Moved Mountains

Banner - Mt Trio, Stirling Range National Park, Western Australia - (c) 2007

Sunday, July 22, 2007

A Weekend with Forge

Alyssa and I just got back to Binningup after a weekend in Perth at our first Forge intensive.

This is actually the first time either of us has had the opportunity to face-2-face it with other "emerging" individuals in the local area (well almost local - we are 2 hours drive away from most of them).

The weekend was interesting with today's sessions being the highlight for me. We heard predominantly from Geoff and Sherry Maddock from Communality (this is their blog - the Ashram) in Lexington Kentucky and Olivia MacLean and Stuart Davey from the Solace community in Melbourne.

One of the highlights for me was the look at community these two different manifestations of the missional church presented. The Solace guys led us through some interactive/contemplative activities, one of which asked us to model from clay something that we covet. I "sculpted" a rather crude representation of community - something that I covet, and not always for the right reasons.

Overall the weekend was fruitful and I was able to make contact with some others who are struggling with and journeying on a similar road - always a good thing, made better in that it was in the flesh and face to face!

2 comments:

Shannon said...

Sounds like a great meeting. I hope you were able to be strengthened by it! Lexington, KY, eh? I have a brother that lives in Lexington. :) Beautiful place.

The Creature said...

Yeah it was good - especially because Alyssa was with me. I really feel we need to do these things together as she is so much a part of the ministry that is taking place in our world. So I would day we were definitely strengthened by it.

My sister lived in Lexington for a while too! She was an exchange student.

I am more and more wanting to come visit the US - especially now that I am getting to know so many people from there. I would love to tour around and hang out with y'all and see first hand the kind of things you are doing.

While I think there is a danger in us too closely mirroring any "foreign" church, there is also a lot we can learn from each other. The trick is to contextualize what we learn, making it relevant to our own situations rather than simply transplanting it.

Well, gotta run, I'm off to a coffee meeting with my social work/youth work colleagues - gotta try and think of a way of explaining what I did on the weekend to them!