Holy Friends

I've been with more than 500 United Methodist pastors for the last two days.  Anticipating 100 pastors in my workshop I ended up with about 250. 

I gave everyone of them a free copy of Tim's great new book (which they loved) and I gave them my best effort.  The bishop was happy after my workshop, not because I finished on time, though that helped, but because the workshop added value.  At least, that's what he said. 

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.  I think we helped a lot of pastors.

During one of the general sessions I heard one comment so good I'm passing it along.  Referencing the value of Christian community, Greg Jones, Dean of Duke Divinity School said, 

      "Holy friends challenge the sins we've come to love."

Amen.  I don't need help with sins I hate; they hold no appeal to me.  It's the stuff I excuse in myself that can derail my life.  I tend towards too much work, too fast a pace and too little rest. Great friends help me with that stuff. 

Comments

[Catherine Koziatek]

Thanks Mark for your workshop. Wish it had been longer. Thanks for giving out the free book. I will read it ASAP as soon as I finish my current one (Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Schnase)
Thanks for approaching the topic of reaching out to youth and young adults with humor despite the seriousness of the topic. Laughing with everybody felt great. But was you said makes me think a lot about our small youth group at Bethel and how to best work with them and reach others too. The building and lack of technologies are definite hindrances/challenges. But despite all this you did make me feel like I could out there and reach out to youth, even though I don't own an ipod, palm pilot, PDA, Blackberry and I have not blogged before. I am really not that old, honest! I am going to ask my youth to teach me about all this. I have a MySpace account!

Grace and Peace

[Don]

Mark, I'm so proud of you. And I am thankful for these days.