Home again!
Good to be back home! Apart from the Mrs, I missed hot baths and fresh fruit smoothies!
The last couple of days at Cliff included input from John and Olive Drane, around ecclesiology and leadership. Also some good stuff from George Lings around church planting, Fresh Expressions and Mission Shaped Church.
George made some interesting observations that among Anglicans the idea of "fresh expressions" has found more currency than "Mission Shaped" - but that may have led to lots of stuff taking the label "fresh" and the "mission" part being neglected. What matters is that church and mission flow from and lead to one another, even if stylistically the result isn't hip or trendy. It seems that "emerging/postmodern" is just one strand of the whole picture for George, which I think make sense.
George also place great emphasis on the notion of "dying to live", and the need for us to seek reproduction rather than cloning in our church planting.
Great stuff - now I have to knuckle down and pick an assignment!