Thursday night I was in Kansas City speaking at a church for my new friend Casey Kapple. Casey is the youth minister at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Overland Park, KS. Before his current position at Emmanuel, Casey was on staff at Youthfront for almost 4 years. It was great to get some input and feedback on some of Youthfront’s initiatives from someone who knows the organization well and is also a local youth worker.

I spoke to some of the parents of the teens in Casey’s ministry. I was encouraged by the parents’ strong commitment to helping their teens develop an authentic faith. I did some of the training from our Shepherding in a Culture of Change learning module. It was great fun and I was blessed to be a small part of Casey’s ministry, if even only for a night of training.

From Kansas City I flew to Ocean City, Md. What a beautiful place! I have never been to Ocean City but have had many friends who vacation there in the summer. The view (as seen below - not my pic) from my room was stunning - especially in the morning as the sun came up. Very cool…

I was speaking at a YFC event called Impact. There were about 4000ppl there from all over the east coast. I facilitated the youth worker training and had a few consulting appointments as well.

It was great to see Dave Rahn, as it always is. Dave was leading a seminar for students who want to explore God as well as reperesenting the national YFC office.

It was a pleasure to finally get the chance to meet Ruth Barton who I have wanted to meet for a long time. Ruth is the author of a couple of books (one called Sacred Rhythms in which my wife and her close friend Michelle are using these days as a “guide” of sorts for conversation, etc.). Ruth used to be at Willow a few years ago but now she is a spiritual director and retreat leader through the ministry she founded based in the Chicago area called, The Transforming Center.

I am thrilled to spend some time tonight with my good friend Dave Michener. Dave was the first one to hire me for a youth ministry job and continues to be a great friend and mentor to me and my family (Dave performed the wedding ceremony for Gina and me!).

Dave is the executive pastor at Bridgeway Community Church, a multi-cultural church outside of Baltimore in Columbia, MD. I always love talking with Dave about stuff going on at Bridgeway. Bridgeway is an innovative church that is in many ways leading the way forward for churches desiring to be intentionally multi-cultural.

Leave Baltimore early tomorrow morning and head home — can’t wait to see my family!

I have been doing consulting with churches and organizations on and off for a couple of years now. I have come to love consulting as much as anything else I do these days. In some ways, I think that consulting with churches and organizations might be my greatest contribution to the Kingdom. It isn’t easy work, but it is truly motivating and stretching.

I had my own firm for a while called, The Trek Project but when I began to re-culture Sonlife a few years ago, I set it aside in order to integrate much of what I was doing into the streams of influence at Sonlife.

I am thrilled to be on a new team of consultants that Youth Specialties has gathered. Honestly, I am honored and humbled to be on a team with such great people. You can see the team here: http://www.ysconsults.com/consultants/

You can check out the YS Consults website and get more information here: http://www.ysconsults.com/