meditatio at the water's edge

Well, I think I'm finally over the jet lag from the trip to Boise and Eagle. First, a couple of pictures, then some thoughts. There's no hope to write it all out, but I'll try to include a few of what were highlights for me.

Here's me halfway up the Bogus Basin road. I think this was just under 4000 feet altitude. Incredible.


Here's John at the end of the Bogus Basin road. Above 5500 feet. Mile high, bro.


Here's Mark Priddy sharing some introductory remarks. Mark, Gary, and the rest put together a truly excellent format for this forum.


Here's the folks who led our singing on Friday morning. It was a bald-friendly gathering.

Highlights
1. Alan Roxburgh. Attention, all emergent folks. Alan has something to say to us. It involves the phrase, "Get over it." If you would like to know what he means by that, give him an email. I think we really need the kind of wise and loving challenge that Alan offered at the forum.

2. George Hunsberger. I think George was hitting people in places they didn't know existed. He presented some very important and extremely well thought out ideas about missional churches and evangelism, and when he was finished the room let out a collective "Whoa," ala Neo in the Matrix. Seriously, George was like, "Any questions?" and you heard crickets. I was hoping people would respond, but I really think many of us were just blown away. I honestly think George was taking some people into uncharted territory. It was good, really good. I was really overwhelmed as I thought through some of the possibilities and implications of the things he was saying.

3. Rembrandt's & The Landing Place. So Mark Priddy starts out our tour of the coffee shop and community center that they're putting together there in Eagle, and he's telling all of these stories in classic Priddy ADHD randomness (God love him!), and it is just beautiful. To see how God is bringing things together for these people and how they're really living out a life of discerning the Spirit's direction, it is absolutely beautiful. Seriously, spend the 300 minutes on your cell phone and call Mark. Or better yet, take a trip over to Eagle and see for yourself. Mark says that it isn't a model. I think what is modeled here is a group of people listening to where God is sending them and responding in trust the whole way.

4. Gary Waller, Ryan, & whoever else was involved in the planning. I thought the structure of the singing, the liturgy, and the presentation/dialogue format was well done. The guys at my table, Wes, Mike, Steve, Tod, and Mark (when he was around) really found the table discussions to be some of the best parts of the conference.

5. Jon Myers, travel companion. It was good to travel with Jon. I got a little possessive with the car keys, but Jon didn't complain about my driving at all. We were driving up in the Bogus Basin, trying to get to the top of the mountain. We got about 3/4 of the way there and I was ready to turn around (it was about 20 miles of hair-pin turns uphill all the way--and me afraid of steep heights, definitely testing my fear factor), but Jon said, No, let's keep going. We did, and I'm glad. Driving down the mountain was fantastic. Poor Jon had to stay in the passenger seat the whole time.