C. Gene Wilkes's Blog, page 8

And the Nations Shall Praise Him

Ready to ServeIt's Thanksgiving, and Legacy Church hosted its annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the students and families connected to the English Language Program. As a Pastor, I am seldom more proud of Legacy than when we provide the food, table hosts, and loving atmosphere for the international families in our community. 

Lue Kraltchev, our Literacy Missions Director,and her team planned and served the meal to over 400 students, their families and friends. Over 50 Legacy volunteers cooked, served and donated all the food and drinks except the ham and turkey meat.

Full Plates and HeartsLegacy members and ELP faculty members also served as table hosts. They were the English experts for those who sat at their tables. I sat by two families from China, and we shared as much as we could about our homes, families, and language while sharing traditional, homemade Thanksgiving food. These table talks were where life connected to life, and hearts opened to the love of God.

Father-Son Serving TeamWe had families who had only been in the USA for a week. And others who have been in the States for years and brought their family members who did not know English to the feast.

Friends from Brazil (and Plano)Lue walked around with a wireless mic and asked what people were thankful for, and they were grateful for everything from their ELP teachers to the food they ate that day.

My favorite part was the entire room reciting  Pslam 100 in English. Times like this draws my heart to Heaven when John painted the picture:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:9, 10)

Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving for me until I participate in this gathering of the nations. The life stories and diversity of backgrounds remind me of the height, depth, and breath, of God's love.

May you have a thankful and praise-filled heart this Thanksgiving, and may the God of the nations be the One you thank most openly.

Room for one more!
Friends of all ages
Reciting Psalm 100 together Service with a smile

Vote, But Don't Put Your Hope in the Outcome

Today is Election Day in America. The media hype and dialogue around the dinner table has not been higher in years. Many believe this is the "most important election in our lifetime," and the outcome will determine the well being of our lives and country for decades to come.
I agree this is an important election. They all are, but, I want to give some perspective to this one.
First, I voted. I hope you did too. This is one of the greatest privileges we have a citizens of the United States of America. Make the effort. Demonstrate your beliefs by casting a ballot for those things that matter to you. Many have died to give you this privilege, so, get out, stand in line if you must, but vote.
As you do, here's another perspective for your vote if you are a Christian.
Followers of Jesus have dual citizenship. Paul reminded his readers, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..." (Phil. 3:20) As a Christian, our citizenship in heaven trumps our citizenship in whatever country we live. Whatever the outcome of the election, our hope is not complete nor destroyed by who wins or loses because we ultimately "eagerly await a Savior" from our homeland, heaven.
Followers of Jesus have only one Leader. As a follower of Jesus, our ultimate loyalty and dependence is upon our Leader, Jesus. Party and family loyalty is second to the One who rescued us and calls us to join the mission of God. Jesus was plain when he said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) We state our loyalty to a candidate or platform, but we confess our highest loyalty to Christ.
Followers of Jesus have a global mission. I live by a value that whatever I preach/teach/say as a Christian here should be the truth no matter the culture or country in which I say it. This guides how I frame my comments and beliefs wherever I go. Yes, I have an opinion on local, state, and national issues. A message or value based on the teachings of Jesus and Scripture is not limited to a single issue or framed in local language only. Our values and way of life as followers of Jesus should be transferable to any culture and people. Be careful not to isolate your expression of faith to a single issue in a single locale.
Followers of Jesus do not depend on government and culture to carry out the mission of God. I have traveled to countries like Laos, Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. None of those countries or cultures support the movement of Jesus. Some even imprison and persecute those who follow Jesus. Yet, the "called out ones" are alive and well and in most cases, thriving. The followers of Jesus there do not work to have a Christian government. They have no vote or say in the public square. They, however, seek to establish the kingdom of God "on earth as it is in heaven" no matter the support they get from government or culture. We as Christians in America can learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
Vote, but don't put your hope in the outcome. Don't count on the one you voted for to solve all our country's problems. That person will disappoint you. S/he is human like us, and s/he is a sinner like us. S/he can't guarantee our future any more than the last candidate promised s/he could. Peter, who wrote during a time the local culture began to harass Christians, reminded them, "...with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming." (1 Peter 1:13) Our hope is in Jesus, the Christ, not in an elected official or political party.
One last thought. Whatever the outcome I will not change what I am doing. My call is from God to God, not in the victory or loss of a political candidate. Whoever wins, whatever the laws that follow, as a follower of Jesus I will continue to worship, serve, and love in the name of their Leader. That's my prayer for us all on this Election Day in America.
Comment https://www.facebook.com/gene.wilkes1 or tweet @gene_wilkes tonight. I'll be watching the returns after I teach a class at Legacy Church for B H Carroll tonight.

