Two weeks ago, Katie and I were at the Acts 29 Global Gathering in Orlando, along with Josh & Kimberly Anderson and Kyle & Coleen Gennicks.
We came home much more excited to be involved in this church-planting network.
Here are a few of the things I found energizing:
1) We saw more clearly than ever that Acts 29 truly is a diverse and global church-planting missions network. We loved the experience of feeling partnership with church-planting churches in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe.
3) The tone of everything that happened was very healthy. In the past, Acts 29 was known as something like a fraternity of edgy American church planters with machismo personalities. Leaders have publicly repented of the immaturity that represented. This event demonstrated love for Jesus above all else, down-to-earth humility, respect for women, and an appreciation of diversity and cultural differences. And the loudest applause of the event came when they introduced 20 church planting interns who are planning to plant in “hard places” — a beautiful picture of God’s heart.
4) The messages were really good. You can find the main messages (along with some “small talks” and a “highlights” video) at the Acts 29 Website. They were addressed primarily to church-planting pastors, but others would surely benefit as well. If you want to choose just one message to listen to, I might recommend the message from Ajay Thomas called “Training Well.” Or if you just want to hear something slightly different, check out the memorable message from Sergio Queiroz, a Brazilian pastor in the Network with an unbelievable resume that includes high-level political work and appointments with the United Nations to talk about issues of human rights.
