Adios, Madison

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Midwest

Many of you know I have a strong Gulf Coast/West Coast bias. Blame my Uncle Tim; I can’t stand Ohio State football and until our vacay end of May I never would have considered going to the Atlantic.

Some people marry into the mob, others into the Midwest. Jessie is from Illinois. Those farms are amazing. Past 10 years, I have been across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois quite a bit, and you can’t miss God’s blessing when you think of the farmland between Pennsylvania and Colorado, from Texas into Canada.

Never been to Wisconsin before. What a beautiful place. Wish I had had more time to explore a bit.

It has been a great trip. I am so proud of the youth who came on this trip. They dove into deep learning. They got trained. They went out and did it. They are not the future of the church, they are the now. The Bible study here was top-tier. Deep. Not a short time of study. At least an hour every morning. High-level. I was taking notes.

I think everyone got what God had for them. Some quiet ones got some holy boldness. Some outgoing ones gained some skill and insight into how to listen for the way in to share faith in Jesus. Some just needed to find out how to hear from God.

I have been telling them how proud I am, how stoked I am to have them in my church, to go back with them and keep doing what they have learned and practiced. You mean to tell me I have some people who have drunk deeply from the Word of God and were constantly challenged to apply what they read, and are willing to tell others about Jesus? I hope they will teach the church what they have learned. And I hope we will listen, not indulgently, but the way they did— receiving the Word not as the word of men, but as it really is, the Word of God. And then… I hope we will become IMITATORS! Thessalonians to the core.