A Weekend of Service

Team Wing@Chosen Half MarathonThis weekend was one of service and fun. Saturday I ran with Amber (Jason) Wing in the Chosen Half Marathon in New Braunfels, TX. The Wing's are working toward adopting a child from China and the run helped raise funds to do that.

This was Amber's first half marathon, and she did great! The quote of the run was about mile 9 when she said, "I can't feel my legs!" Amber, every runner has said that some time in a run. Congratulations!

I ran this same run with Team Bowen last year, and almost to the day, they brought their adopted son, Nik, home from Russia. You can read about their journey in their blog, Our Adoption Journey.

I am honored to run with these families, and I look forward to running with a new family next year and seeing to which child God will lead Team Wing to adopt.

Can I say how proud I am of Legacy Church? After a wonderful gathered worship experience as the church, we headed out to a local school property to serve at the second annual West Plano Family Palooza.Thanks to the leadership of Markus Lloyd, Sarah Frazier, and the army of Legacy volunteers, it was a successful event.

The event was open to the community and gave everyone a chance to raise funds and food for Minnie's Food Pantry in Plano. Legacy Church also observed a Hunger Awareness Month by collecting food as the church and donating to Minnie's.

From adopting one child to serving thousands through a local event and food pantry, our lives can make a difference. Don't miss the chance to serve others and make an eternal difference in the name of Jesus.

A New Way Of Living--Is Here!

(c) 2012 New Hope PublishersMy next book is here!  (The Kindle version) I am most excited about this one because it combines my love for physical exercise with my love for Scripture and spiritual exercise. 
Thanks to those of you who helped pick the cover. It looks great!
A New Way of Living: practicing the Beatitudes in everyday life, published by New Hope Publishers, is a training manual for spiritual growth. It follows the foundational path of spiritual development Jesus laid out at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, we call the Beatitudes. (Matthew 5:3-10)
My goal in the book is to apply what I have learned from running, cycling, and hiking to spiritual growth and wellness. I share spiritual exercises that create margin in our lives so that the characteristics Jesus describes in the Beatitudes can grow and flourish. Just as we develop physical wellness through a series of exercises and disciplines, we develop spiritual wellness through time-honored exercises that allow the Holy Spirit to grow us into the likeness of Jesus. 
The spiritual journey through the Beatitudes, like a long trail run or bike ride, requires spiritual exercises that enhance each step along the way so the Holy Spirit can strengthen and empower us. As we live with each characteristic, we look at the people Jesus blessed, the promise he made, the potential illness of the characteristic, and exercises that enhance it.
The paperback edition of A New Way of Living will not be released until the first of next year, but

you can get the Kindle version here or from the button below.
  Please pray that the message of Jesus will be read by those who long for vitality and wellness in their spiritual lives. You can use the book as a personal or group Bible study on this important passage from Jesus' earliest teachings.
My other book with New Hope, Character: The Pulse of the Disciples Heart, was released earlier this year. You can order a copy here. 

 

A New Way Of Living--Almost Here

(c) 2012 New Hope PublishersMy next book is almost here! It is about to go to press, and I am most excited about this one because it combines my love for physical exercise with my love for Scripture and spiritual exercise. 
Thanks to those of you who helped pick the cover. It looks great!
A New Way of Living: practicing the Beatitudes in everyday life, published by New Hope Publishers, is a training manual for spiritual growth. It follows the foundational path of spiritual development Jesus laid out at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, we call the Beatitudes. (Matthew 5:3-10)
My goal in the book is to apply what I have learned from running, cycling, and hiking to spiritual growth and wellness. I share spiritual exercises that create margin in our lives so that the characteristics Jesus describes in the Beatitudes can grow and flourish. Just as we develop physical wellness through a series of exercises and disciplines, we develop spiritual wellness through time-honored exercises that allow the Holy Spirit to grow us into the likeness of Jesus. 
The spiritual journey through the Beatitudes, like a long trail run or bike ride, requires spiritual exercises that enhance each step along the way so the Holy Spirit can strengthen and empower us. As we live with each characteristic, we look at the people Jesus blessed, the promise he made, the potential illness of the characteristic, and exercises that enhance it.
A New Way of Living will not be released until the first of next year, but I wanted you to share my excitement about it now. I'll let you know when you can pre-order and order a copy.
Please pray that the message of Jesus will be read by those who long for vitality and wellness in their spiritual lives. You can use the book as a personal or group Bible study on this important passage from Jesus' earliest teachings.
My other book with New Hope, Character: The Pulse of the Disciples Heart, was released earlier this year. You can order a copy here.

