A good congress

The congress is over., Yesterday went really well with about 20 people responding at the end of the evening session on Luke 10. Tomorrow, I fly to Gran Canaria to preach in two churches, stay overnight nd then on to La Palma to meet the team there, led by a wonderful German/Spanish couple, and then back to Lanzarote on Tuesday evening. Should be fun.

It's been great to meet so many wonderful people over the past couple of days and intriguing that so many are from places other than the Canaries - quite a few from Argentina, some from Chile and Columbia. Indeed many have commented on how transnational the churches are here, often to the extent that there are very few Canary Islanders among them!

I've had a number iof invitations to return, so it might not be my last visit here. Next time, I'll combine with a holiday and bring Linda, however.

Off on our travels

We're off to Spring Harvest in the morning. We'll be making our annual pilgrimage to Skegness and joining somewhat diminished pastoral team for a week. It's always a blast and hopefully we do some good in the lives of those who cross our paths.

I shall be picking up my thoughts on Alan Roxborough's book while I'm there and hopefully posting them as I write them.

After Spring Harvest, we're looking forward to a few days in York chilling, and then a friend's wedding in Huddersfield (which offers the chance to catch up with a load of people we've not seen for ages). It should be a really good few days.

Packing (or avoiding it...)

I'm meant to be packing for the flight to Prague tomorrow but it's too hot. So I'm pottering about the study listening to latest Word CD - a collection of the month's best new-ish music that comes free with the magazine of the same name (there's always a band or singer I've never heard of who ends up joining my list of must-have new music - though nothing yet).

I've also been reading a section of a manuscript on Milton (about whom I know very little, really) because the book's editor wanted me to check out the theology. Milton was not particularly orthodox - denying the Trinity, seeing Jesus as the same substance but not the same essence as God (whatever that means) - but he shared the apocalyptic fervour of many of his contemporaries and wrote sublime prose as well as poetry.

It's reawakened an interest in the English Revolution but I've resisted the urge to pack all my Christopher Hill books (though it was a close thing with his wonderful study of the influence of the Bible on the thinking of the revolutionaries and royalists alike).

The decks are now cleared for our departure. The sun is shining in Prague - and looks set to for the next five days - which is excellent. we're really looking forward to chilling out.

One of the things we've enjoyed on each of our previous visits to IBTS is being part of the worshipping community, sharing prayer and learning with people from all over central and eastern Europe.

The nest is emptying

It's all go here. My younger daughter is off to Australia in the morning so it's been packing and ensuring that she's got everything she needs - though as we never tire of pointing out, she is going to a first world country with shops and stuff!

I'm sure I'm not old enough to have a daughter of an age to go off down under for eight months. But it seems I am. With her older sister away at university, our nest is going to feel somewhat empty and quiet.

I took delivery this morning of a print to order copy of Edwin Hatch's The Organisation of the early Christian Churches and found to my surprise that there are hand-written annotations all over the text. Thinking these were in pencil, I got a rubber and started to rub them out. They are not in pencil; they are printed. It's extraordinary.

I have emailed the supplier to see if they can throw some light on it. Judging by the notes that I can read, this original reader, apart from having lovely handwiritng of a clasic kind, thought the book was pretty good!

I also received Eckhard Schnabel's Early Christian Mission (both volumes) as a gift from IVP (for reading some stuff for them and being an all-round nice person!). It's probably not something I'd have bought my self (the price is somewhat off-putting), but it looks fascinating and extremely comprehensive. I shall enjoy dipping into it.

Now I'm off to prepare a roast dinner - a last supper before my second-born heads off to the other side of the planet.

Prague in the autumn

Just returned from Prague where we were staying at IBTS with a group of friends from church. Had a fab time. I'll blog about it later.

Suffice to say that Prague is a beautiful and intriguing place, small enough to walk round, big enough to lose yourself in. It's awash with great places to eat and wonderful cafes where reading books and magazines and taking as long as you like over a coffee is expected.

In the meantime, I've got to sort out what's happening tomorrow...

Scottish thoughts

Back from Scotland. We has a really wonderful time - the sun even shone for part of a day!

We received fabulous hospitality from Margaret and Andrew; Stuart guided us effortlessly around the working bits of our trip (thanks to them for their kindness and generosity); and it was good to catch up with friends and family.

The Scottish Baptist College's thanksgiving service went really well and what I said seemed well received (I had been somewhat wound up about it...) And cafe church at St Ninians in stirling was a blast. People joined in the conversation about shining as stars (from Philippians 2) and helped one another dream about the difference they could make in their neighbourhood.

This is what cafe gatherings are all about, it seems to me. It's a more democratic way of being church and Stuart is right (on his blog) to suggest that you wouldn't get an 'I have a dream speech' at a cafe church. This is not to say that the person leading a cafe-style gathering doesn't need to prepare and be pretty clear what they want to communicate and how they want the conversation to go.

But I find the unpredictability of the cafe format exhilarating. While I have prepared what I want to say, the table talk can often raise issues that I hadn't thought of or which force me to explain or unpack an idea I've just shared. this means people get what I'm trying to say and have begun to work with it. It also means that I learn. It was great to hear the insights of people yesterday as they processed what I'd said and applied what I'd shared to their lives.

Off to Scotland

Linda and I are off to Scotland in the morning.

I'm speaking at the graduation service of the Scottish Baptist College tomorrow evening. I'm really looking forward to it - though I am also gripped by entirely understandable panic!

Then we hope to see family, catch up with friends, see some sites and generally relax before pitching up at St Ninians church in Stirling on Sunday morning where I'm going to talk about new ways of being church in a sort of cafe-style, conversationally-based morning service.

So, no blogging until next week.