Partners in the Gospel

The month of September has been full of activities and travel for me. A few days after my “book event” at St. John in Wheaton, I flew to Arkansas for a weekend full of activities at Salem Lutheran Church in Springdale with these two fabulous, faithful, and fun pastors, Adam Gless and Brandon Martin. Kent Burreson and I had prepared a report on our visit in February, when we interviewed both Hispanic and Anglo members of this bilingual congregation. Although we presented to different groups three times over the weekend, we failed to ask anyone to take a photo of us as we presented. We do, however, have photos from each of the 4 breweries we visited! Yes, we had lots of fun and laughter (and there were many minutes of each visit when the guys had their eyes fixed on the beer rating app on their phones), but we also had serious and deep theological conversations over beer and wine (for me).

Pastors Gless and Martin invited us back to make our report (Titled “Pray with Ceasing, Live with an Eschatological Vision”) during the weekend of the “Festival of Nations,” a great event hosted by Salem with food from various cultures, a Gospel-centered message that precedes the meal, a great DJ, and some Latin dances. Our report praised the congregation for their sincere efforts to built bridges between the Hispanic and Anglo members of the congregation and the pastors for their leadership in this process. We also made a few recommendations to encourage their growth and maturity as a bilingual congregation. In short, as Kent and I joked (sort of), we can now add “church consultants” to our CVs.

Here are some photos and a video that show some the joys of the weekend:

I’ve never witnessed a more joyful time of clean-up than after the Festival of Nations. It helped that the DJ was still working!

And yes, Kent and I both signed our books for Pastors Gless and Martin.