A Day with Forge Dallas and Michael Frost

Baker BooksThe Legacy Church LifeGroup Team is attending a 1-Day conference with ForgeDallas, a subset of ForgeAmerica. The main speaker is Michael Frost, who is known for his work and writing in the missional church movement. Ryan Hairston is a friend of Legacy, and he is our host. I'll be blogging from the conference throughout the day to give you a flavor of what we are seeing and hearing.

The team is ready to go! Return the adventure to the venture!

The Bikeable Church, An Idea

For many years I have invited Christ followers to see the church and themselves as "a mission outpost where every member is a missionary in his or her own mission field." Whenever I find someone else calling for the same way of living, I get fired up and realize maybe the idea is more than a catchy phrase. 
Meet Sean Benesh . He lives in Portland with his wife, Katie, and his three sons. He is a missionary on a bicycle. He has written a short book called, The Bikeable Church, which I endorsed because I was captured by his questions and heart to be a missionary in the true sense where he was planted. He's some of his thinking and challenge:

Why do we continue to insist on auto-based commuting patterns for church life and worship? What if we simply reduced the scale and scope to that which is bikeable and/or walkable? As missiologists one of the principles behind exegeting a city is to learn how people naturally gather for fellowship and community. Most often we still operate as a foreign import even within our own cities. It is time to think and act like missionaries in our own cities.

A new, fanciful idea? I don't think so. The bike culture is growing across our country--even in my auto-dominated suburb where I live and serve. (I've written of some of my cycling trips in this blog, and I rode over 40 miles commuting on my bike last week while my wife's car was in the shop.)  
Why not make your church property and environment bike-friendly if a segment of your population uses that mode of transportation? Why not encourage more people to ride their bikes for health, environmental, and community reasons?
One of the ways we connect as Legacy Church with our area's cycling community is through a group we call Legacy Cyclists. We have over 90 names on our email list, and we have weekly rides from our church's campus. We join other groups and events in order to meet other cyclists and be witnesses where we live, work, learn, and play.
What impact has Sean's call to be more missional had on Legacy and me? The Legacy Cyclists are collecting funds to place bike racks around our campus in order to encourage people to cycle to our facilities. Several of our international friends who attend our English Language Program have ridden bikes to class for some time.We need to serve them and follow their example too.
School Bike RacksWe hope to place 4 or 5 racks around the property so people will have places to put their bikes when they ride to worship, fellowship, learn, or serve. 

If you'd like to join us by donating to the bike rack fund, you can go to our e-giving page and donate there. Just mention "bike racks" in the description section. We need about $1,200.00. 

Also, we leave the church parking lot closest to Legacy Drive, every Sunday at 4:00 p.m. for a 20 to 27-mile ride. (We will move to 3:00 when we return to Standard Time on Sunday, November 4.) Join us this Sunday if you live in the Plano-Frisco area.

Sean, thank you for the reminder we are missionaries where we live and all we do can be platforms to tell the Story of Jesus. I'll be riding my bike more often to the office and on Sundays now.

How we helped our people grow spiritually

Willow Creek's REVEAL surveyCally Parkinson of the Willow Creek Association recently contacted me saying she wanted to write a case study on Legacy Church because they had observed the improvement in our church's spiritual growth through the comparison of our two REVEAL surveys taken in March, 2010 and March, 2012. I was surprised by the request since we had nothing to compare our progress to except our two survey results. So, we gathered some of our "spiritual growth team" around a conference call with Cally, and we told our story. 
Rather than describe the case study, here it is in its entirety. I am thankful to the ministry directors, church leadership team, and two members who made up our spiritual growth team, and to the staff and members who implemented their plan to "help people trust Jesus."

