Ahhh, back home again. I went to a house church retreat this past weekend at Jenness Park, a retreat center north of Yosemite. It was a long drive up on Friday and a long drive home yesterday, but well worth it. I met some cool folks doing house church in the San Francisco bay area. Most of them were either current students or recent graduates of one of my denomination's seminaries.

Joe and Debbie Boyd came out from Las Vegas to lead the retreat. Lots 'o fun. Joe's an improvisational sort of guy, who is full of contrasts. Here's a near quote from his own mouth: "I have long hippy hair . . . but I wash it. I'm a vegan . . . but I drive an SUV. I live in a commune with 12 other people . . . but it's in a gated community." I've followed his blog occasionally for the past several months, so I enjoyed hearing his story firsthand. He tried hard to edit himself for the sake of some pretty conservative people in the audience . . . but he did manage to drop one "f" bomb during an illustration (perfectly appropriately).

One big highlight of the weekend for me was meeting Jade. She's from China, and talked to us about her recent experiences with the house churches in her homeland. She said that the house church movement in China is characterized by three things: the importance of prayer, regular experiences of miracles, and women in leadership - starting new churches and multiplying them. Cool stuff. There are underground seminaries in certain areas with up to 1500 students (mostly young people). There is a growing burden among our Chinese brothers and sisters to send missionaries to Iraq.

Good times . . . and now back to work.