IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm Back:

It's been 18 months since I have blogged here. Life has been an incredible journey. In the past year The River Church (where I am the Lead Pastor of Vision and Teaching)- our young group has gone through a lot. But during our time we have grown from a community of 20 to 15, from 15-25, from 25-18, and then some time in January we started to slowly, organically grow to over 40. I don't really mean to indicate that the growth is about attendance,-cause it's not. these numbers don't really reflect attendance. But I have been priveleged to see God bringing a group of people together through good times and bad, through great times of communion, to fights about little things. But, what we have at The River is a Genuine Community working together to be An Afflux of Authentic Life.

During these past months, our discussion time during the Sunday Night Gathering Talks has been incredibly fruitful. More and more people have contributed to the conversation. I've never been a fan of SS christians opening the bible, and then saying- 'whadda ya think?' while everyone takes their turn saying what the verse means and calling that "bible study". But when I say conversation- i mean people connecting to Jesus, to the story of those in the texts we examine, to each other, and to a world that we are strangers in. It's beautiful! Whatever the dangers are- the beauty outways them. So we connect, grow, live, stretch, challenge, exhort, encourage, help, heal, listen- and all the while we are slowly becoming a people of one heart and mind- with one language and worldview. It's early, but like watching my little Belles learn to talk- it's exciting.

So-the resurfacing of this blog is about That Conversation continuing. We have created a place for The River community to carry on this conversation, but hope that all/m ost of us will begin our own blogs, and interact through these as well as the Communal blog.

Peace,

sam