My day off this week was rather different. A good friendship has grown up between Andrew King and Phil Heaps at Highbury and the Americans Brad Franklin and Aaron Prelock at St Giles Christian Mission. Last year they organised a conference for ministers and this year they met again St Giles. About forty ministers and prospective miisters were there. All Reformed Baptists I guess.
Phil kicked us off with an appropriate trek through the very relevant and stimulating material in Ezekiel 34. Aaron then took us to the much neglected Pastoral Rule by Gregory the Great. We had an excellent Mexican lunch and then Brad took us to Bunyan's Mr Greatheart. The final session was a discussion period led by Andrew, which went well. Several of us then crossed the road for an Indian meal to rounf off the day.
It was good to meet people I've not met before especially several young men, including two whose fathers I know and one who turned out to be the grandson of a former pastor of Childs Hill (ie the late Tony Sandys). Most of them have parents born on other continents, which is a fascinating dimension of life these days. This is a good addition to the roster of conferences for ministers, not that we are short of them. as I've thought about it the phrase "Art of shepherding" sound more and more pretentious but it was not like that at all. The very opposite.
No comments:
Post a Comment