Back from the roadtrip

In many ways being able to be on the road these last weeks was a dream come true for me.
I could write a realllllllllllllllly long post about all of the places where visited but you can actually check out www.blog.theupstreamcollective.org

And while I am thinking about it be sure to visit our blog as we go on our next trip to Asia in the coming weeks. We are going to do a virtual vision trip of sorts. So stay tuned.

Here is why our road trip was so cool for me.

One of our dreams as we started The Upstream Collective was to work with young churches ....
We want to help new churches to start to think and act globally from day one. We try to do this as we write, speak, consult, etc..

If I had one "do over" in my church planting life in the states it would be that very thing. I waited way too long to have our church plants get involved internationally.

I kept thinking:
maybe in a while
we need to be a certain size
we need to be more mature as a church.

I had plenty of reasons.

So this summer as we were able to speak with quite a few churches who are young in their church life AND many are exploring ways to take the gospel outside their own local context. If we can help you do this or if you know of a church that has that kind of interest please let me know. Feel free to point them towards our site or get on our free e-newsletter where we try to highlight ways churches can be involved.

If you are a church planter you may want to consider what my good friends David Putman and Shawn Lovejoy are doing at ChurchPlanters.com. They have a coaching network and one of the elements of their coaching has to do with "Going Global".

Mission Opportunity in the U.K.
If you have a student from Oklahoma and want a significant ministry opportunity this summer in the U.K. you should check out this site but you need to do quickly. They have a deadline real soon.

Check out iGo Global website for other opportunities. I consistently hear great things about their work.