We had a leadership retreat last weekend and it was wonderful to get away with the leaders of Athe.

We had a bunch of men and women that are kind of the folks that sort of make Aethy Creek roll along and just such a great group of people.

We had a blast just getting together, seeking the Lord, prayer, the word.

And one of the things that we were able to do is reflect on where

we've been and where we're going. And we talked about things like vision and direction and stuff

like that. And I was thinking, boy, some of this stuff about the vision at 8th Creek, I probably

need to share that with Athe Creekers, the whole church, because there's a lot of new people that maybe

haven't been around for very long and might wonder what is Athe Creek's philosophy of ministry?

And why do we do certain things, but not other things?

And we actually have a method to our madness that we actually feel very called to a very specific

kind of ministry.

And we'll talk about that in just a minute because that's where Habakkuk is going to

remind us of something important concerning vision.

But of all the things that's changed today, there's not a lot that has changed if you've

been around for a long time except for just the sheer number of people.

You know, 26 years ago,

there were, you know, the first Sunday, I think we had 20 people. The next Sunday we had 10 people,

the incredible shrinking church, cut in half in one Sunday. But as the years have gone by,

we've just seen the church grow. And it's kind of stunning, really, dizzying even to see as many people that really call this their church home, which we're happy to have you all. And it's not just here. The online church,

we've had to really rethink, how do you minister to people online? Because there are people

that are out and about that don't really have great options for churches.

One couple lives way out in the boondocks down under in Australia. And they wrote us this

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