ARTRIP WORLD TOUR MIND DUMP

• We are not actually on tour, but it feels like it. In the last week we dropped our kids off in Mansfield (met the rents halfway), went to the Exponential church planting conference in Orlando, Florida, went to a fundraising thing in Cleveland, Ohio, DJed a wedding in Cincinnati, and tomorrow I will preach in Rittman Ohio at my home church.
• Exponential was great. I have never been to a conference that just seemed to scratch the itch of where I was in that season of life. I have been to leadership conferences, creativity conferences, and student ministry conferences, but this one was just great.
• It had great sessions, great breakouts, great networking and pretty much everything I want when I get away.
• Our whole team (Encounter Church and Movement Church people) got to stay at my friends place, so that was a huge blessing to save money, and also have access to some common living space, and a pool and hot tub.
• Right now Movement Church feels like a parked car at times, because we are building toward something but not in day to day mode, but regardless it was great to get away with our team and just be inspired, encouraged, and share a common experience and have tons of offline conversations.
• I always like to take Kristin to conferences if I can because it almost seems counterproductive to not have her there, but taking the whole team was huge.  Thanks to Grace Church, Encounter Church, and Vision Ohio for providing that.
• The main sessions were great for many reasons but one I didn’t expect was that they would feature some guys as emcees and steering team that I have respected from a distance for a long time. I knew Dave Ferguson would be involved, but I didn’t know Shawn Lovejoy and Brian Bloye would be there.
• I can’t say I know all those guys well, but I respect the heck out of the way they have modeled reproduction in their churches and netoworks.
• Another thing I didn’t expect were the great creative elements from the sessions. I got some great stuff to steal for Momentum this summer, so if you are there and impressed, lets pretend I thought of some of it on my own.
• Breakout session wise, I followed the launching with momentum one. There were like 5 in every timeslot that I wanted to go to, but I thought this would give me some continuity. It was great and I have tons of pages of notes that I need to re-visit and digest.
• That seemed to be a theme that everyone on our team was super blessed in their sessions and wanting to share the stuff they heard. Sarah especially went to one that I hope will shape what we do discipleship wise in the future.
• Get to teach at Rittman GBC tomorrow. I haven’t done that since I was a nervous senior in high school sharing on youth Sunday.  I haven’t been there on a Sunday since we got married, so it will be great to be home.
• The Artrip family band is even making a cameo in a brief reunion spot…we will see how that goes.
• This is a weird season to be in as I already mentioned the parked car syndrome. I am not having trouble staying engaged in student ministry because there is enough to keep me busy, my bigger problem is not knowing when and where to fit Movement stuff.
• Parked cars have to be prepped and gassed up when they know they are getting ready to take off so I am trying to to be wise and do the things I need to do as we prepare for takeoff.

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