Legacy Church, Plano, TXCase Study (c) Willow Creek Association, 2012
Picture the nation’s 70th most populous city—one named, in 2006, as the best place to live in the United States. Note that 53.3 percent of this city’s residents have at least a bachelor’s degree and that CNN Moneyranked it the wealthiest city in the U.S., with a median average income of over $77,000. Then consider that in 2010, Forbes magazine named it the safest American city of 250,000 or more, that its schools consistently rank among the best in the nation, and that its unemployment rate is less than half the national average.
So where’s the challenge? Well, in all of the above. Because while Plano, Texas, appears to have “a church on every corner,” only about 30 percent of its self-reliant, self-assured residents attend services. “It’s a pretty remarkable place,” says Legacy Church’s Senior Pastor Gene Wilkes. “But even though we’re in the Bible belt, where there is a strong subculture of churched Christians, the majority of people are not. And as the rest of the In the past, Legacy had used Natural Church Development resources to determine how they fared in this area; then, while attending the 2008 Willow Creek Summit, they heard about REVEAL. “We hadn’t assessed our spiritual growth for years, so we needed kind of a baseline of where we were,” Gene says. “When Willow put REVEAL together, it was something we knew we could use.” So in March 2010, Legacy took its first survey.
Clearly, the 300+ adults in the congregation were on board, with an almost-unheard-of response rate of 62 percent. What they had to say, though, was somewhat less impressive.  While satisfaction with the senior pastor was strong at 78 percent, only 58 percent were satisfied with weekend services and even fewer (49 percent) were satisfied with the church’s role in their spiritual growth. Daily Bible reading applied to just 15 percent of the congregation, and only 21 percent very strongly agreed with the attitude of “Giving away my life.” Thirteen percent acknowledged that when it came to growing their faith, they were “stalled.”  In short, Legacy Church, long a part of its extraordinary community, generated survey results that could best be defined as … ordinary.
Defining the Destination
“To be honest, I think REVEAL told many of us what we already knew,” says Life Group Pastor Tammy Dillon. “But we needed tangible figures to substantiate that. So when REVEAL confirmed that we had a fairly biblically illiterate congregation, it just affirmed that we needed to do some definite work in that area.”
To define and launch that work, Legacy created a Spiritual Growth Team, made up of the pastoral team and a leadership team including congregants and staff. At first, the groups met separately, discussing what they’d learned about spiritual growth, the insights Legacy’s survey had uncovered, and what the church’s priorities should become. Then the two teams joined forces to discuss and endorse a plan of action. They began by titling REVEAL’s spiritual growth continuum “The Way,” and re-naming its four levels of spiritual maturity to more closely align with Legacy’s culture and language. Retaining the initial segment descriptions of Exploring Christ and Growing in Christ, the third and fourth segments became Living with Christ and Dying for Christ.
Gene admits that the team wrestled for quite a while with the Dying for Christ description, but concluded that it best represented the ultimate perspective—the “if you will come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me” perspective—of this most spiritually mature segment. The team felt this bold description could be especially meaningful to the members of their successful, goal-oriented community. The idea that faith in Christ requires sacrificing personal treasure is one thing in a community that is barely scraping by. It’s quite another when the success formula includes an abundance of such treasure.
Moving Toward Maturity
Legacy’s segment descriptions not only set the stage for spiritual growth, they also helped the team define the church’s four key objectives toward its congregants’ forward movement:  (1) Challenge me to grow; (2) Understand the Bible in depth; (3) Help me with my prayer life; and (4) Help me serve in my passions and spiritual gifts.
Challenge Me to Grow
Embracing the ultimate goal of Dying for Christ—in itself, a challenge for Legacy’s people—prompted the church to devise various ways to communicate and reinforce this description of spiritual maturity.
During January 2011’s Vision Month sermon series, for instance, Gene taught on what a Dying-for-Christ life would look like—and how that aligned with Legacy’s mission statement to “Trust Jesus as the church, at home, and in the world.” (CDs of these messages continue to be distributed to visitors.) The launch of Legacy U, a classroom-like teaching time offered before Sunday services, also challenged congregation members to grow. Not surprisingly, the first class it offered—named The Biggest Loser—focused on the Dying-for-Christ level of spiritual maturity.
Understand the Bible in Depth
In response to the very low number of its congregants who had reported spending time in the Bible, Legacy was determined to make this a fundamental practice throughout the church—for everyone from preschoolers to adults and across activities ranging from life groups to Sunday sermons. Common to all of these audiences and initiatives would be Zondervan’s newly released book, The Story. “In the fall of 2010, when we got our REVEAL results back, we also found this book,” Tammy says. “It came to our door a month before we were about to gear up life groups again. God literally landed it in our lap—like boom, in our lap! So we threw out what we were going to do and said, ‘No, thisis God’s answer to how we are going to help our people understand the Bible.’”
