sustain:if:able kiwi

fresh words and deeds

The next months will include me speaking in Charlesville (end of June) and Sydney (end of July) and Jerusalem (middle of September). The occasion is the National Ministers Conference. Every three years, the President of the Uniting Church invites Ministers from across the church in Australia to a week of refreshment and input. The conferences occur in three different locations, designed to give a unique contextual shape. In this case rural and remote, multi-cultural and inter-faith.

In addition, there is a core program of 4 sessions of which I’m responsible, along with my colleague, Rosemary Dewerse. In discussion with President Andrew Dutney, I suggested the theme of fresh words and deeds, rifting off my interest in innovation and the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church, in which the church “prays that she may be ready when occasion demands to confess her Lord in fresh words and deeds.” Here is what I was thinking when I was asked for a theme …

Here’s some of the conference blurb:

Steve Taylor and Rosemary Dewerse – two outstanding missiologists, communicators and educators. They’re planning a series of interactive, multi-sensory, reflective processes that will help a bunch of UCA ministers to imagine what the commitment made in the Basis of Union might mean for us today: “The Uniting Church thanks God for the continuing witness and service of evangelist, of scholar, of prophet and of martyr. She prays that she may be ready when occasion demands to confess her Lord in fresh words and deeds.” (Paragraph 11)

It is a significant time commitment, but a great opportunity to connect with the church throughout Australia and to be involved in three very different experiences.