Never going it alone

I'm headed out this evening to Oklahoma City for a Logos/Libronix training seminar with Morris Proctor. I'm not very excited about the training, although I truly love the software and hear these seminars are incredible. (How excited can you get about sitting in a room with a bunch of other geeks talking about software?) I'm excited because one of our young singles leaders is going with me, and I can't wait to spend some time with him. (Kari's going with us to spend some time with her sister - an added bonus, I won't have to sleep by myself).

One of the helpful things my first pastor boss taught me was to never do anything alone. He took it to the extreme, which was cool. He never goes to the bank, coffee shop, or even the bathroom without taking one of his guys with him.

Okay, maybe not the last one.

He called it "rambling," and I learned some of my best pastoral/theological lessons on rambling trips to the bank with JB. Not only is the idea good to protect a pastor in moral areas, it's a great opportunity to develop leaders and sharpen yourself.

I've tried to continue what JB started in my life. I rarely do anything in ministry by myself (with the exception of playing golf). Why miss the opportunity to spend time with guys you are trying to build into, or the blessing of processing things with guys you respect? Honestly I plan to learn more from Erick on this trip than he'll learn from me, and I'm sure looking forward to it.

You just can't ever go wrong spending time investing in relationships.