Here I am at 35,000 feet above the earth darting through the air back to LA. It is time to reflect on the last two days. I loathe to sit in meetings, but once in a while, the subject matter draws me in, and I even pay my way. I gathered with fifty other men and women who really care about making disciples. There we were, young, old, black, white, male, female-all very concerned about what the church isn’t doing while celebrating what it is doing in the arena of forming people in Christ. You know that the majority of my adult life has been devoted to calling the church to return to its primary mission, being and making disciples. That is if you don’t count all the time I spent trying to be famous, build a mega church, and my quest to become whatever monster I had in mind. It seems that all those who are committed to being and making disciples are befuddled by the church. It continues to be a mystery why the church has largely chosen to do other things. I was encouraged to hear and interact with many young black leaders who have been greatly moved to devote themselves to the same cause. There are real limits to such gatherings, everyone has their own “day jobs” so when we leave the meeting we move on with our own thing. Yet, there is something that happens that is commonly overlooked, the affect the attendees have on one another. There may not be a major new organization or movement come out of the meeting, but it hopefully is a part of the actual movement of the Holy Spirit on the church and society. I made some new friends, and if we meet again, those relationships will grow past the “show and tell” aspect of such gatherings. After everyone has passed out their resources, you can relax, start feeling like an accepted person rather than a professional at work. My life has been marked indelibly by men and women I have met at such meetings. Choose carefully what kind of gatherings you attend, make sure there is interaction, listening to talks can be very helpful and inspirational, but if that is all, its effect is limited. The more specific the meeting, the better, invest in what you care about. OK, that is enough, the movie is starting, “Gidget meets the flying nun.”