Over the past few days I have been in Seattle with a group of men beginning Mars Hill Seattle's first class of its new Pastors Training Program. Mars Hill is investing in men from around the country to provide training for planting churches in the coming year. We will fly out every six weeks or so, with assignments in between to walk together towards launching churches in 2009.

It has been a great four days and I have greatly enjoyed meeting the guys and being invested in by the staff at Mars Hill Church. Many thanks to Scott, Gary, Tyler , and Dave of the church planting office of Mars Hill. Many thanks to Mark for the few hours he invested with us on Friday. Many thanks to deacon Adriel Ifland and her tireless work pulling all the details together. Adriel writes of her passion for this program over at the Reforming the Feminine Blog - Her passion to see godly men raised up who will treat women with honor is quite amazing. You can read her post here - 16 men in my life - I highly recommend it.

And last, and most important, many thanks to the risen Jesus who leads us forward in gospel centered, culturally engaged church planting in our day.