Mike McClenahan

Tomorrow we celebrate all that showed God's love on 123 sites with 3000 people. Check out pics and stories at http://www.solanapres.org/Missions/LocalMissions/CommunityServe/default.aspx

This May through August my wife Amy and I will be on sabbatical until August. It's an amazing benefit of three months of rest, renew and study plus a month of vacation that our church provides for pastors after their seventh year of ministry. We are looking forward to slowing down, making pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Assisi and Orvieto and parts of England and Scotland and engaging in rhythm of spiritual practices without the normal distractions of everyday life. I have the opportunity to preach while the choir sings in Kiev and Moscow. We are also looking forward to celebrating 25 years of marriage (June 22), 20 years of ordained ministry (April 1) and 50 years of life for both of us in 2010. Understandably there's lots of planning to do in preparation for being gone for an extended period of time. There's the planning of what we're going to do and the planning of what will happen while we're gone, and there's the planning of what we need to do before I leave.

I had the opportunity to be the mission conference speaker at Fremont Pres in Sacramento, a church with an active mission program and giving, but is wrestling with "missional." This was actually their first missions "conference" so I was honored to be asked. It was called "Get up offa that thing: Exploring what it means to be missional." They heard me speak at the PGF Gathering in Long Beach and heard my passion for transforming the church. I had four sessions, one on Friday, two on Saturday and preaching on Sunday. I incorporated some of the elements of the PGF Gathering we had in August. I incorporated lectio divina on Luke 10 in three of the sessions, coming back to it for more insights and questions. It is such a powerful way to communicate that, as Harold Kurtz said, "Mission is Messy," yet we have the assurance of a relationship with the Lord of the Harvest, and that "the kingdom of God is near." I told my own story of missional d