Group Conference #1

After a crazy travel day (cancelled flights, re-booked then cancelled, then re-booked etc.) I finally arrived at about 1:30 a.m.

Today has been a great day.

I spent the morning with a group of about 40 large-church youth pastors from the Christian Missionary Alliance. A big part of their discussion was an interesting challenge to stay true to biblical text while being theologically creative at the same time. I really enjoyed my time with them.

Had lunch with two marketing guys from Standard Publishing to discuss plans to update, revise and re-cover Controlled Chaos which I'm really excited about.

Spent the afternoon with Scott Rubin (the jh pastor at Willow Creek) and about 100 junior high youth workers in a super casual "heart to heart" discussion about various issues.

The highlight of the day was the first general session featuring Tony Dungy. He was amazingly humble, insightful and seemed genuinely excited to be with us. At one point in his message he mentioned that he typically takes only 2-3 days off from July through January due to the demands of being an NFL head coach. To be honest, my heart broke for him thinking about the toll that must take on personal life.

Tomorrow we start our two-day middle school ministry track....should be fun.