Here, too, the staff adapted this resource to Legacy’s congregation. (“That’s kind of what we do,” Gene laughs.) They divided the book’s contents into segments to cover all twelve months of 2011, then broke the material down into six daily reading assignments per week. And for those who didn’t want to carry a book around all year? “They could get a daily email to read—all they had to do was click on it,” says Tammy. “Or they could even listen to the material on their smartphones—it would speak the assignment out loud to them on their way to work or while they were carpooling their children.”
And the children? They were equally engaged, as Children’s Director Marcus Lloyd’s team purposefully and creatively kept them in the Word, right alongside their parents. “For the kids to really understand this, we thought they would need to be learning the same things as their parents,” he says. “So we looked for the best way to input the Bible into the home that would keep every age group talking about the same things—whether that was at dinner time, in the car leaving church, or whenever they were together.”
The result was a Family Notebook covering the entire year. For every week, it provided the Scripture being discussed in Sunday’s service as well as a story synopsis, the story’s main point, and the best ways to enter a discussion of the story. It also included questions appropriate for different age groups—preschoolers, elementary, and youth—to launch family-wide discussions. “We made that available to every family for the first semester—January until June,” Marcus says. “During the summer we gave them some other things to do, then we went back with some new pages for their notebooks in the fall.”
Help Me with My Prayer Life
Just as the church had added Legacy U before Sunday services in early 2011, in early 2012 it began to provide extended prayer timefollowing Sunday services. This increased emphasis on personal prayer coincided with Sunday sermons and life group studies based on this key spiritual practice. “We didn’t have a ‘How to Pray’ class or anything like that,” Gene says. “Instead our spring emphasis was Jesus’ prayer life in the book of Luke. We let Christ in the gospels be the example that guided our church-wide emphasis.”
Life groups have long been highly valued and extremely well attended at Legacy Church, with participation at 89 percent, compared to a much lower 50 percent average among all surveyed churches. So these less formal gatherings, which are based on participant interaction more than leader-led teaching, provided an ideal opportunity to explore the topic of prayer. For example, in February 2012, in addition to the newly available Sunday morning prayer time, Legacy’s life groups launched a 12-week series on the Lord’s Prayer. Once again they provided emails and other encouragements. And once again they fostered family discussions by overflowing the topic into children’s ministry in some very tangible, experiential ways.
Help me serve in my passions and spiritual gifts
Unlike prayer, which offered huge potential for growth, Legacy’s serving initiative has been more a combination of growth and refinement. “A value we’ve held for a long time is ‘You’re most like Jesus when you serve,’” Gene explains. Now, though, congregants would broaden that value by serving “in the church, through the church, and on my own.” Specifically, they would move more of their serving off campus and into their community. While the children’s ministry continues to depend on its volunteers, various other in-church programs were curtailed, freeing up time for more “through the church” options. “We started looking toward partnering with other churches to take some things out in the street where the people are,” Markus explains.
It hasn’t been easy, but Legacy’s success in this effort speaks for itself.  Instead of holding its annual Fall Festival, something many Plano churches do each year, Legacy suggested joining forces in 2011. Although it took a tremendous amount of coordination and collaboration, several churches agreed, holding a joint festival at a local school and contributing the event proceeds to an area food pantry. Building on this success, Markus recruited half a dozen area churches to serve in “Love Where You Live,” a weekend clean-up effort in partnership with city government, during which church volunteers picked up trash, repaired homes and otherwise served an area of Plano that Markus describes as “needing some love.”
Then Pinecove, a big Christian camp in Texas that takes its camp to a church campus each summer, asked Legacy if they would be the host church in the summer of 2012. “We were like, ‘Well, our kids in this area just go to camps all summer long,’ says Markus. “What if we partnered with a couple other churches and took the camp to the lower income area of our city—and then scholarshiped all the kids who wanted to attend?’” Four Plano churches did exactly that, sending their volunteers to serve about 70 kids who otherwise would never have had such an opportunity.
------
In the midst of their response to its initial REVEAL survey, Legacy opted to check its progress with a follow-up survey in March 2012. The result was encouraging trajectories across the board. Satisfaction with the Church’s Role in Spiritual Growth rose from 49 to 65 percent, for instance. And dissatisfaction plummeted from 21 to 12 percent. Small group participation (89 percent) and serving at the church (66 percent) far exceeded the average of 50 percent in each category. And what about that all-important area of spiritual growth? The Growing in Christ segment, formerly at 47 percent, dropped to 41—because Legacy’s “Living for Christ” and “Dying with Christ” segments grew in statistically meaningful ways, from 23 to 27 and from 24 to 29 percent.
Such movement not only affirms the church’s bold new descriptions of spiritual maturity, it also generates admiration for members of Legacy’s congregation—who, even in light of their secular success, are now stepping up to embrace a “to die is gain” definition of eternal success.

