Just the Facts Ma'am--CCO Debrief 1

Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for me last week and took the time to drop us a short note! It really was wonderful and tremendously encouraging to me.

I wanted to let you know how things went. However, I'm also a big believer in short(ish) posts so that everyone can keep up. So for the next week or so, I'll publish a couple of posts that have been occasioned by the speaking invitation from the Campus Coalition for Outreach, which are also a little more heart centered. The nuts and bolts update is below; the more reflective ones will come later.

In a nutshell, the retreat/seminar went very well. There were about 190 folks there all together, mostly campus staff, although the staff from the headquarters and some prospective staff were there as well. I taught the first and last of the three, 1-hour sessions, and my colleague Meredith taught the middle 1 hour session. (Meredith is a Virginia gentlemen who often informs me that in the genteel south, names such as his are more common place--though his full name is Basil Meredith Elder III, which explains why his son's name is Josh.) We also had 2 break out sessions which were more or less small group times. The rest of the time was taken up with CCO business meeting type stuff.

Meredith and I presented a simple, WHM-esque, 3 part introduction to the gospel, with specific reference to how that plays out in ministry. For most of the audience, I think that this was their first exposure to thinking deeply about the gospel in the ways we outlined. It's always hard to know how things go at an event like this (another post to follow on that topic), but all of the initial feedback was that the material was very engaging and well received. It was really, really great being with so many "younger people" (oh, how it deeply pains me to say that, but it's true, I was older than most of the campus staff who were there)--there was passion, energy, excitement. And of course, there was pain and brokenness. For a group that I had never met, and who didn't know me from Adam, I felt like we connected pretty quickly.

Meredith and I also spent some time with a few of their senior leadership to see if there may be other ways for WHM and CCO to mutually benefit from an ongoing relationship. There are lots of possibilities there, so we'll see what the Lord may bring about. BTW, having those sorts of conversations is one of the BEST parts about my job--seeing folks who are engaged in kingdom work, from all parts of the globe, and all walks of life all asking, "How might God be cultivating our relationship to help the kingdom go forward?" is just awesome.

So thank you so, so much for your prayers and encouragement. If you have time, check out the other posts that I'll work over the next little bit--those will tell you more about how my heart has been being challenged and encouraged.