Every two years, the Evangelical Free Church of America has a national conference where pastor, missionaries and ministry leaders and delegates convene in a central location. The purpose is to stimulate spiritual growth, foster new and existing ministry relationships, and be refreshed by like-minded ministry partners. A couple weeks ago the national conference was held at North Coast EFC in San Diego, and it was a delightful time gathering together with about 800 EFCA partners. There are over 1500 EFCA churches in the US, and over 600 missionaries, and although not all attended, the fact that it was on the West Coast brought many familiar faces back together. The first church where I served as a pastor was just down the road from North Coast, so it felt like coming back to my old stomping grounds.  

The musical worship was excellent, and it was exhilarating singing old and new songs to our Lord with a Spirit-driven group. On the first day, I was invited to make a brief presentation to a group of about 200 expository preachers about the global training we do (called Pathways). Along with my colleague Brad Reardon, we were able to make many connections through our time in that session. Other team members (Al Lewis and Mike Gunderson) were also at the conference making many connections with pastors. Our desire is to equip and mobilize a great arsenal of expository preachers to join us in training pastors globally.

At the end of the conference, a good friend of mine and the man who had been serving as the International Director for ReachGlobal in Africa was elected to be the next president of the EFCA. I have worked closely with Kevin Kompelien for several years, and I know the EFCA will be blessed as he guides into the future. 

Since returning, I’ve been working non-stop to prepare for the courses I will be taking beginning July 6 at Biola University. I’ve read seven books, written papers (still have more to write), and tried to prepare as best as possible for the two week courses. The first course is on Honor and Shame and covers many issues both culturally and biblically related with this. The other course is Social Anthropology. It will be a packed, very academic two weeks, but I’m hoping it will translate into greater effectiveness in the work I do of training pastors in Africa.

Pressing on by God’s grace, Eric