I got back a few days ago from an amazing trip to the Holy Land. I was blessed to join up with 20 other Pastors and church leaders from across the country for an enjoyable and truly life changing 14 day journey. Thanks to the CF Foundation out of Atlanta, GA and to Emmanuel School of Religion in east Tennessee we were able to walk and and experience the lands of the bible. One of the more amazing things about this trip however was that it was less about tourism and picture taking and more about reflection, rest and renewal as Pastors. For me, it was all about having my spiritual well filled up. I had to admit to myself that I was pretty worn out when it came to my ministry and to be honest I had been running on fumes for quite some time. This pilgrimage to the lands of Jesus, was just the ticket to fill me up.

We visited a lot of really cool places, but more than just seeing them we were able to experience them and experience Christ while being in them. At nearly every site, the leaders gave us 15-45 minutes to sit and reflect and journal and pray and worship. It was a very rich time. Several of the other travelers were church planting friends of mine and I was blessed to make many additional friendships. We laughed a lot as we experienced a lot. For a funny take on some of our antics take a moment to visit www.vinceantonucci.com. Vince is a total nut and kept most of us laughing way more than we could handle.

I can’t stop talking about it, and am planning on sharing some of my experiences and learnings this weekend at Westbrook. Right now, I have a few quiet moments at Westbrook in the midst of our first Leadership Community of 2008. We have pulled together all of our ministry leaders together for one day on vision casting, ministry training and leadership development. What a rush to see several hundred ministry leaders connecting with each other and growing in their service.

Gotta run… glad I’m home but I could have stayed for another week for sure.