This March, Jeff and I will taking a trip to Egypt with David Putman and some other pastors and businesses leaders. We are very excited about this opportunity.

David Putman is the co-author of Breaking the Missional Code and he is the author of the forthcoming book Breaking The Discipleship Code, he is also a pastor at Mountain Lake Church near Atlanta. I wonder if David is busy?

Anyhow, I wanted to share with everyone why we choose to go on this trip. Truthfully we can’t afford it and I was not quite ready to travel knowing I will be back in Africa this summer. But it’s so worth the sacrifice and the pros outweigh the con’s.

1. Jeff and I decided that we need to be around other leaders who will help us grow as pastors, leaders, husbands and fathers. It’s very easy to get caught in a bubble and we would be harming our community by not being mentored by those who are simply better and more experienced. So this is a great opportunity to be around other pastors who can stretch and challenge us. In Feb we will be hanging out with Bob Roberts Jr and other pastors at turbo training church planting conference in Dallas.

2. Values: At Vista we truly desire to be a glocal church. We want to be around other churches and pastors who value the same thing, so we can learn how to be effective and reach the city and the globe.

3. We value partnership with our brothers and sisters across the world. I think the church leaders in the Global South/East have so much to teach us in the West. We have to spend time with them. We also want to help them in anyway possible. Not from a dictatorship perspective, but we recognize that we (the West) have resources that many in the Global South and East do no have. It’s our responsibility to help because we are apart of the same church.

4. The majority of those who have never heard the gospel live in the 10/40 Window. It’s vital for the church to respond to this issue. So the question is this. How do we partner with indigenous Christian leaders and support what God has called them to do? I hope to work long-term in Sudan with Servlife. Egypt and Sudan border each other, so I know I will be going back to Egypt long-term. This was vital for me and helped make this decision easier.

Part 2 coming tomorrow.

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