It was a great weekend. On Friday night Bruce Hall, the Senior Minister at Carlingford for over 25 years, led a discussion about church. We focused on thinking about church as family rather than from a business perspective. It was Friday night at the end of the week and a slow but good start to our weekend.
Two things were memorable: families “waste” time together, and families “fight “and stay together. Of course, there was a lot more. Ask your group leader for a copy of Bruce’s paper.
On Saturday morning Barry Newman, one of our diocese’s leading laymen, sharpened our skills on handling the Bible. Over three hours we looked at 1 Corinthians 8-11 and a bunch of other parts of the Bible as we explored what the New Testament says about The Last Passover and the Corinthian church.
On Sunday morning Zac Veron, the CEO of YouthWorks, led our thinking about making disciples and small groups. It was a very stimulating time with much discussion.
Discipling needs to be intentional. So we thought about helping believers grow towards maturity in Christ.
Two of Zac’s biggest ideas were the value of small groups meeting weekly and the value of groups multiplying after one year and how these tied in with making new disciples.
On top of these five sessions there were two major discussion times as well as much informal discussion. The value of being away for a weekend was absolutely clear at the end. Many people suggested we do it regularly.
In fact, in about six weeks all the group leaders will be getting together to continue our discussions from the weekend. In the meantime, the Congregational Ministers will be helping the small group leaders think about growing disciples to maturity in Christ by being intentional. Intentional group leadership means thinking about every member and their individual growth towards maturity in Christ.
Of course, there was some downtime on the weekend. Many of us undertook a mild orienteering 3k stroll in the heat of Saturday afternoon and the movie, after the discussion on Saturday night, was incredibly funny. The new inner spring mattresses were good, the food was OK, and the setting on the bank of Port Hacking was stupendous.
Please thank our heavenly Father for answering our prayers. Please continue to pray. Pray for wisdom for our group leaders as we continue to develop our discipling skills. Pray for wisdom as we continue our discussions about groups for 2011.
Thanks again for praying. It was a great weekend.
Neil
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