On Friday, February 2nd my assistant Leslie and I flew to Houston where we were picked up at the airport and driven down to speak at a weekend women’s retreat for Sagemont Church, out of Houston. The retreat was in Galveston, which is about an hour’s drive south of Houston. It took us a while to get there because right before we got to Galveston the highway was closed by 5 car accidents. We ended up pulling off the highway and having a leisurely early dinner with Karen, the sweet woman who had picked us up at the airport. It turns out Karen was the lady who was in charge of running the “For Women Only Bible Study” that the women of Sagemont were already doing. It was very encouraging to hear how some of the women had responded. She said for example that one of the women had started in the first week or two to put some of the truths in practice about trying to respect her husband, build him up, and be very careful of not showing disrespect. She came home one day and her husband had given her flowers; he was so enthralled by this really enthusiastic response from his wife, and that was very encouraging. The retreat itself, with a very sweet group of ladies, was a lot of fun speaking for their keynote session on Friday night. Leslie and I had to leave the next morning because we were flying to Phoenix. I was bummed to leave. The next retreat speaker starting Saturday morning was Tammy Trent, the singer who had lost her husband and had written a book about it, and I had really hoped to meet her, and hopefully, one of these days our paths will cross.
Saturday morning we flew to Phoenix and we had to overcome a little bit of a stomach bug of some sort that was setting in with both Leslie and me. We decided it would safest to eat only crackers and drink only ginger ale for the weekend. I did five services with the Pastoral interview on Saturday night and Sunday morning with Pastor Scott at Sun Valley. Boy, I had so much respect for pastors whose churches have grown like wildfire. This church was a church of 400 people only 3 years ago, and now it’s a church of approximately 1800 people. They are rapidly trying to build a new building, but because it has not been completed yet, they are still having five services in this sanctuary that only holds a few hundred people at a time.
Scott was a fantastic interviewer and held up to all five services. I can’t imagine how pastors do that every week. It was really neat to see that he again, was so willing to be honest and transparent and vulnerable, and that I think is something that really touches the congregation; especially about the more sensitive subjects of sex and the visual nature of men. We need to see our pastors taking a lead in being willing to be honest about the struggles of the day. I think that really encourages the members of our churches to be willing to also be transparent.