I’d appreciate your prayers as Kendal and I head to Louisville this week. We’re excited about kickin’ it with our good friends at Sojourn Church, who are hosting the last Acts 29 bootcamp of this year. I’ll be speaking on Wednesday morning on “Discipleship and Ambition,” and Kendal will be gleaning worship and liturgy insights from the likes of Sandra McCracken, Kevin Twit (Indelible Grace), Tim Smith (Mars Hill), and Mike Cosper and Neil Robins (Sojourn Music). You can check here and here for more detailed schedule info.

Acts 29 Boot Camps are church planting conferences open to the public that focus on the vision of church planting, the calling of the planter, the mandate to multiply churches, and the theological foundation for gospel-centered church planting. This one is packed out with over 400 registrants, including 30 would-be church planters who are seeking evaluation of their calling and gifting through Acts 29′s rigorous church planter assessment.

Your prayers are appreciated as this opportunity comes at a particularly taxing time for me. Pastors always carry the burdens of their flock as they do the work of counseling and spiritual leadership. But this past month has stretched Walker and I to the breaking point with difficult situation after difficult situation. Confidentiality requires vagueness, but the pain and emotional cost of some of the burdens we’re carrying is great. Pray that in spite of my spiritual weariness, God will allow me the grace of being helpful to some young church planters for the sake of His kingdom and glory.

While in Louisville, we’ll have the privilege of meeting up with former Coram Deo elder JD Senkbile. We’re gathering with some other pastors to strategize together for church planting in southern Africa. Coram Deo sent JD and Michele to South Africa a year ago to serve as church planting liaisons for Acts 29. Since then, God has made it clear to them that the best way to fulfill that vision is to actually plant a church in the city-center of Cape Town. You can read more at the new Vox Church website. And, since JD is cooler than me, you can also follow him on Twitter, which might be a great way to stay up to date and connected with what God is doing in Cape Town.

Of course, the hard work of the week (strategizing, teaching, assessing, and the rigorous preparation for all of these) will be mitigated by fine food, good beer, and the smell of a good pipe, as Acts 29 brothers tend to enjoy feasting together as a celebration of our unity in Christ and a foretaste of the coming kingdom of God.

Thanks for standing behind us in prayer and for owning the vision of church planting. It’s a privilege to represent you and to share the evidences of God’s grace among us these past four years. To God be the glory!