Postkiwi

It’s been a full 24 hours at the Queensland Synod gathering on the Gold Coast. Last night we had the induction of the new moderator, David Pitman. I filled in for David at Albert St Uniting while he was on long service leave last year. The three months gave me a sense of David’s big shoe size. The story on David’s beginning as moderator’s at JourneyOnline.

This morning we thanked and farewelled Alan Kuchler, the fair moderator - the one who has carried the Synod’s pain.

We then introduced the Vision for Mission - a way to invest in the development of off-the-edge missional communities. I introduced the Synod to missionaries Tim Hodgson, Beatriz Skippen, Stephen Templeton and Peter Armstrong, along with the work of Mark Cornford and Yvonne McRostie. We (Mission Consultants) had a good response to Peter’s story of using the Journeys DVD at a street party.

After lunch we meet in small working groups of eight. My job was to make sure we had good discussion questions and that each group had a facilitator. This afternoon’s small agenda was the vision for mission - how it might be played out in our local patch.

Later in the afternoon we had a ‘time of listening’ in which table groups listened to the perspectives of migrant ethnic church members and leaders - on the matter of homosexuality and leadership. The story’s online at Journey.