Back to the Future...

This week, Jennie and I are spending the week in Winona Lake, Indiana. Sure, it's a little sentimental for us. It's where we met, fell in love, and also got married just five years ago.

It's also where we both went to college - at Grace College. So we're staying in Winona Lake, and we'll enjoy the beautiful scenery, sunsets, and time with Allie. Allie is starting to run around and play with other kids. It's all so... surreal.

We're here this week for the conference for the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches. I guess I'm officially a Grace Brethren pastor now. Blame Ken Bickel, who finally talked me into it. Seriously, though, we are excited about this week where we not only get to see some old friends in college (like Dave Jones, Jason Knavel, and hopefully Dave Pacheco), but also get to meet lots of new friends and connect with other pastors here.

I should also mention Jennie's friends, right? She's looking forward to seeing Tricia (Wood) Holabeck, Cathy Laker, Trish Stevens, and quite possibly Sarah (Peppo) Lavy.

Jennie and I have both experienced a variety of "worlds" in our lives. For me, there's the worlds of Lake (Uniontown/Hartville), The Chapel, Grace, SW Michigan, Grace again, Green (Ohio), and now Delaware. For Jennie, the worlds of Campbellsport (WI), Grace, Milwaukee, Grace, Milwaukee, Green (Ohio), and now... Delaware. It's pretty wild to see all of these worlds converge in one week, here in Winona Lake.

You have Kary Oberbrunner, who Jennie knew in the Milwaukee world, but then became a part of my Grace-world as my roommate in 1999. Kary is part of our Delaware world and the Grace Brethren world here this week too.

I guess I am the only guy from "The Chapel" world to be Grace Brethren now. Usually, guys have gone from Grace to The Chapel (Knute Larson, Tom Bennardo, Eloy Pacheco, Bob Messner, Steve Adriansen, and I'm sure the list goes on).

I suppose the best part is that we have fond memories of all of our worlds. And, silly us, we still think we can keep in touch with all of them. If I sound like I'm getting sentimental or reflective - I am. Life is - and has been - a great journey... with lots of interesting stops, people, and events along the way.

Just occurred to me that you might be from one of these worlds too?

If you're Jeremy Bear, we've connected in the worlds of The Chapel, Lake (kinda), Grace, and um... Grace. We can kinda count Columbus too, right? Since I visited so much and now live so close to there. We also share the Mosaic world. You with your presence at that great church, and me getting so much from Erwin's spirit through his writings and speaking.

If you're Tim Cooper, I guess you're wondering why I left out the other "new world" I'm in, called the Denver Seminary world (which also has many ties to The Chapel world, since Denver Seminary president Craig Williford was at The Chapel for a few good years.) Denver also has ties to Delaware and Grace. Amazing. Tied to Delaware because the pastor here before me, Jeff Gill, did the same degree program at Denver that I am doing. Tied to Grace, because my mentor and friend Ken Bickel also did his degree at Denver. But we all know I'm there just to hang with Coop and drink Jamba Juice.

If you're Josh Smith, you know me from the Chapel world and also the Chapel world.... and I suppose the other Chapel world. Seems like a whole different place there than it was when we first met in 1994 and barely knew each other. Then we had several pretty awesome years with BCM, and then a whole lotta change with two campuses, and we still keep in touch and have a great friendship.

(Here I go again, only focusing on my friends and not Jennie's. Maybe she needs to get a blog here.)

Back to my friends. Chadd Sommers can legitimately claim ties to the Lake world (high school, he attended most of our football games and even dated a few Lake girls!), The Chapel world (where he grew up), The Grace world (he moved out there for a year), the Chapel world (back again after we were both married), and of course the Green world.

If you're Dan Bahry, you know it only takes "one world" for people to really connect on a deep level. You rock, bro. Go Browns!

Yeah, this is a long blog. I'm done, and I'm grateful for all the "worlds" God's allowed me to live in and develop friendships. I'll try to blog more from Winona, but I just felt like getting some new stuff out there. Know what I mean?

What "worlds" have you traveled through in your lifetime? Post about them in the comments!