Stephen and I attended the Innovative Church Community’s “Wilkesboro Regional” this past Tuesday. It was a great day! Here, you see us standing in front of Pastor Tom Bartlett’s Celebration Church (Left to right, Me, Tom Bartlett, Jimmie Davidson, & Stephen). We were there to hear from Pastor Jimmie, founder of Highlands Fellowship, an amazing multi-venue, multi-site, purpose-driven church based in Abingdon, Virginia.
The ICC was started several years ago by myself and a few other church planters and pastors who needed mutual encouragement as we tried to stay focused on being missional for Jesus. Over the last couple of years we’ve launched over seven different regional “peer learning communities” throughout North Carolina. Jimmie Davidson was our featured speaker in Wilkesboro this week.
Jimmie gave a talk entitled “What is it?” With the story of Exodus in the background, he described four “leadership questions” that we would have to answer while following God’s call. They were:
- Burning bush: “What’s calling you?”
- Red sea: “What’s stopping you?”
- Manna: “What sustains you?”
- Promised land: “What’s your giant?”
He closed by saying, “If you want to make it to the promised land, you have to persevere! You can’t give up! You have to hang in there!”
Now, that was a word worth driving to Wilkesboro to hear.