I'm back!

My sabbatical is finished, and Laurie and I are glad to be back in Dinuba at New Life Community! We've come home rested, energized, and full of experiences, insights, and joy. God is at work all around the world, and absolutely at work right here.

On July 1st we left LA for Istanbul, Turkey, where we met up with a Christian college group for ten days of touring western Turkey and the Greek island of Patmos. The whole point was to see where the churches had been when the Book of Revelation was written by John while he was exiled on Patmos. They're still digging up parts of those towns and finding churches from that time period. They've already found 25 churches in Laodicea, which was told in Revelation that they were lukewarm. They must have read that and gotten busy sharing the Gospel!

From Turkey we flew on July 10th to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in Africa. My cousin and her husband have been missionaries there with African Inland Mission for 35 years. We stayed with them in their home and joined their missionary team and local pastors for times of prayer, study, planning, singing, eating, home visits, a tour, an afternoon on the Indian Ocean just a few minutes from their village, and finally a safari and river cruise before flying home.
What impressed me most was the "Umoja wa Kanisa" (Unity of Churches) that have come together to research and lead outreaches in the villages of the Kilwa district in Tanzania. Through their cross-denominational work they have planted churches in 21 of those 70 villages in the last 5 years alone!

The last 5 weeks of the sabbatical were spent in the US. Laurie went back to work in Visalia thje first week of August, while I worked to complete a Certificate in Church Revitalization through Church Answers. I read lots of books, participated in a regular forum for pastors, talked with several pastor-coaches from across the US, and traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas, to visit Mosaic Church, its staff, and its non-profit Vine and Village. There's so much to learn from others!
I also realized just how special we are at NLC. Lots of churches reach out to their communities, but it is the rare church that is willing to be transformed through such ministry. We are indeed a diverse family of faith and that is all for God's glory, the One who is already uniting us with all things in Christ Jesus. I've truly missed you and the experience--challenging as it is sometimes--of being a new life community.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to travel, rest, learn, and grow as your pastor but also as your brother in Christ. We're glad to be back and ready to walk together with you through all God has for us as church in Dinuba.
See you Sunday!

Pastor Mark