Between a lovely day off on Monday (public holiday here in NZ) and a busy day yesterday (travelling to Auckland for a day and evening meeting) this week's post is delayed till ... it's Wednesday already!
On Saturday we held a day long diocesan conference with the theme, Living Faith.
About 400 people participated (thanks be to God) and we heard from a variety of plenary speakers and panellists, the lead three of whom were Bishop Eleanor Sanderson (Hull, England, formerly of Wellington, NZ), Dallas Harema (Christchurch), and Grant Norsworthy (Nelson, with music background years in Australia and the USA).
Everyone was great; the music was excellent, the organisation was superb; the venue was amazing (CBHS auditorium) ... and the weather was lousy (wet, cold, miserable) but at least no one was sitting there thinking about what they could have been doing in the garden (Labour Weekend being an excellent time in Christchurch for planting things outdoors such as tomatoes). Again, thanks be to God!
What were the takeaways from the conference? There were many but they (in my summary view) boiled down to this: all we have to offer a questioning, cynical, indifferent community beyond the church is our Jesus-shaped lives. Discipleship - discipleship which multiplies - disciples making disciples - Jesus-shaped people encouraging Jesus-shaped people is critical to the present and future of the church.
We who have a living faith long to see others also have what we treasure and what shapes our lives for good. When we look to Jesus to see what he did, we see Jesus making disciples who make disciples.
Let it be so.
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