I promised to blog from the Ministers/Church Leaders Conference for the Congregational Federation. However, very poor internet connections at the Christian hotel we are using has made this impossible. Even now I will keep this brief as I can only obtain internet access in an inconvenient location at an inconvenient time!
This four day event is intended to be educational experience. However it is a rich time of fellowship with old and new colleagues, and a time of inspiration. It is also a family event as we welcome the children of ministers and have had the joy of watching (and admiring) their characters as the grow up.
This year's event is entitled "Bible Based". We have four guest speakers. These include the Revd dr Roberta Rominger (Gen Sec of the United Reformed Church), Dr Angus Paddison (a theologian from Winchester University (and one of my supervisors)), someone called David who is an expert on Bible translation, and someone called Cherryl who has worked with the Bible Society on a project. Roberta's role has been planning and leading worship and she has been excellent as well as good in drawing in other folk.
The conference is in a beautiful part of England and has a relaxed programme. As part of free time on Wednesday, Doreen and I visited Gay and Fred who were members of our church when I was ministering in Hastings. It was good to get some time together as they live not far from our venue. It was good too to discover that Gay has written a book recently. The pace is relaxed and worship and fellowship has been refreshing, while the main sessions have been usefully instructive.
Rather than try to lay the blog out to include photos I will try to load them into the slide show on the right. You can click on any to enlarge them. This also means the photos of the recent walk can now only be found on my Facebook pages.
Sunday we are at Yelvertoft. Then we are on holiday until 9th. On 8th we have a family birthday party in Portsmouth and on the Saturday I am working at Winchester University. I also need to use some time to catch up on study for Uni. We hope the splendid weather will continue. Sunday 8th the ministry at Yelvertoft will be covered by Angela - one of the ministry team.
Even though we are having something of a break we still value your prayers. Thank you.
Barry
This four day event is intended to be educational experience. However it is a rich time of fellowship with old and new colleagues, and a time of inspiration. It is also a family event as we welcome the children of ministers and have had the joy of watching (and admiring) their characters as the grow up.
This year's event is entitled "Bible Based". We have four guest speakers. These include the Revd dr Roberta Rominger (Gen Sec of the United Reformed Church), Dr Angus Paddison (a theologian from Winchester University (and one of my supervisors)), someone called David who is an expert on Bible translation, and someone called Cherryl who has worked with the Bible Society on a project. Roberta's role has been planning and leading worship and she has been excellent as well as good in drawing in other folk.
The conference is in a beautiful part of England and has a relaxed programme. As part of free time on Wednesday, Doreen and I visited Gay and Fred who were members of our church when I was ministering in Hastings. It was good to get some time together as they live not far from our venue. It was good too to discover that Gay has written a book recently. The pace is relaxed and worship and fellowship has been refreshing, while the main sessions have been usefully instructive.
Rather than try to lay the blog out to include photos I will try to load them into the slide show on the right. You can click on any to enlarge them. This also means the photos of the recent walk can now only be found on my Facebook pages.
Sunday we are at Yelvertoft. Then we are on holiday until 9th. On 8th we have a family birthday party in Portsmouth and on the Saturday I am working at Winchester University. I also need to use some time to catch up on study for Uni. We hope the splendid weather will continue. Sunday 8th the ministry at Yelvertoft will be covered by Angela - one of the ministry team.
Even though we are having something of a break we still value your prayers. Thank you.
Barry
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