 If you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson will hold a REVEAL workshop October 25, at Watermark Church, Dallas. I recommend you attend and see how this tool can give you a true picture of our church's spiritual health and proven ways to help them grow in the areas they identify as their most challenging areas of spiritual growth.

The Missing Person at Your Church

We have started our fall series as Legacy Church. We call it SENT. We are walking through the first twelve chapters of Acts as a reminder of how--like the first followers of Jesus--we are a sent people to tell His-story and demonstrate His life-changing power.

Last Sunday I tackled the topic of the Holy Spirit and how important that Person of the Triune God is to the church, or, ekklesia.(You can hear the full message here.)
I am convinced that no matter the programs, excellence factor, buildings, location, personalities, or marketing you have as part of your church, you will have little to no impact in touching or changing the hearts of those you seek to serve and reach without the Person of the Holy Spirit. You can gather a bunch of people to meet their felt needs and feed them good advice, but without the presence of the Holy Spirit you are only a helpful religious organization.

I the Bible study guide of Acts I wrote for LifeBibleStudy, I said it this way: 

A body without a breath is only a body. A church without the Holy Spirit is only an interest group. The difference between the Ekklesia as Jesus commissioned it and any other service organization or religious group is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who assemble as the "body of Christ." Churches can do good things for its members and for the community, but without the presence of God's Holy Spirit it is not the Ekklesia.

Read the Acts of the Apostles again if you are a follower of Jesus. Heck, read if you don't trust Jesus and see what's up. Watch and listen to the roll the Holy Spirit plays in the explosive movement of God's People called the church. Watch and listen to how you are the church and see how they match. 
One note: The Holy Spirit in Acts empowered Christ Followers to act and speak boldly as witnesses to who Jesus is. He still does today. All the pew jumping and strange voices in the crowd in some churches who claim the Holy Spirit is in the house are a far cry from what God did to empower His People as the Church.

A Friend's Take on our Climbs

Our Excellent Mountain Adventures - or as Gene insists on referring to it, "Our special time at the cabin in the woods". (heavy sigh)

3 days in New Mexico hiking the tallest points in the Taos/Red River area followed by 4 days in the Colorado Rockies conquering three 14,000+ peaks. Yes we stayed in a cabin in New Mexico, courtesy of wonderful Life Group friends/family from Legacy. A 1958 cabin tucked way back in the woods alongside a small mountain lake, surrounded by pine forests and mountain ridges.

Jason was nice enough to go out and buy a brand new FJ Cruiser for our trip and Gene was nice enough to show Jason some 4-wheel drive roads that put it to the test. Within an hour of arriving in Red River, we were climbing boulder strewn roads, exploring old silver mines and speeding across water-crossings and mud bogs. Gene was having a blast, goading Jason in to trying to destroy his new ride (well not EXACTLY new. It has 700 miles on it, so why not beat the heck out of it). Jason's alternated between elation at what this machine could do and agony in seeing what nature could dish out in return.

Saturday, Gene suggested we spend the day further examining the structure, integrity and durability of Toyota vehicles. Jason suggested we go for a hike. So a short and easy warm-up hike to get acclimated to the elevation was chosen. Fellow Legacy Church attender Jon Brannin had joined us by now, so off hiking we went. Have I told you the story about when Gene took Amy and I trail running and couldn't locate Lake Grapevine? Well this would be the sequel. Gene fancies himself a bit of a Red River, New Mexico expert, having purportedly vacationed there every other year since 1923. So he suggests a nice 6 mile round trip hike to Goose Lake. 14.75 miles, 3,000 feet of vertical gain and 7 hours later, we staggered in to the ice cold creek at the trailhead to sooth our exhausted feet and legs. Gene did the full body plunge, assuming that climbing in to Jason's showroom fresh car, soaking wet would be a non-issue. Hmmmmmmm . . . . . . what to do, what to do. For the record, there are a few people in your life you should never have to see naked. Grandparents, parents and of course YOUR PASTOR! My night terrors have yet to subside.

