Written by: Shaunti Feldhahn 2/3/2007 8:00 AM
My assistant, Leslie Hettenbach, and I had to leave the women’s event at Sagemont in Houston Saturday morning to get to Sun Valley Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. The retreat speaker starting Saturday morning at Sun Valley was Tammy Trent, the singer who had lost her husband and had written a book about it. I had really hoped to meet her, and hopefully, one of these days our paths will cross, but I wasn’t able this time to get there in time to see her. Leslie and I both had to overcome a little bit of a stomach bug of some sort. 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.
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