My Epic Journey

Last night was our first session at the GCC Pastor’s Conference in St. Louis.  Tom Short spoke.  Here is his outline:

5 Signs We May Be Ashamed of the Gospel

Text:  Romans 1.14-16

#1.  If we feel that what we offer is not of real value.

#2.  If we don’t know how to handle our faith in a relativistic, pluralistic, post-modern, multi-cultural society.

#3.  If we are afraid because the Gospel condemns men as sinners.

#4.  If we are afraid to called “hell-fire and brimstone preachers”

#5.  If we are fearful to take the Gospel into the public square.

It was a great challenge to what we are called to do as Great Commission Christians–and that is preach the Gospel with passion and fervency.

It was good to sleep in this morning.  Though we had a lot we wanted to do with our last day we felt it would be good to get some rest.

We woke up and headed down to the Coffee Cartel for breakfast and internet connection.

After breakfast, we went to see a movie, Lakeview Terrace.  It was a pretty good movie.  I would give it a grade of B.

We then headed over to the Great Forest Park Balloon Race.  To see these balloon the night before was neat but to see them during the day in all their color was truly spectacular.

The Pepsi Skydiving Team performed before the race.

At 5:00 pm the race began.

What an amazing event to see and be a part of!!

That evening we went to the Pasta House for dinner.

The food was fantastic.

After shopping and picking up last minute souvenirs, we decided to head back to the hotel to get things ready to leave the next morning.

Overall, Anna and I had an amazing time and the people of St. Louis were incredibly friendly.  We are excited about heading back again for another getaway!

The day started late–if 8:00 am is late!

We quickly headed out to Soulard Farmer’s Market which is downtown.

The market is full of amazing stuff.  Produce of course, but also bread, flowers, fish and pasta.  It was a lot of fun to walk down the aisles.

Next stop–The Gateway Arch!!  Due to my fear of tight places, we didn’t go up in the arch, but the museum, gift shop and the monument itself was simply amazing.

From there we headed over to Union Station.  We grabbed a bunch of signs for the EPIC Room and then had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. 

We knew we had to hurry because we only had 46 minutes on our parking meter.  Unfortunately we didn’t make it but we did get a nifty souvenir!!

Back to the hotel we went to grab a nap.

After a much needed rest we headed downtown to Joseph’s Italian Bar.  The food was absolutely amazing!

We then quickly headed back to change our shoes and headed across the street to Forest Park to see what the Glow at the Park was all about.  We didn’t have a clue about what we were going to encounter and boy were we surprised!

Here we were, standing in a field with 60 hot air balloons–oh and couple 100,000 people.

The scene was amazing and night ended perfectly as we watched fireworks blossom over the balloons.

What a packed but amazing day!