It’s all over (although my jet-lag isn’t quite yet)! We left the States on the 21st of October at around noon and arrived in Cape Town on the 23rd, around noon (local time). We’ve spent the weekend trying to get our internal clocks back on track.

The final week of the intensive went off well. We were all a little jaded and starting to think about getting home. It was quite sad to say goodbye to the other planters and their wives not knowing when we’ll ever see each other again. We had a send-off lunch with the RCPC staff and then each one went their separate way.

Our way took us to one more stop before the long trip home: St Louis, Missouri. I was in St Louis in February 08 visiting friends and the Journey Church which is one of the more influential churches in the Acts29 Network. On my previous visit I was really impressed with the Journey and the setup they had in St Louis so I really wanted Robin to see it and experience their community a little. So we spent 5 days catching up with friends and attending functions at the Journey. I had the chance to meet Darrin Patrick, the lead pastor, and spend some time getting to know him and talk about church planting both in the States and in South Africa. It was a worthwhile time of building relationships and getting further learning on the subject. We also had the chance to attend the Midwest regional Acts29 quarterly. By this time of our trip I was completely conferenced out and so I was expecting to doze off during most of the quarterly but they had Jeff Vanderstelt out from Soma Communities and he did 2 brilliant sessions that kept me wide awake.

So here’s my thoughts on the whole trip: God seems to be doing something huge through both the ministries of Redeemer Presbyterian and the Acts 29 Network – when you’re around these guys you really get the sense that something big is afoot in the world of church planting. And so in many ways Robin and I are completely humbled by the fact that we get to play a small part in this global movement. We were truly blessed by our time and I can confidently say that we were both affected and changed deeply by it. We come back to Cape Town with new eyes on a number of important issues. We’re also really grateful for the many friends we made along the way and are looking forward to building those relationships in the future.

I’d like to thank everyone, both at home and in the States, who helped make this trip possible. We are enormously thankful to God for all of you.

The service was great it had a really simple, informal and authentic feel to it. As can be expected it was a fairly young congregation. They made really good use of multimedia so that it wasn’t overpowering but it was really well done. The music was simple – one guy playing a guitar and singing, another guy singing and a third guy playing a bongo drum of sorts. Darrin Patrick preached for about 40 minutes on the life of Jacob in Genesis in a really low-key, relaxed but engaging and entertaining manner. It was really refreshing. Today I’m going to two/three more Journey services.

Its easy to see why so many younger people appreciate what the Journey is doing here because the place is completely full of massive churches – baptist, lutheran, mormon, assemblies of God – they’re just everywhere and I can imagine they create something of a very ‘churchy’ culture. But along comes the Journey with its real authentic and relaxed feel to refresh to local church scene.

Other than that I had pizza at one of those Elvis type diners last night – real American!

So here ends part I – stayed tuned for some intermittent blogging…

(HT – Justin Taylor)

I’m looking forward to also attending two churches in the States that we, here in South Africa, don’t really have anything similar to. I’m spending one Sunday in St. Louis at the Journey Church pastored by Darrin Patrick and then spending the following Sunday at Mars Hill Church in Seattle pastored by Mark Driscoll.

What I’d like from the peeps out there is to make contact with as many people I can who read this blog and will also be attending the Resurgence Conference. I’d love to catch up with you guys – especially those of you who write blogs. I thought that rather than emailing each of you individually I’d just stick this notice up as a post instead. Please let me know if you’ll be there so I can look out for you.

See some of you soon…

(HT – Steve McCoy)