I know it is Sunday, but I wrote this on Saturday! And, that is the name I plan to use for this new (and ongoing) feature.

Anyway...

I spend a good chunk of my life speaking at seminars, conferences, and retreats. And, some of them are amazing and encouraging. In most cases, I teach and speak to pastors and church leaders.

Typically, I do one seminar a week. So, with travel, that is about half my work week.

Often, my friends ask me to mention something on the blog about an upcoming seminar. At times, they want me to say where I am going... at other times, they just want to get the word out about their conference seminar.

I have, up till now, resisted (with the exception of one that was one of my most widely read blog posts of 2008). In that blog, I responded to an email from my new friend, Ben Arment, asking me to blog about his conference. And, I really did not want to so I tried to do so in a humorous way. I even said in the blog that I would not do it any more. I did not want my blog to be a commercial for my speaking. So, I have not "blogged" about seminars. But, now I have changed my mind.

I have greatly enjoyed the December-January break from travel. It has been a great time of refreshing with my wife and children. If you follow on Twitter or Facebook, you have heard much about my family, friends, and my new habit of exercise.

The break turned out to last longer than I expected. I had planned to speak at the Nazarene National Pastors Conference but the meeting was canceled due to the economy. I am hoping we can reschedule because I was excited about my time with the pastors of the Church of the Nazarene.

Today, I lectured at NOBTS and their partnered colleges.

It was a nice mix of students and faculty. I presented on the emerging church and then three faculty members critiqued my presentation. Much more on that later...

Right now I am at a St. Louis hotel.

Tomorrow, I am speaking to the leadership of "General Association of General Baptists." Some of you may not know that there are a whole bunch of Baptist denominations.

Wikipedia describes this group as:

General Association of General Baptists - a group of Baptists holding the general atonement (that Christ died for all persons), located mostly in the Midwestern United States.

This body has grown and developed until it now embraces about 60 associations, 816 churches and more than 73,000 members. The denominational headquarters are located in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where they operate Stinson Press. The official denominational publication is The General Baptist Messenger.

The General Association oversees publication of Sunday School literature, a home mission board, a foreign mission board, and the Oakland City University in Oakland City, Indiana. The General Association is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Baptist World Alliance.

It's 5.30 in the morning and I am off to Criswell College to preach in their chapel for Great Commission Week.

I will share more about Criswell College later, but it has, in its short history, made a lasting impact on my whole denomination.

Luke Britt, recent winner of the "Rick Warren / Ed Stetzer caption contest" will be picking me up.

Updated:

Well, this tells the story:

This morning I left Orlando and it was in the 80s. Right now, I am in Chicago and it is 5 degrees. Ugh.

From the weather service:

At 1035 PM CST...radar indicated an area of snow across the Chicago Metro area extending into much of Northwest Indiana... travel conditions will be extremely hazardous. Blowing snow will continue to reduce visibilities to a quarter mile or less in open locations...with localized visibilities approaching zero... west winds gusting to 40 to 50 can be expected. The combination of the cold temperatures and very strong winds will produce wind chills of 20 below to 30 below zero overnight. If you must travel...allow plenty of extra time to reach your destination and exercise extreme caution.

Here's a quick recap of the week so far:

We had a good day yesterday in Orlando with the folks at Global Church Advancement. I taught on missional church planting. It was always good to get dinner with friends Steve Childers and Bart Johnson.

Early this morning, I jumped on a plane from Orlando to Chicago (where I am right now).

This is Church Planting Week at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. It also included an Acts 29 bootcamp. So, I did two sessions this afternoon. Then, we went to dinner with the Evangelical Free leadership and Trinity Faculty up at the seminary "mansion." It was a great time of dialogue about how a seminary can train church planters.

Then, Mark Driscoll, A.J. Hamilton, Scott Thomas drove off and went out for Buffalo wings. It was good to catch up with them and some other old friends... although Mark almost killed us driving back through the snow.

Tomorrow morning I catch a flight to Lynchburg to speak at Liberty University and meet with Jonathan Falwell, Ergun Caner, and Dave Early to talk about their aggressive new church planting plans.

More tomorrow about future teaching plans.