Sunday, September 09, 2012
Refresh-ing in the mid-North
It’s been a fabulously refreshing weekend in the mid-North of rural South Australia. We drove up on the Friday night and stayed in a cabin at the Laura Camping Ground.
There were around 45 folk from all over the mid-North, from Hawker to Kadina, that gathered at Jamestown on the Saturday. The theme was “Getting on with mission” and I did about 3 hours input in the morning. We explored
- Biblical images of mission
- what is church?
- engaging our communities
This is some of our work from Saturday. Folk had been invited to use a pipe cleaner to make a symbol of their community. This moved into a time of intercession and then were laid on the communion table, as part of a response. (I shared my dog scoffed the communion story and then mission implications, which went down a treat!)
Today we wandered back slowly. A visit to the Stone Hut – a bakery in the middle of nowhere (an image of mission if I ever saw one), then a walk through one of nature’s cathedral’s – Bunderleer Forest.
It was just gorgeous with the sun on our backs and birdsong tweeting their praise to the Creator.
This was followed by a visit to another spiritual place, Annies Lane in Watervale, before arriving home in time to try and do some of the gardening left undone what with having been away for the last 2 weekends.
This weekend ends my commitment to Refresh. As Principal I’ve met a whole range of rural folk, spread over a vast range of South Australia, from Robe, to Eyre Peninsula to Jamestown. It’s been great to be presenting in relation to College’s passion and concern for mission. It’s been a very, very helpful orientation to some of the training needs and complexities of the Synod.
Love the bakery imagery of mission:-)
Comment by Olive Fleming Drane — September 9, 2012 @ 11:22 pm