Acts29 Boot Camp in Raleigh

Hey! This Sunday was another awesome Ridge Church gathering... But, I'm still kinda "gathering" it all in my head, so I thought I'd share with you a little about our trip to the Acts29 Boot Camp in Raleigh last week.

After being laid off (for lack of a better word) for two weeks at the HoneyBaked Ham Store while they restructured their workforce, I was fortunate to start working there again last Monday in a new position with more hours per week. That was a blessing for sure... Money is tight for all of us these days. Tuesday, after I helped close the store, Emily, Chloe, Sue (Emily's mom--Bill couldn't go due to work stuff) and I left for Raleigh and the conference.

Of course, the night we needed to drive through the Smokies would be one of the worst nights ever for accidents in the snow through the North Carolina side of the National Park on I-40. We spent over three hours stuck and/or crawling through there. We finally made some progress by following a salt truck at about 1 a.m. while dodging jackknifed and sliding 18-wheelers. You can read about the fun evening if you like.

Then, east of Asheville, the roads were worse than they were in the mountains. There was pretty much nothing on the roads with us except a few tractor trailers... But then again, it was about 2 am by the time we left the snow-covered parts. Of course, once we got down the mountains into the flat places, the roads were perfect!

We finally got to our hotel in Raleigh at 4:30 a.m. and slept for about 2 hours before the conference started. I drank a ton of coffee that day, that's for sure!

The conference was awesome... We did Track One and had a great time. As Emily and I have already attended a previous boot camp in 2008 and been approved as church planters, it was an enjoyable (and less anxious!) time. We saw some familiar church planters, met many new ones, and heard some great speakers.

We learned a great deal, were challenged in our spiritual lives and church planting ideas, and met a ton of new young couples who are being assessed as potential church planters. There were 25 total couples being assessed on Friday. God is certainly using Acts29 and raising up those who He is calling to expand the Kingdom of God!

Anyhow, it was a great couple days. We're glad that we were able to go, regardless of the difficulties in getting there. To think we almost spent the night in Asheville and went back home because of the scary weather... Sometimes the hardship on the journey is difficult, but worth the reward to be found at the destination. I believe church planting is just like that!

On a totally unrelated note, we've posted our 2008 Ridge Church Financial Report on the website for you to have access to... The link in the "Simple and Secure Online Giving" area at the right side of our homepage.

We want to be totally transparent at The Ridge about where our funds go and what they are used for. It's God's money, so there's nothing to hide! You can expect future financial reports to occur each quarter. If you ever have questions about our funds, please ask!

More later this week on the Gathering from Sunday!