[caption id="attachment_764" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="----Masada from above----"][/caption]

My friend Gunnar is a tribe leader in the area of Stewardship. He is the Executive Stewardship Pastor for Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas. We’ve been friends for several years now.

Gateway is looking at taking the message of stewardship to their partners globally. They wanted to start in Israel and was curious to see if I wanted to come along and help them…ummm…yes?

So it was with the purpose of exploring Israel and it’s stewardship needs that Gunnar, myself, and seven other amazing other guys  embarked. All seven of the guys were incredible strategic thinkers and 5 of them are successful business owners/leaders. Would there be a way to use our gifts and experiences to serve the Messianic followers there?

-Day 1-

I had just presented at our Crown ignite! Training in Kansas City (more on this later), so I showed up a day later than all of them. While I missed their tour of Jerusalem, I was able to catch up with them on the second day. The excitement was about to begin.

After driving down in two vans to the Dead Sea and Masada (…

To describe everything that happened in my recent trip to Israel…at least not in one post.

[caption id="attachment_730" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="-----The Dead Sea from Masada-----"][/caption]
So, to do them justice I will spread out the tale in a few posts.

As a quick glimpse we ministered to victims of terrorist attacks; were within sniper distance of the Gaza Strip; traveled with the leaders of a volunteer emergency response team; met the persecuted church in Ashdod; got a private tour of an Israeli Army base; took a boat out on the Sea of Galilee; worshiped with Jewish, Russian Jewish, Arabs and Sudanese believers on top of Mt. Carmel…I could go on.

I’m out of breath just thinking about all of it.

Today I find myself nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just a couple hours north of Atlanta. We have Crown staff, board members, and volunteers who have traveled here from all over the world and we are all desperately trying to serve them well.

I will post the first of the Israel stories soon. For now, it’s back to work!