Sunday morning Gene was asked to do the Sunday sermon at the Red River Community Center. Pretty cool seeing so many people on vacation taking time to come and worship in the large, log constructed building. The crowd tended to skew a little on the "senior" side, in fact I think a few of them actually attended high schoolk with Jesus, but Gene's messag was perfectly aligned with the mountain setting and he received rave reviews. Not to mention he significantly outdrew the previous week's guest preacher.

After the service was concluded, we put on our full backpacks for the hike to Lost Lake, which would be our overnight camp site before our summit climb of Wheeler Peak (13,161 - the highest point in NM). A long hike with plenty of climbing and toting 40 pound packs, provided another healthy workout. We arrived at the lake at 11,500 feet enjoyed beautiful scenary and absolute peace and quiet, far from cell signals and e-mail. We had a roaring campfire (thanks to Gene's guidance and patience teaching Jason and I the ancient secret of starting a fire in the wilderness. (Paper . . . . . wood . . . . . . lighter . . . . . . Oooooooooh) Enjoyed a dehydrated dinner (Teriyake Chicken - Mmmmmmm, actually pretty good). Some locals camping near by came by and offered us some freshly cooked elk steaks. It was amazing. Gene was noticably less enthused. He took the greasy chunk of meat as if someone had handed him a dog turd. Pretended to chew on it for a few minutes and then inexplicably just tossed it on to a log in the fire, right in front of the proud hunter who provided it while we all sat there pretending we didn't see it sitting there sizzling on top of the log. You can't take him anywhere nice. After settling in to our tents (individual tents located a significant distance from one another - no Brokeback Mountain references even for a laugh) we settled in and got to enjoy the soothing sound of rain falling. Bliss!!!!

Wheeler Peak provides a solid climbing challenge but the overnight at Lost Lake cuts down significantly on the hiking distance, so we were on the summit by mid-morning. Breezy and a little chilly but otherwise the weather (as it was all week) was flawless. Somewhere along the way the conversation turned to the soap that was in the cabin. Jason just mentioed that it smelled good and Jon quickly excitedly responded, "They have it at Bed, Bath and Beyond!" You ever say something and just as the last word is leaving your mouth think - "Oh no, what have I done?" We immediately pulled Jon's Man Card and banished him to the back of the line for a 30 minute penalty. We hiked all the way back to the trailhead and back in to Red River for a great meal and the last nights sleep in a bed for a while.

Spent all day Tuesday making our way up to Colorado. It was a rest day so we had nowhere to be anytime soon. This meant that Jason was free to pull over every 3 1/2 minutes to take a picture of a retro sign, a rusty wheel or a freakin' old truck. "Stop the car . . . . . STOP THE CAR!!! That truck was made before 1985, I MUST capture it's essence in a photograph!" It was like vacationing with a cross between Annie Liebowitz and Richard Simmons. Thus the 4 hour drive from Red River to Lake City took us just 9 hours. But we have a photo album of old motel signs that you wouldn't believe! And we did get a chance to discover the incredible cuisine (seriously) of Kip's in Creede, Colorado. Also seriously, if you haven't seen some of Jason's really unique photography, find a way to check it out. He finds some pretty cool stuff you and I would never see.

Base camp for our three 14,000 summits in Colorado was Grizzly Gulch, 15 miles outside of Lake City and 11,600 feet above sea level. We got there and immediately noticed a big red sign alerting us to the recent bear attack in the area. Disneyworld? New York? A Cruise? No, let's go sleep on the ground for 3 nights, in a small vinyl bubble and offer ourselves up as an appretizer for any foraging wild animal that wanders by. Great idea guys! We met three more Legacy friends (Mike, Jack and Doyle) here and made plans for our three summit climbs. Mike and Jack had already attempted Handies the day before and came up just short.

So Wednesday morning we loaded up and drove (crept) over a treacherous 4WD road to the Handies trailhead. (4 mile drive took 45 minutes) It was a shorter route but shorter, when combined with climbing simply means a lot more steep sections. It was a solid but achievable summit effort and we placed five of our group on top. Mike came up short but as I explained to him, still outperformed 99.9% of the 68 year-old men with knee replacements in the world. Gene, Jason, Jack, Jon and I managed to summit and the vistas from 14,048 feet were incredible. Perfect weather allowed us to stay on top for almost an hour before heading back down.

