It's been quite awhile since my last post, but it's not because I haven't had anything to say. Quite the contrary, actually! My brain is full to over-flowing after four days of participation in the European Church Planters Network's (ECPN) Learning Community in Villamoura, Portugal. But with sessions from dawn to dusk each day, I didn't have much time for blogging this week.

The ECPN draws a sharp distinction its "Learning Community," which emphasizes dialogue and interaction with multiple sources of information, and the more traditional "conference," which is geared toward passive accumulation of information. And let me tell you, ECPN's Learning Community is definitely an active process! I don't normally consider myself to be an extreme introvert or internal processor -- but by the end of the week, I wanted to find some kind of cave I could crawl into, so I could have some time to let myself process and catch up on all the input that had come in throughout the week!

My favorite part of this week's Learning Community was listening to the wisdom of the two men pictured above. Victor John (left) has helped to pioneer a network of house churches in India (though he is now living in Sweden), and Sandy Millar (right) is a bishop in the Church of England. They both have a tremendous amount of life and ministry experience, and it was a great honor to soak up their wisdom and interact with them throughout the week.

I'm glad that I was there.

Of course, it was an extra bonus that the Learning Community was held on the southern shores of sunny Portugal. We had brilliant sunshine and mild temperatures for the entire week -- which is, perhaps, as great an encouragement for all of us North Sea rim participants as anything. And even though I would have liked to have gotten more free time to get out and enjoy the environment on my own -- I still can't complain if we get to have our coffee breaks, break-out sessions, and team tie-downs in such settings.

Can you identify the famous person lying in the poolside lounge chair in the photograph on the left?