Scouting Colorado

This weekend my wife and I left the boy and the dog with my parents and we headed up to Colorado. We had a great time…by far the longest alone time we’ve had since Samuel was born 6.5 months ago. It was fun to pray with one another and dream about planting a church in such a beautiful place around some really great people. While I’m still reflecting on our trip, some of the nuts and bolts of it were as follows.
Friday we flew into Denver International and headed straight for downtown. We hit the 16th Street Mall (several blocks lined with shops, restaurants, and bars). We ate at Paramount Cafe and then checked a few spots, but had to leave to meet Dan Thoemke in Golden. Golden was awesome…surrounded on three sides by mountains, a nice small town feel, but the seat of the largest county in Colorado (population-wise). Dan is a pastor of a house church, but is very involved with a co-op of several churches from different denominations in Golden. It was cool to hear what’s going on there. After our meeting we hit Red Rock Ampitheater, the largest natural ampitheater in the U.S. It was pretty cool…it’s definitely appealing to have so many cool things to see and do so close. After that we headed up I-25 to Fort Collins in a snow-storm. Not a lot of snow, but the wind was really blowing. We pulled up to the Clyde and Debbie’s house and spent the rest of the night talking with them and hanging out with their daughter Shelby and insane dog Harley.
Saturday, Debbie drove us around Ft. Collins a little and after lunch we checked it all out again. We drove around the Colorado State University campus a bit and also went to Old Town. It’s a nice city, and as everyone will tell you if you visit, the #1 place to live in America. Sidenote-Old Town is home to some of the best pizza I’ve had…check out Beau Do’s if you’re ever up that way. It was really good. After we drove around Ft. Collins a little more, looking at houses and the mountains (they’re hard to resist), we headed to Greeley. Greeley has a much older/unkept feel to it when compared to Ft. Collins, but it was nice and has potential. The University of Northern Colorado is there and it was a nice campus. There are a lot of new homes on the Ft. Collins/Loveland side of the town, but one thing really got to Denalyn and I. It smells like…well let’s just say it really stinks. I may be a bit weird in that I don’t mind the country smell of cow’s and what comes with them, but this was WAY TOO MUCH. We later found out that there were a couple of slaughter houses around town which explains it, but doesn’t make it any more easier on the senses. After Greeley, we headed to Loveland to meet with Jim Mislowski. Another great guy and helping to coordinate a group of church planting churches…that’s what I’m talking about! We had a great time with him and then we were able to meet some of his church members as they ate together before their worship service (by the way - I hope your wife’s feeling better Jim). We split before church to catch the second half of Shelby’s soccer game with the Dean’s. They lost 2-1, but Shelby has tryouts this week - good luck! - so she’ll have to recover quickly. After the game we went back to Old Town and had Starbuck’s before heading back to the house to get some sleep.
Sunday we went to church in Windsor with the Dean’s and met their pastor Dave Samples breifly. He’s got a great presence about him and is leading a quality church. They are looking to plant in a town south of them (Miliken, CO) which is a bedroom community. After the service we headed to Severance, another small (about 3,000 people) bedroom community east of Ft. Collins and then we headed to Beau Do’s for pizza with the Dean’s. After lunch we drove down 287, along the front range of the Rockies, through Longmont, Loveland, Boulder (neat place, lots of parks and trails, cool architecture - the Austin of Colorado) and then to our hotel near the airport. We hit the hay early and got rested before our return flight.
Monday we flew home and got to see our boy. It seems like he’s grown and changed, just in the few days we were gone. It’ll be even worse for me when I go to Vietnam for 10 days in March, but I’ve got a long time with that little guy.

Soon I’ll touch more on what we learned about possibly church planting in Colorado. For this post the moral is that it was a beautiful place with some great people and a lot to do. Hopefully before too long we’ll be able to spend more time there really trying to get a solid feel for the culture. Thanks for reading my thoughts (sorry if you’re from Greeley and I hurt your feelings)…there’ll be more later.