Jack had decided not to include the Red Cloud/Sunshine double summit climb to his itinerary. But his Handies triumph and Gene's able pace-setting (in mountain climbing, as in trail running and marathons, Gene is a pace guru!) encouraged him to alter his plans. Of course some of us morons (read: me) think that pacing yourself is over-rated, which would explain my occasional pauses to push my lungs back down my throat. We were planning an Alpine start, which means you depart well before sunrise, since the double was reported to be a 10 hour excursion and they strongly suggest you be off the summits before afternoon to avoid exposure to seasonal thunderstorms. Some of us indeed did do an Alpine Start. Gene, Jack and Jon effectively snuck out of camp at 5:30 AM, leaving Jason and I asleep in our tents. Nice! Legacy Mountaineers - where no one hikes alone - unless the 3 stooges want to get a head-start and leave you behind. So Jason and I got a 60 minute gap to make up and were determined that it would be done before the first summit. Jason of course had run them down seemingly within minutes of us leaving camp and was on the first summit before the rest of us even started the final 1,000 foot climb. Those final climbs are a real test. The photo's do not do them justice. Very steep. Constant switchbacks to make the climb even possible and loose rock and gravel that requires careful steps to make forward progress. We managed to conquer Red Cloud which left Sunshine only a mile away and what appeared to be a casual downhill stroll to the saddle between and then a gentle 500 foot climb to the summit of Sunshine. As miles goes, that one was the longest of my life. And 500 feet sounds like a little but feels like a LOT! This is where your legs feel just like they did at mile 95 in Wichita Falls just a few weeks ago. We pressed on, climbed as a team and summited as one to conclude a week of adventure. (Or so I thought).

The standard return to our camp was six miles right back the way we came. Which meant back down to the saddle, back up Red Cloud and then 5 miles of switchbacks to the trailhead. We had read that there was a "short-cut" that saved a mile and avoided re-summitting Red Cloud. Only issue was the guide said it was not recommended and considered dangerous. The only intelligent choice was to take the standard route back. Only problem was we only had two intelligent people in our party - Gene and Jack, who did not hesitate and started back up Red Cloud, despite being throughly spent. Jason, Jon and I decided to try the maligned short-cut. There was some hint of trail and some we made up. For an hour we picked our way across and down a steep and wide slope of talus (loose, jagged rock that often slides away when you put weight on it). We were feeling pretty good about our choice (we could easily see Gene and Jack trudging up the return to Red Cloud) until we found ourselves on top of a 60 foot cliff with no obvious way down. We saw a chute that looked promising (read: only kindof suicidal) and started scooting down on our rear ends. Jason put his feet on some talus and started a slide toward the cliff face. A slide in which he remained a key component. Jon and I decided to reverse course and scrambled back to the top. Jason's head peaked above the rim a few minutes later. He didn't look happy. Frankly, he looked like he might have soiled himself. For the record, I don't think he did. Though after 5 days in the wilderness we all smelled a bit "seasoned" so I can't be sure. We found another route that had sufficient hand-holds and foot-holds to get us to a point where we only had to climb down a sheer vertical face of maybe 10-15 feet. Once back on reasonably horizontal ground we all were unanimous in declaring our decision to take the short-cut INSPIRED and our cliff climbing experieince, AWESOME!

Our short-cut did allow us to make it back to camp before Gene and Jack, who put in the full double-summit hike a full 15 minutes faster than the 10 hour book time. The entire trip was so much fun. Great group of guys. Incredible serenity and scenary. When was the last time you saw the Milky Way in all it's splendor? When was the last time you had a group of Mule Deer wander through your campsite at dusk while you sat 15 feet away? And for the record, Jason climbs like he rides and only summits with us because he chooses to. And the pictures he provided of the entire trip are amazing and (I'm assuming) FREE! I highly recommend taking a audio/visual creative genius with you on your next vacation. Finally, I love Gene Wilkes the Pastor. I throughly enjoy Gene Wilkes the cyclists. But I'm hear to tell you, Gene Wilkes the Mountaineering Adventurer is THE BOMB! Come for a bike ride soon and we'll share some of our favorite Gene moments, comments and stuff we just made up to embarass him. Stories that I simply can't share here, because a permament record of them would eliminate plausible deniability and we all have day jobs we want to keep!

Ride on,

Jim