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As many of you know I've been away for the last two days in NYC. The sponsoring church of the conference (The Journey Church) is in Manhattan, but the conference was held in Queens. The conference was designed to help church planters who are about to start their church. It was the retreat I wish I had attended prior to our launch. I think that they have some really good perspectives on church launches and we would have benefited from it.

As it stood, I was sharpened by this event and would recommend it to future church planters. Matt and I agreed last night on the trip home that the best part of the trip was being with the other church planters who attended from our group. Paul Drost is a pastor in Bel Air and a great supporter of SRC. Patrick Grach is a pastor of The LifeHouse in Hagerstown, MD. He has only one speed, Faster. Justin is about to launch in Hagerstown, LifeHouse West. Andy Casper is going to launch in Easter '08 and is one of my heroes. Ray Cowell (no relation to Simon) is a church planter of several years down in the Round Hill area. Randy came with Patrick and roomed with me. He's a great guy who is serving as an administrator for Patrick. Andy was a friend of Paul's. He is a recent graduate from VFCC and looking for a position in youth ministry.

It was a great time, and I'm glad that I got to attend.

Some thoughts:
1. I thought a lot this week about my Team. Our leadership team is the great strength of our church going forward. I'm so thankful for them. Doug, Christine, Janet, Matt, Drew, Jessica and more to come...I love you guys.
2. I wished that I could take our Team to some conferences like this. I think that it gets the creative juices flowing. It helps you think in new ways about new things. It was a bit frustrating that all kinds of ideas were birthed in me, and will translate to them. I wish they could have just been there. We'll be planning to get to something together soon.
3. I heard a lot of positive things about our church this week. I think that sometimes when you're in the middle of it you can lose a grasp on how significant what you're doing is. We look at 40 people and think, "We need to grow." I shared our story with others who think that averaging 23 people in November and around 40 in January is tremendous growth. So I wanted to mention to everybody at SRC that you are inspiring other churches. Keep it up! The difference we make is not only measured on the Broadneck Peninsula but is helping change the world.
4. I was so glad to have Matt with me.

Finally, I'd like to say thank you to the man who paid for our lodging, transportation, and food costs for the free conference.

--Ben