Conferencing, Exploring Auckland & More Rain

"It's time to shut up...and enjoy this holy space." -Donna Dinsmore

Building on yesterdays worship session our worship leader exhorted us to enter into communal worship, esp. the space created by silence, and to enjoy being before God. This really struck me as I feel as I have spent much of the last 5 years of full throtle go, and have to work hard to carve out space to be and esp. be before God. This is space is something I am trying hard to allow space for on this trip.

Today I was on a panel on Religion & Theological Education with Paul Saunders who is based in Lebanon as director of ICETE & Alex Awad a professor at Bethelehem Bible College. I wasn't sure what to expect but the panel went well and was even fun. I learned some interesting bits about the challenges of Arab Christians living in the Middle East and was able to my own experience working with Muslims & Jews in Israel. I also found out I shared an experience with Paul, his being in Beruit while I was in Haifa during the bombings last summer.

This afternoon I joined members of the SPABC conference on an outing to Devenport, which involved a 12 min ferry ride to a small community on a penninsula in Auckland Harbour (note pic above). We enjoyed a a hike up mount Victoria before getting caught in a bucketing downpour where we hurried down to the closest coffee shop we could find for a quick cuppa and to dry out. I had several interesting conversations on on Emerging Church & theological education in Australia with several particpants.

Overall as the above picture indicates, it was a g'(ood) day!