I spent the weekend in Dallas with my friends John & Hayley at a conversation with people trying to serve God in urban settings all over the country. John is a cool high school guy and I think his eyes were opened to God's work through people. Hayley is an incredibly intelligent college student with a heart for urban ministry. I was pumped to see her engaged & encouraged by the weekend. She has the mind & heart to do some amazing things in her life.

We stayed with my friends Karry & Uma. They are our good friends from India. They moved away from Tulsa several years ago, so it was great to get to catch-up with them & their beautiful daughter, Anju.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that I was encouraged. The people there love Jesus. They were really different. Some live with those in poverty, others with the most affluent in the city. Some are brand new in all of this, some have been in it for 40 years. Some are seeing great fruit in their ministry. Some are feeling frustration. But they are all in it, giving it their best shot. That's what I will most remember.

The conversation ranged from theological, to philosophical, to cultural, to practical, and back to theological again. It was typically encouraging, but there was a terse moment or two - which I'd expect. We came from really different backgrounds and have lots of different ideas.

The only two negatives that I had were minimal: I wish we could have had one person or just agreed as a team to keep the conversation on track. Admittedly, this is a difficult task with people who are strangers to each other. The other thing that concerned me a bit was that I could tell that a couple of guys were bitter with suburban churches. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I think I see where they are coming from - especially when they've felt abandoned or snubbed by others. But that doesn't make it healthy. I hope they can move past whatever hurt they've felt and applaud their brothers & sisters in different settings - while at the same time maintaining their passion for the city.

I'm curious to see where all of this leads us. I think everyone is committed to moving forward in some way with all of this.

Here are a few quotes that I wrote down from the week:

11 years ago we decided it would be cool if could learn to love our neighbors.
Mike, Indianapolis

Everything we do is relationship-based.
-JP, Cincinnati

"What are you doing to connect to the arts community." That question changed our world.
-Mark, Denver

Lots of places don't teach Jesus downtown.
-Steve, Cincinnati

You have to work as though you won't be there tomorrow. Can't create dependencies on you. If you do, you are screwing it all up.
Richard, Portland

What we did in the 50's (moving away from the problems of our changing neighborhood) was sin! We won't do it again.
-Steve, Chicago

We'd love to have a home church in every downtown condo building.
-Steve & Matthew, San Diego

People wanna wait and see if the church is going to helicopter in & then helicopter out.
-Ron, Chicago

In america by 2050 there will be no majority in America.
-Wayne

I remind my people that their citizenship is in heaven.
-Smiley, Denver

Other quotes:
We need to redefine grace as being not only God's sp. forgiveness but God's redemption in our lives.

When we seek diversity do we focus on the differences too much and not enough on the similarities.

I'm not sure that looking at Western models is where we need to be looking.

Esther and Nehemiah worked to not only help people immediately, but to change the systems.