Greg just left for sabbatical… don’t tell him I sent this 😬
First of all, my name is Tommy Carreras - great to meet you all! 👋 I’ll tell you more about my story in just a minute.
To be clear, Greg actually did ask me to send around a quick update on his behalf! He left yesterday for a totally-disconnected-from-email sabbatical. And as I’m sure every person in the Sherpa community would agree, this 6 weeks of rest is well-deserved and we’re all cheering him on!
On a logistical note: Greg won’t be checking his email until about May 24, but you can feel free to show up at his house unannounced and ask him any question you’d like…
(Just kidding, but you can feel free to email me at tommy@donewithstuck.com and I’ll either get you what you’re looking for, point you in the right direction, or we can just chat and be new friends 👍)
While I’ve got you here, I wanted to share my Assimilayas story, because… well, we’re all suckers for a story, right??
I don’t know how long you’ve been following Greg, but I was at his very first Base Camp ever with about a dozen other people. I was brand new to ministry, had been overseeing groups for about a year at a 4-year-old fast-growing church plant, and had just picked up the assimilation process after a volunteer leader no longer had the margin.
While I had plenty of ambition and opinions about assimilation… I had
zero answers,
zero practical steps to take,
(and what seemed like)
zero places to turn for help.
Until I started climbing those good ol’ Assimilayas.
Fast forward a few years, and our connection engine is humming—around 20% of new guests are finding their way into a group or onto a team. And here’s the part that I love most about not just Greg’s process, but who he is to the core: nothing I was doing “looked” like what Eastside was doing.
The particulars, details, verbiage, and nuance of my connection strategy was totally distinct from his - but you couldn’t investigate one bit of mine without drawing a clear line back to his.
And Greg loved that. He still loves it! He loves casting a vision and seeing it lived out in radically different contexts and cultures. He loves providing tools and watching the endless creativity they inspire.
Above all else, he loves watching more (and more) ((and more)) people meet Jesus, find their place in the family of God, and understand just how valuable their place in the Kingdom really is.
If you couldn’t tell, Greg Curtis is one of my personal heroes - and he’s probably high on your list, too. That’s why I figured I’d take this sneaky opportunity to share, also so I could ask you to join me in praying.
And to be clear, this isn’t one of those “uh-oh” sabbaticals - it’s the healthy version that looks like prioritizing rest and gearing up for the next season of Kingdom impact.
But please join me in praying for Greg and his wife Michelle (the real brains of the operation), that they’d be refreshed, revitalized, and encouraged as they spend this time with each other and with their family.
(and if any of you need that same kind of prayer, sabbatical of not, please send it over to me at tommy@donewithstuck.com - Greg and I both would love the chance to pray for you if you’re feeling discouraged, disenfranchised, or disillusioned. It’s been a loooooooong few years…)
That’s all I’ve got for you—thanks for listening 😬
Much love,
Tommy Carreras
PS
If you’re in the praying mood, please feel free to add in a prayer for wisdom and clarity regarding what might or might not be coming next for Climbing the Assimilayas… there may or may not be pretty exciting stuff in the works over here…
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
