My Brain Is Fried!!!!

That is probably the best way to describe my mental state after the past two days. Let me see if I can even begin to catch you up.

I spent all of yester day and today at the National New Church Conference in Joppa, Maryland. WOW!! It wasn't a big convention, but it was powerful none the less. The two main speakers were phenomenal and my brain is still hurting from all of the difficult thoughts they put in there. Yesterday Brian McLaren, one of the leading figures in post-modern Christianity, was the featured speaker. Let me just say that I understand post-modernism, if that is what it will eventually be called, a whole lot better now. He gave so much information and good insight into the post-modern mindset.

Today's featured speaker was Reggie McNeal. He followed up on McLaren's information with whole ton of practical information for new churches. Absolutely amazing though!! Some frustrations though. I am not really working with a "new" church. We are working with a bunch of "modern" Christians. It will be extremely difficult helping them see the need for a post-modern approach to ministry. Oh well!! It should be fun in the same breath.

There you see part one as to why my brain is in such a tattered state tonight. Part two is that Susan and I made an official offer on a house in Middletown last night. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, with a full/partially finished basement on a double lot. A very nice house like this would probably go for about $90-100K in Warsaw on the high end. We offered about $161K and feel like we are possibly getting a steal. It's in a good neighborhood, close to church members, and, more importantly, in the target community for the church. I still can't believe that we offered that much for this house. Susan determined last night that we will be eating rice for quite some time after buying the house.

One good thing though. We could turn right around and sell the house in a month for close to $200K and get a buyer real quick. That is the way the real estate market is in Middletown now. Please keep all this in your prayers. I know that it will be a big source of stress for us over the next couple of months and years most likely.

Excited about sharing all the tapes I got from the conference. Pray for open minds from the leaders of the church here. Pray that they might see the need to change attitudes and mindsets about the church in general.

We love you all and pray for you too.

Later.