Eccentric Ministers (2010)

Eleri gave me a lift to the north circular first thing where Paul Levy kindly picked me up and we headed to the Potters House in Hebron Hall, Dinas Powys, for the annual Eccentric Ministers Conference. Organised by Paul's brother Steve and his team of helpers from Mount Pleasant, Swansea. About 40 gathered I guess - lots of people I didn't know but plenty I did. We began by praying in threes. I was with my old friend Mike Leaves from Swansea, Merv Neal from Barry and Vaughan Roberts from Oxford who I'd not met personally before. After lunch Paul Mallard gave the first of two papers on suffering in the ministry. Nothing radically new here but greatly enlivened by his personal illustrations and anecdotes. After that my esteemed father-in-law addressed us with some reflections of a wise old sage. He spoke of things he wished he had done, regrets, things valued and things he was thankful for. Fascinating and lovely to hear.
We had a break then and I went with Geoff to Barry Island - nostalgia! Geoff actually lived in Barry at one point.
Later on Vaughan Roberts spoke on evangelism and ministerial training a la Phil Jensen, which was okay but a little pragmatic perhaps.
I headed off to the lounge then and enjoyed the company of several men before bed.
Steve asked me to say what a brilliant conference this is and then sang a psalm in Gaelic playing the banjo (that bit's not true but Steve thought it would be a good way of testing whether anybody reads this).