesus to fix me -- setting His agenda for Him -- instead of releasing myself completely into Jesus to be born again in Him again (if that sentence didn't make sense, come to Cornerstone Sunday).

So, last week, after much tough love by my wife, I went to spend time with Jesus just to be with Him and receive. And it was life-giving and wonderful. He again established my identity in Him and reminded me that as long as I am His, I have everything I need.

Take the world, give me Jesus.