This last year has been a doozy. For me, the difficulties began long before the pandemic and lockdown.

A key staff member transitioned from our church last summer. Then dozens of new people started attending our church—which was a great encouragement—but lots of them wanted to join small groups we didn’t have, and we had to scramble. Then our church formed a pastoral search team to look for a new pastor, which took time away from regular ministry I didn’t have, time to attend meetings and time to read resumes and packets from candidates. Additionally, I officiated five weddings over a few months and went through the ordination process in my denomination, which culminated in a forty-page theological paper and a four-hour oral exam. And on top of all this, I had a massive surgery on my right shoulder, which had me in a sling for six weeks and sleeping in a recliner for months. This all took place from July to November. As I said, this last year was a doozy, even before the pandemic hit.

But I’m not writing to talk about the challenges. I’m writing to mention one of the highlights of the last year. In the middle of October, another pastor at our church and I drove from Harrisburg on a road trip to Louisville. We went to the annual Sojourn Network conference for church leaders.

Everything about the trip felt inconvenient. I had just undergone my shoulder surgery and was still on heavy drugs, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t reach down to tie my shoes! My friend and fellow pastor had to tie my shoes for me, which was super humbling. By mid-October our church was also in the thick of the hiring process. I have a big family, and being away from them always presents challenges and causes me to miss some sporting event or another. And when we got ready to drive to the conference, my friend and I realized that we’d goofed on the timing. It takes over nine hours to drive to Louisville from central Pennsylvania, not seven hours like we had thought.

Yet even with all these obstacles stacked against having a wonderful time at the conference, it was the highlight of the year. I’ve been to many pastors’ conferences, and you always feel a little out of place, like the people in attendance are not going through all the trials you are, not to mention they often don’t share the same theological vision for ministry. But at last year’s Sojourn Network conference I felt more at home than at any conference I’ve ever attended.

James K.A. Smith taught on Augustine and true friendships, which made for a great backdrop to meet in person several friends I had only previously met online. Kevin Twitt led us in corporate worship. We sang gospel-saturated hymns I had never heard before, but it was like my heart knew them already. There was a panel discussion on mental health and ministry—so refreshing. I sat in the back of the auditorium, in a not so healthy mental headspace myself, and I drank down ninety minutes of encouragement that I didn’t know I needed as badly as I did.

This year, the conference is online, which means you don’t even have to road trip nine hours to attend. The event takes place October 13–14. You can read more about it here. The conference has a great lineup of speakers including Chuck Degroat, Justin Giboney, Karen Swallow-Prior, Scotty Smith, Stephen Um, and a dozen other leaders covering topics like wholehearted leadership, friendship, diversity, conviction and imagination, and renewal-driven mission.

If you’d like to attend, Sojourn Network generously gave me a code to get a 20% discount off the price of registration. I can’t publish the code on my website, but just subscribe to my blog or email me, and I’ll be happy to share it with you.

If this blog post feels like a big commercial, just know this is precisely the same thing I’d tell you if you and I were sitting socially distanced at a Starbucks talking about what might pour much-needed encouragement into your weary heart.