Highlights of the Weekend

Kara, Lucas and I have been in Nashville recently, getting ready for our big move to Nashville to work with the Otter Creek Church. Here are some of the highlights from our recent trip.

1. Time with Otter Creek Church. Between meals with staff and elders, worship on Sunday, we felt a great sense of peace about the family we are joining and the mission of being the church together. I still have important work to do in Rochester over the next six weeks, but I'm eagerly anticipating joining the OC Leadership Team. I will be writing much more about this new adventure in the coming weeks and months.

2. Lowry Family. The Lowry Family hosted us while we were in town. They truly embody the gift of hospitality. My favorite moments were the passionate times of story in the family room while we devoured ice cream. The Lowry's vision for Lipscomb is palatable and exciting. I can't wait to see what the next several years look like at DLU.

3. Christian Scholars Conference. In addition to spending time with Otter Creek and house-hunting (more in a moment), I attended and participated in the Christian Scholars Conference. I'm biased, because Barbara Brown Taylor teaches where I'm doing my doctoral work, but her presentation on "The Power of Story in an Age of Twitter" was incredible. I have a writing class with her next week at Columbia Seminary. Needless to say, sending the pre-course writing assignments was the toughest e-mail I've sent in a long, long time.

I presented on a panel tackling the topic "Theological Education as Spiritual Formation." The discussion was lively and challenging. I'm still processing the implications of what it looks like for professors, in the words of Earl Lavender, to shift towards thinking of themselves as "missional coaches."

4. Tokens. Thursday night allowed us the space to finally be a part of Lee Camp's creative genius known as Tokens. Part Prairie Home Companion . . . part social commentary . . . set to incredible blue grass music . . . I describe Tokens as unassumingly subversive. Lee's interview with noted historian Hubert Locke was one of the highlights for me (Locke is from Detroit).

5. House Hunting. Let's just say we saw 31 houses. The house we got was the 31st house we walked through. Sara Barton was our arbitrator through this process. It was exhausting but worth it.

Soon, I'll write a blog about Jerry Rushford's class at Otter Creek Church on the role of hymns in our modern church experience. Powerful material.