I just realized how long it has been since I last blogged, almost 2 weeks. Sorry, that is really bad. I just spent a weekend with the folks at http://www.hisgathering.com/. It was wonderful! I’ll reflect more later, but it was so great getting to spend time with a group of folks seeking after Christ with such gusto. I had traveled to Florida with my roommate Ryan to celebrate the wedding of our two roommates Sarah and Josh. We were the candid photographers. See a selection of the pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattpritchard/sets/72157594383057839/

I’m hoping to shell out some posts over the holiday, so stay tuned.

I’ve been traveling almost non-stop for the past couple of weeks. This weekend I was at my roommate Matt and Julie’s wedding. It was wonderful. Matt has so many great friends! I continue to see the incredible ways God is at work in our generation. I met a young woman who had is studying international law and plans to work with Kazakh/Chinese nomadic peoples. Wow! On Sunday, I got to spend time with my IV staff worker from college, his wonderful wife, and two sons, it was so wonderful to get to go to their church and talk about God and our lives all afternoon. Aside from the wonderful company, Ryan and I missed our flight on our way to St. Louis and the two of us, with the addition of Dawn, missed our flight on the way home, which made for two unexpectedly long days (it was the first time I’ve missed a flight). I was planning to head to class tonight, but I spoke with my sister and she wisely recommended that I miss it for this week–I am rather exhausted. At any rate, this means that I’m staying at home, will go to work tomorrow, and will get to visit with my friend’s Dad Stew. It’s going to be a good week and a good time catching back up with friends!

I will certainly be blogging about the things I learned at the CCDA conference over the next little while. Here is an overview.

On Wednesday, Brittany, Julia, and I arrived in Philly. We all ended up taking Robert Lupton’s Institute Class entitled Empowerment. Lupton is on the CCDA board and is the author of Theirs is the Kingdom, Renewing the Inner City, and You Call Yourself a Christian (I am particularly fond of Theirs is the Kingdom). He argues that the Christian Community Development movement was so successful that inner cities were made places where wealthier people want to live again, thus spurring on the current situtation of gentrification. He spoke about parlaying gentrification for the Kingdom–mostly in the area of creating mult-income housing. I was very surprised to hear him say, that it is pretty much too late to move into most poor inner-city neighborhoods–that your presence will ensure quicker gentrification and be bad for your neighbors. (By the way, for those of you not familiar with the CCDA, they have historically promoted the three R’s, Redistribution, Relocation, and Reconciliation.) Instead, he suggests greeting the poor as they move into the inner suburbs, perhaps having your suburbanite church purchase apartment complexes to provide multi-income housing.

There were many great plenaries. I was particularly impressed by Tony Campolo of Eastern University’s Compolo College of Graduate and Professional Studies. I’d seen him on the Colbert Report, but never heard one of his speeches. It wasn’t the most meaty, but was entertaining and got some excellent points across in a non-threatening manner.

I also got to attend a lot of great sessions on everything from getting the suburban church involved in justice work, to loving teen mothers, to ecclesiology (with Shane Claiborne).

As I said in a previous post, we left without a place to stay. The first two nights we ended up staying with Brittany’s college friend’s friends. It was great. Friday night, after Brittany and Julia had left, I was graciously given shelter by some Center for Student Missions folks in Philly (Kelly, Jason, Erica, and Jes) we’d met on the first day. They are great!

It was a wonderful week, full of amazing moments and insights!

So I’m back, exhausted, and processing. I’ll have some reflections soon along with some other topics of interest.

Lots to talk about, but not the energy.

I am excited that, after many years of attempts, I will finally go to the CCDA conference this year. It’s going to be so good and I look forward to meeting a lot of amazing people and hearing what God is doing in community development now.

I am also looking forward to speaking with folks about the new New Monastic community that some friends and I are seeking to start in the DC area (probably Alexandria). We need as much guidance and resources as we can get as we are scheduled to move out of our current place November 1.

I am also excited (and scared) that I don’t have a place to stay at CCDA yet. I am planning to see if someone will let me crash in their room. This is way outside of my comfort zone, but I’m going to have faith that God will provide for my shelter. It will be good practice.