Welcome

My new employers arranged a welcome service for me on Sunday. Although I have been working there for about 6 weeks it was still a really nice event. My old boss Tony Cant came along to speak at it and managed, in a way he always seems able to, capture the attention of all (well apart from one young person who fell asleep, he had been at a sleep over). His message of a changing world view that must lead to a changing outworking of the way that we do Church was fantastic and he managed to encapsulate much of my thinking and what i want to express to Winchmore Hill Baptist in the course of his 30 minutes (he had been given 15 minutes to speak but hey, when the materials good who cares). The message was really helpful to many i feel in helping them to think about church in a different way to what has become the norm. I'm always challenged as i try to figure out what church might look like in a 'postmodern' context and become even more confused by the realisation that this will look different everywhere as it is contextualised. Thinking outside the box is such a difficult thing to do as we can become so easilty and quickly engrained in the 'normality' of it all. My prayer at the moment is that i will be able to do this within the context within which i am working.

The actual commissioning itself was actually very meaningful for me as i made vows to the church and they made vows to work with and support me. Although i wasn't feeling to well physically i came away feeling even more convinced of God's calling to this place at this time.

Thanks to all of you who came along, it was great to see so many of you. Also a massive thank you to all of you who made the service happen (you know who you are).