A Spiritual Travelogue (Intro)

Question for you: What do 37 people in line for an approximately 2.5 square foot bathroom, watching movie after movie until your eyes start twitching uncontrollably, a strange interpretation of breakfast, and a high concentration of talkative Australians have in common? Actually, now that I think about it, the answer could legitimately be “any youth hostel in Western Europe”, but the answer I was looking for was “LA to Brisbane, via Qantas Airlines.” I would also accept “the longest 13.5 hours of your life.” Actually, since I really like flying, it wasn’t too bad, but I suspect that assessment wasn’t shared by any non-Aussie on that flight. Aussies, of course, have an innate ability to enjoy themselves no matter what the situation. This may be due to Australia having the highest concentration of lethal animals, insects, and reptiles on the planet - When you could croak at any moment, you might as well appreciate the present...Of course, it could also be that God just decided to put a whole bunch of friendly, good-humored people all together in one country, just to prove to France that it’s possible.
 
In mid-April, I took off with a team of three other people for the Solomon Islands, which explains the trip Down Under. You can’t get to the Solomons quickly or easily...If you live in Charlotte, NC, like I do, it’s like trying to head east on I-485 through the Pineville area at about 5pm, but not quite as frustrating. I flew from Charlotte to Cincinnati, then Cincy to LA, then LA to Brisbane, then Brisbane to Honiara in the Solomons, deep in the South Pacific ocean. Almost 30 hours of just flight time, but with layovers (and crossing the date line), three days of travel, airports, and the inexpressible joy of customs officers...In other words, you’ve really got to want to go there. And I did...
 
I was invited by my brother-in-law, Mike Anthony (the founder of an organization called Godfactor) to partner with him and a few others to head down there for a few weeks and invest some time in teaching and partnering with the South Seas Evangelical Church. I’d been there before, in 2004, and fell in love with the Islands and the people, so I was pretty excited to go back. I felt like God had a bunch of great things in store for this trip - For the Islanders, the churches in their villages, for our team, and for me and the church I’m blessed to pastor in Charlotte (Element). And it turns out that what I was anticipating didn’t even really scratch the surface of what actually happened. It’s rare in life, I think, that the reality of a given situation meets or exceeds the  level of anticipation we take with us, but in this case, that was certainly true. And I’m still trying, almost two weeks after returning, to figure out how to put some of it into words. To say that God worked in my life would be a good candidate for understatement of the year. I would say that I’ve never experienced the movement of God in my thought process to that extent really ever. It was truly amazing, and I’m still stunned and grateful that I got to be a part of it. Time will tell how God shifts and moves in me in the aftermath, but I feel like two things have become clear to me: 1. I feel like I know God much more intimately than ever before, and 2. I feel like I know how to explain Him less than ever before. Risky thing to admit as a pastor, maybe, that I can’t encapsulate God in easy human terms, but it’s true. And particularly for someone like me, who usually feels pretty confident about my ability to get an idea across effectively.
 
And so I thought I might work some of this stuff out via this blog...Rather than mercilessly bend the Element community’s collective ear with endless stories, I think I’ll take the next few weeks and write a lot of it down. My hope and prayer is that God will bring much of what He showed me to life even more...That the Element community would be strengthened, challenged and encouraged...And that anyone else reading along would find some value in this journey as well. I’d love to hear your thoughts as we go, either here in the comments section, or privately if you’d rather. To me, there are few things in life better than learning from and being sharpened by each other, and I’d love to see that happen here. Please forgive my limitations as we go - I don’t claim to have any special insight or extraordinary ability, but as the pastor of a community, and as someone who takes the responsibility seriously of helping to be a catalyst for spiritual growth, I think it might lead to some valuable discussion. Feel free to point others toward this blog as well, and I’m looking forward to it! Look for part 1 to post in a day or two...God bless you all!
Peace,
Brian