Sunday, January 14, 2007

Weekend Away

Ma heid's burstin', as you might say. The three of us are not long back from Lendrick Muir, where the ICC weekend away was held.

I have lots of stuff I want to blog about - and might actually get to before it drifts out of my mind like sand in your hands.

Things like - family life and the changes that marriage and children bring, ministry in the future, attitudes to money, modernism and postmodernism, journeying spiritually, visiting Africa, holidaying with a small person, authenticity in faith and life, new ways of being/doing 'church', looking for right answers vs asking the right questions, venturing out of my almost exclusively Christian enclave, sin - including some of the famous 7.

There are more topics there than I expected, and others might come up as/if I blog more!

Overall, though, it has been a weekend that has excited me. I haven't felt quite like this possibly since first year, and my encounter with lots of different ideas and topics around theology. Thinking about it, some of my module choices have avoided the subjects likely to bring new ideas into my head and have instead been about techniques (sermon preparation, music) or factual learning (history, languages) - though I recognise that even in these subjects, there are opportunities for mental expansion if you look. One thing's for sure - I am reconfirmed in my desire to get the most out of ICC, particularly if this is my second last term here.

However, 'getting the most' should not be (or not just be) taking as many modules as I can and racking up (or attempting to!) the good grades - which has often been my approach till now. I need to be seeking to find and think the 'big ideas' and new ideas, and integrate them into my practice - not just to get better at a technically good sermon that includes clever references and Greek/Hebrew words, or improving my listening skills for pastoral care. The stuff I need to do could lead me broadly in the same direction as our two weekend speakers: Brodie from Queen's Park Baptist and Stuart from Mosaic, both of whom are ICC graduates who are now in church leadership positions (see also Santa Fe Trail on the sidebar under 'ICC related blogs').

It's a scary thought - I could be a church leader, part of a church leadership team. Of course, I've been on course for that (as far as I'm aware) for nearly 5 years - but really (hopefully) a lifetime/since the world began (depending on your theological flavour of predestination) from God's perspective - but as this weekend's journeying theme has highlighted, it's one thing to be on the road to somewhere, and another to actually arrive. Not least because 'arrival' is probably a bit of an illusion until we reach the heavenly city, and is rather the start of the next stage of the journey...

So it's been a weekend away from ICC, away from routine (though we hadn't really got back into one from Christmas/New Year), and away from studying (oh, Hebrew homework for tomorrow...) but in a sense, it's been a weekend back - back to God, back to the journey instead of the apparently attractive side routes, back to a way of doing holiday with family that suits all of us (in comparison to our trip to Carberry last year - more on that story later!), back to what it is all about - integrating the gospel in our lives and presenting that gospel through our lives.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great time at ICC. Is that the first time you met Brodie? I've got to know him through blogging, and he's a great guy.

Nodrog said...

It was a good weekend, yes. I had lurked on his blog once or twice but never met him before. He and Stuart made a good team and used the 'team preaching' format well!