down south again!

The past five days have been a little crazy. I flew in to Charlotte Thursday night and spent the night with my aunt and uncle before driving down to Columbia Friday morning. Friday a friend helped me move my stuff into my new apartment downtown. He was generous enough to share his time and truck all afternoon AND let me raid his storage place for random amenities…a microwave, chair, and a bookshelf. Slowly but surely our little apartment is becoming a home.

My roommate Kristin drove down early Saturday morning and we got to go to lunch and catch up before I took off for Atlanta. I am spending this week in Stone Mountain with our good family friends the Slatons while I take a one week intensive winterim class, “Evangelism and Church Planting.”

For all family reading this, I went to Avondale First Baptist this past Sunday and saw some of grammie’s old friends…Montine, Joanne Henson and Joanne Thompson. It was a little strange to be back there without grammie. Sally and I went to lunch afterward and she took me by the location of my class. Crazy thing?? My class location is off the Covington Hwy. about 1.5 miles from grammie’s old house! The old Target down the road is now a huge church! Go figure!

We had our first class today 8-5 p.m. I love the content of the stuff we are covering. We read 3 books prior to class that were all really interesting, Seven Practices of Effective Ministry by Andy Stanley, Breaking the Missional Code by Stetzer and Putman, and About My Father’s Business by Regi Campbell. If you’re interested in church planting, outreach/evangelism, or how to have a more effective ministry I highly recommend these books. They are all a fast read and I don’t read that fast! The majority of our discussion and study time today was reviewing the “historical” aspect of the New Testament Church by reviewing the gospels and Jesus’ training and preparation time with his disciples leading up to his ascension.

For family that has been asking, I DID take a picture of Gene, Sally and Stephanie but didn’t bring my camera cable so I’ll add a picture later. Stephanie is 22 now, just finished college and is heading to Costa Rica in February to do missions work for 5 months. We’ve had some fun conversations. Oh, and dad, she and I went running Sunday morning around the base of Stone Mountain, a 5 mile loop…BEAUTIFUL! Wish you could have been here for it!