gathering

i know a lot of other people will be blogging on the gathering so i do plan to make this brief and give you my favorite parts of of the conference.

it started with a bang. anthony graham started the conference with my favorite message of the conference. he articulated his thoughts on holiness and called all the pastors to a new level in the personal lives. thanks anthony for holding us accountable.

kevin myers the following morning was great. he showed us the meaning of what marriage is all about. and when we focus on Christ how it will shape and mold our marriage in the right direction.

anthony and kevin were the two wesleyan main event speaker and no offense to the other speakers (anne graham lotz, bill hybels and ed stetzer) showed a lot more passion and knew the reason for speaking at the conference in the first place. next time i would like to see all wesleyan speakers.

robin mark was the perfect choice for worship leader. he bridged the gaps of all ages at the conference from some of the youngest to the oldest attending. i was kind of dissapointed that he didnt play more of his original songs. but it showed that he was there to lead worship not plug his name to sell cd's inwhich i never found a booth to buy his cd's anyway. he showed class and you have to love the accent.

tim hawkins was also a highlight for me. one of the funniest men ever. enough said.

during the conference i was able to see people from all kinds of different points in my life. it was great to see my 4th grade teacher (vaughn martin), who has since become a children's pastor. i was able to connect with a good friend (jeremy cummings) from high school and youth group who is also a youth pastor. my senior pastor and youth pastor from high school, who are both still at the same church continuing to pastor my parents and my brother. my college pastor (gale janofski) from brookhaven. friends from college (josh keesling, john and danielle freed, brooks and jill sayer, kevin wright and others.) i also caught up with pastors that i interned with for a summer in deleware. and saw some friends and other pastors from my time in south carolina. (matt and deborah rhodes, heath, buddy rampey and others.)

of course i traveled with the staff that i now work with in pulaski and it was a great time to connect with them and there wives. we were already a pretty close staff before but the times that we grew together during the trip were priceless.

this post really shows me that no matter who is speaking, we will be able to get a lot out of the conference just from who is there. if we have friends to share the experience and to encourage and build each other up people will come to something like this. connecting is huge, especially for pastors. we can have community at our churches, sure. but to come to something like this and be able to reconnect with multiple people who have known you for over 10 years, who have stood up with you in your wedding, it truly is something special.

thanks to all who put this together. next time lets see more wesleyans.