Heading out again.....to Orlando, Flarduh, for the first meeting of NAMB's Lay Church Planting Summit. This includes taking in the one day Simple Church Conference with Alex McManus. It's a freebie, too, so t'ain't no thang, and I am kinda interested.

The rest of the week will be story-telling among the practitioning summiteers and digesting some points from the conference no doubt. I'll keep ya posted.

Going down today to Looseyville to my alma tamater to visit our young seminarians- Christi and Eric Osterday- already in their first semester.

I would have never thought, when I was there, that I would be back someday visiting a couple from a church we planted whom we would support in their edumacation.

That's a right bit warming to the heart.

JUST SOME RANDOM SCARY STUFF I CAME ACROSS...

Me at 225 lbs of blubb, with my grandfather the last summer he was alive.....


....me, 4 months later and 45 lbs lighter, all circa 2001. Gadzooks!!!

Andrew Jones quotes Roland Allen, a missionary circa 1930's, whose response to his sponsors requesting big stories from him was:

"I do not trust spectacular things. Give me the seed growing secretly every time."

There you have it.

I'm just a wee bit frazzled. By the end of this month, I will have been gone every weekend and will have flown out of state twice. And that's not to mention a smattering of meetings/conferences in between almost weekly.

I am swelling in preparation of a heaving a great sigh of relief, but I may have to hold my breath for more of what's to come. Just kind of feels that way.

By the way, my one day conference in Atlanta with my good friend John Bailey (and Church Planting Enlistment director for the North American Mission Board) was a good one. He's in the process of writing a book on what it means to be a missional church and, last week, he collected together myself, another house church network planter from Texas, two church planting profs from two of our seminaries and another planter- an Atlantan- who's doing a large group/cell church model (and doing it really well). We sat through some presentations of some information on current trends in population and culture in America and compared that to the sobering fact of our failure to reach the unbelieving populace.

We were all from different backgrounds and contexts but were enveloped by the same passion....to grow into more of what it means to be biblically missional across the board. Each of these guys were profoundly sharp and plugged in. It was refreshing to hear some other stories on different fronts and I gleaned a lot from the discussion.

"...we-don't-chat-in-a-line-out"

"...big-ol'-Jap-in-a-lighthouse"

"...bit-of-cheddar-rind-on"

"...big-ol'-shed-of -lino"

"...railroad-track-outta-'lignment"

"...Big-ol'-Jed-had-a-rhino"

"...Big-ole-jet-had-a-light-on.....don't carry me too far awa-ay....Who-oah"

Whatever Steve Miller sang in Jet Airliner, I'm getting on one later today and heading to Hotlanta to take part in a discussion on missional churches with theNorth American Mission Board of the SBC.

Did I say this is the first time I've flown since April 2000?