This morning was our last "Encounter" celebration. It was a precious time. I spoke, for the last time, on the theme of allowing the small, everyday things of life to speak to us of God and invite us to respond to him. For the families we have been leading the big challenges are the driving pressures of the professional workplace environment, and - for many of them - a certain amount of unhelpful religious baggage that comes (along with many good gifts) from growing up evangelical. We've sought to encourage a more holistic, generous spirituality - and we go realising how much that has been appreciated by so many.
After I spoke, we shared communion together - a small, symbolic act that represents to us something beyond what we could imagine - and then people prayed for each other at one or more of a series of seven prayer stations designed to help them meet with God through small, everyday things: representations of the bathroom mirror, shaver, toothpaste/brush, shower, towel, getting dressed, and putting on shoes, along with verses from the Bible to meditate on.
The service ended with everyone gathering around us and sending us out, with prayer and a few tears! After the service, we had a (n official) farewell lunch at the Fardon's house, christening their new barbeque. We stayed all afternoon; then on to the evening service where, as in the morning, we were commissioned and sent out...
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