I debated whether to leave this picture out of my report about my preaching conference at Ghost Ranch. That way, I imagined you would picture me laboring away in a classroom all day. We did do a bunch of that, really! I had forgotten how nerve-racking it was back in seminary days to preach before your peers who usually got their chain-saws running as soon as you got your mouth running.Our instructors were Jana Childers, Dean of San Francisco Seminary who is also a gifted preacher and stage actress; and Bill Carter, who is a pastor in Pennsylvania and the founding member of the Presbybob Jazz Quartet. Our focus was weaving music and culture into Biblical preaching. Particularly enjoyable were the parallels drawn between jazz music and preaching, as well as the discussions of creativity in preaching. We did preach for each other and it was wonderful to see how many different styles and personalities God can use to convey The Word.
Okay, now that I’ve proven I actually learned something – back to the picture. The best part of the conference was the collegiality: Meals together, hiking to the top of the Mesa, popping a cold . . . um . . . milk. It was a blessing to share struggles and joys, ideas and experience, laughter and pain with others who are on the same journey.
It got me thinking about the church – how so little of what is significant in what we do together happens in an hour on Sunday morning. So much more important is our hiking together: The meals, the watching each others’ children, the pouring of concrete at Rocky Point, the games of Mexican Train, the casserole brought after surgery, and the sharing of a conversation over cold milk.
If you truly want a mountain top experience, find some brothers and sisters in Christ and start hiking!
