Are we there yet?

It’s crazy. We’ve been on the road for two months, and now we’re less than a month away from the end of this first season. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on and a look forward to the months ahead…

Where we’ve been

As I mentioned last time, we spent about four weeks in Tennessee at four different churches. When we left Suffolk, VA, we bounced from Nashville to Knoxville, from there to Memphis, and then to Chattanooga.

In the middle of our time in Tennessee, we were able to take Spring Break with our team at a retreat center called The Barn at Buladean in the mountains outside Johnson City. It was great for us to be able to kick back for a little bit with the team and get to know them in a more casual, relaxed setting.

We just finished an 8-day Summit outside of Greensboro, NC. Now we’re on our way to Missouri and then Arkansas for our last three conferences of the season.

What we’ve been doing

Life is busy! For the most part, every Thursday we drive to a new church and a new city. Between opening and hooking up the RV, setting up for the conference, meeting with staff, leading services… we sometimes look back on our way out of town and wonder where the week went.

Teaching

Most of our conferences have been 4-day conferences, so my teaching load has not been too heavy. I’ve been responsible for preaching during the combined Sunday school hour. It’s an interesting role for me, preaching a (mostly) identical message each week to a group of (mostly) complete strangers.

At every conference, our team hosts a midweek luncheon where ladies can come and enjoy food, music, conversation, and teaching by women for women. Outside Chattanooga, Amanda was able to speak at a ladies luncheon for the first time at a church in Cleveland, TN.

Teamwork

We’ve both been diving into building relationships with the team. It’s a unique opportunity to have a group of young adults in our lives almost every day for nine months of the year. Even though the end of this travel season is only a month away, we’re eager to leverage the time we have left with the team for discipleship and mentoring.

Some of the ways this has been happening so far are:

• Daily team meetings
• Prayer times before services
• Conversations on our couch or in our lawn chairs

So far we’ve talked about theology, relationships, personal finance, spiritual disciplines, worship, leadership… In the midst of a lot of fun and laughter, we’ve loved the random opportunities to pour into the lives of our team.

Staff Meetings

Something that I’ve really enjoyed is meeting with the staff at each church. Depending on the length of the conference, Shane and I meet 2-3 times with the pastors each week. During this time, we pray together, we get a pastor’s perspective of their congregation, and we dig in to some tough questions about personal growth and team health.

“What is God saying to you this week?”

“How is the health of this room as a team?”

“How are you balancing the demands of ministry and your responsibilities at home?”

I’ve been humbled as I’ve seen pastors get honest about their burdens for their sheep, their struggles to love their families well, and their failures to engage each other as a team. I’ve also been immensely encouraged to hear staff express great excitement about their congregations, appreciation for the freedom to prioritize their wives and families, and loving respect for each of their team members.

What’s happening next

As I mentioned above, we have about a month left in this travel season. I’m writing this from a hotel patio in Kentucky where we’ve stopped on our way to Missouri. After our last conference in Arkansas, we’ll be heading up to Life Action Camp and Headquarters in southwest Michigan. We’re still figuring out details, but for the rest of May and June, we’ll be spending some time resting, going to see family, and doing some tweaking to prepare for our next season of traveling.

We are also helping with Week 3 of Family Camp. We love Family Camp! It was last year at Family Camp that we were first asked about traveling with Life Action. This year, Garrett will be doing some of the teaching with Shane. There are a few spots still open for Week 3, June 10-15. If you’re still making summer vacation plans, we’d love to see you up at Clear Lake!

Finally, team training begins the end of July through Labor Day. We’ll be spending the month of August welcoming returning team members and getting to know new team members as we all prepare for another year of traveling.

What our needs are

It’s hard to believe that we’re already talking about next year! I can’t believe it was less than a year ago that we were praying about whether we should launch out on this crazy journey. We are loving our new life and ministry roles! To those reading who have made our ministry possible through your prayers and financial support, we say “THANK YOU!” Here are a few things to pray about as we enter our home stretch:

• Rhythms – We are still adjusting to road life. Specifically, we need to do better at establishing healthy rhythms in our life – exercise, family time, prayer, date nights, etc… We’re not going off the rails, but we fully acknowledge the pressures that are eager to push our priorities aside.
• Endurance – Pray that we and the team will finish this season well, that we won’t give in to the temptation to “phone it in” or coast to the finish line over the next month. No matter how many times we’ve sung these songs or taught these messages, it’s still the first time for each of these churches.
• Provision – Our monthly support level remains about 75%. We’re praying and strategizing about how to close that gap, but thankfully God has protected us from worry and anxiety. As my partner Shane says, “If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill.” 😆 Please pray that God will connect us with potential partners, enable us to have fruitful conversations with them, and will burden his people to join our team of financial supporters.

That’s all for this time. We’ve enjoyed so much getting to catch up with a few of you on the road as we’ve been at churches near your homes. Please reach out anytime you see us coming to your area! If you look at the top menu, you’ll see I’ve added a new page called Where Are We? where you can see our upcoming itinerary. We’d love to see you, even if it’s just for a visit in the lawn chairs outside the trailer!