I've been back at work for a week now. The transition really wasn't a big deal. With good leadership at the church while I was away, there were no fires for me to put out in my return. I'm surprised too with how quickly I found my old rhythms again. The established routines for the workweek were right there waiting for me, and I fell back into them without much effort. I noticed myself, this week, already daydreaming about future travels, but right now the routine of work and rest is all I want. My preaching felt a little rusty on the first Sunday, but that'll come with some time. I tell myself even Michael Jordan struggled for a bit when he returned from his retirements.

I've been thinking about what I've learned during the summer. I'm starting to reflect on it all, what I experienced and learned. During the summer I used the Rule of St. Benedict as a lens by which I wanted to view congregational life. My hope was that I might see, from hanging abound monasteries and visiting churches, some basic practices for faithful communities of faith. I'm not trying to create a "Rule of St. Benedict for Congregations," but simply to see some basic practices among Christians that fueled faithfulness. I think there are about five of them I want to identify, and I'm going to write about each of them over the next few weeks (Spoiler Alert: the first is Hospitality).