On Friday, Jess and I joined Pastor Tim and Beth for a road trip from New Stanton to Lancaster, PA for our district Pastors & Wives Retreat at the Eden Resort.

It was great!

Our speaker for the weekend was Dr. H.B. London of Focus on the Family. He had just recently recovered from a 15-day stay in the ICU and a near-death experience. We were incredibly blessed to have him as our keynote for the weekend.

Jess and I were also blessed to stay in the “Lancaster Suite” at the Eden Resort – a BIG step up from the “normal” rooms, I’m sure. We were upgraded to the suite due to an error in them having our room booked. Seems that we caused them a bit of confusion when we registered AND my parents (who are also on our district) registered. Apparently they can only handle one set of “Sheets”.

I took notes at each of our rallies and look forward to re-working some of what I learned this weekend from Dr. London into blog-posts and maybe even some messages!

On Saturday we had most of the day to ourselves, so we carpooled with my parents and enjoyed some of the sights, smells, and tastes of Lancaster! We ate lunch at Dieners – a classic blast-from-the-past for me. We also enjoyed visiting “The Outhouse” – probably my favorite store in the whole state! Of course we walked through the Bird-in-Hand Farmer’s Market and bought some whoopie pies at the Bird-in-Hand Bakery, too.

Some pics from the weekend:

From 20090320 – Pastors & Wives Retreat

From 20090320 – Pastors & Wives Retreat

From 20090320 – Pastors & Wives Retreat

From 20090320 – Pastors & Wives Retreat

Josh LeRoy was our speaker on Thursday night and Friday morning and brought us some good words of encouragement.

John Wood closed out the event on Friday evening with a challenging take on what the Kingdom of Heaven means for us today and how that should affect our everyday lives.

We had the privilege of having Pastor Dave Bever and the New City Band as our worship leaders for the weekend. They were incredibly unique and each exampled hearts of those who are actively pursuing God with all that they have! I had a few interactions with them outside of rally-time and heard stories about God doing incredible things in their lives.

Of course the reconnecting, resourcing, and relationship-building with other youth leaders from across the Northeast was a highlight of the weekend, too. Numerous conversations, pee-your-pants laughter, and great meals were shared throughout the weekend making it awesome.

It was great to connect with some of my district-guys, too. It’s tough being in relationship with guys in your district when the closest other youth pastor is 2+ hours away! Our trip down to Baltimore and my Saturday touring-of-DC with two of my district buds was worth the effort for sure!

With the conference over on Saturday morning, Dave Finlay and Richard Cox and myself drove the 45-minutes from Baltimore to Washington and spent the morning and afternoon touring some of the sites. We enjoyed ourselves and had planned on worshiping that night at National Community Church where Mark Batterson pastors.

We were able to get seats at their 5PM service (others had to sit on the floor!) and get to enjoy hearing Batterson live in that service! We even had the privilege of meeting Pastor Mark and Ebenezer’s new campus-pastor.

It was tough being away from my wife and daughter for the weekend, but the time was well-spent and I walked away with renewed energy and vision for the ministry God is continuing to empower me to lead!

I posted pictures of the weekend on Facebook:
FUEL, Day 1
FUEL, Day 2
Touring Washington, DC

If this isn’t just some elaborate Photoshop hoax, I’m embarrassed.

A Chinese monk has been recently photographed along with the floor where he prays because for decades he has been standing in the same spot every day as he prays. The photographs are amazing and the story is a two-by-four to the face for us Christians who barely pause long enough to thank God for our food at each meal.