Update [Nov 3]: A little background on Houston and my meeting on Nov 4 – which you can register for here.
The first time I spoke in Houston was at a Southern Baptist event in 1997 or 1998. We were running the Baptist Community Center in San Francisco at the time and working among street kids. John Berryhill had just become famous by approaching a notorious night club in Houston and telling them that God needed it for a church event. They gave it to him, of course. I also met some BGCT leaders and the next year was invited, thanks to the initiative of Chris Seay, to check out the Austin scene.
Which we did the following year and ended up working for the Baptist General Convention of Texas for 8 years, most of which was spent traveling around the USA and Europe. E.B. Brooks was my boss and in 2000, we started the Boaz Project under the Church Multiplication Center of the BGCT.
You can read about it in the Baptist Standard article "Postmodern Prophet: Casting a vision for a new generation."
But we didnt forget about Houston. When the Church Starting Center was shut down and we lost our support, the Union Baptist Association kindly received us under their wings and have offered their Texas hospitality and generosity to the Boaz Project ever since.
As well as this, we came to Houston 5 years ago for a number of meetings, including the fabulous Doxology event organized by Shannon Hopkins and Rob Pepper and some of our friends from UK and Germany.
Well that was a long time ago. Since then, The Boaz Project has been establishing relationships in about 40 countries and has supported all kinds of global ministries from Bible translation to church starting to helping rescuing vulnerable women from human trafficking.
In fact, on the last one, i caught up with Shannon Hopkins here in Houston this week. She and Jessica Stricker, and my daughter Elizabeth, have been challenging Houston churches to stop the flow of human trafficking on the I-10 corridor and support those women through a social enterprise called Sweet Notions.
Did you know:
– Texas is a major hub for human trafficking, ranking second only to California.
– Interstate 10 has been designated as the main route for traffickers by the Department of Justice.
– Houston is considered a main trafficking hub city and a major destination. In 2001, around 3,600 victims were located in Texas. The second largest trafficking bust in U.S. history occurred in Houston in 2007. SOURCE
Anyway, back to the Original Post:
On Thursday, November 4 at 10am, I am speaking to Houston pastors and mission leaders at the Union Baptist Association HQ on the subject "Trends and Travel". I hope to cover our recent ministry travels and discoveries as well as discussing the following:
How will Lausanne 3 impact your church?
What happened to the emerging church movement? failures and successes. What will happen now?
New trends in church and ministry that you really should know about.
The challenge and opportunity of of social media.
What shall we do for the 1 billion people coming online in the next decade?
Invitations have been sent out already but if you wanted to sneak in I am sure the good folk at UBA would let you in if you asked them nicely.
I know that human trafficking is a serious problem, but everywhere seems to be claiming that they are the center of the problem. I have read articles claiming that Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, Cincinatti, LA, and other places are all the center of human trafficking. I don’t want to minimize the problem, but they all can’t be the center.
thanks Adam. No one said that Houston was the center. Actually I dont think any American city is the center at all for the global scene. But from what I have read, Houston ranks below LA for USA and the I-10 corridor is a significant route.