Learning to Breathe

Yesterday I spoke at both our morning and evening congregations as part of our series of Learning, Loving and Living. I looked at the season of Lent and the art of breathing - how to stop, pause and reflect before moving on. Its not about meditating or locking yourself away it is just about building in a process, creating routine so we can 'live life to the full' and learn the 'unforced rhythms of grace'. Hopefully talk and study notes will be available at www.newcommunity.org.uk/central when Sam our technical man puts them up.

Last week I went to the Pioneer Conference in Letchworth to support Billy & Caroline Kennedy as they took responsibility of leading the network of around 90 churches in the UK from Gerald Coates who founded the movement some 30+ years ago. It was a great occasion with many recognisable faces from New Churches around the UK being there on the Thursday night to show their appreciation for Gerald and then the Friday morning was spent welcoming Billy and Caroline into the leadership of Pioneer.

There is a very clear shift taking place in the UK Church scene at the moment with Steve Clifford taking responsibility for the Evangelical Alliance and a desire for Churches to connect with their community by working in partnership across streams, denominations and networks.

A New Day? The next few years will be interesting to watch...

I am spending most of today with our Youth Worker and Childrens Co-Ordinator to look at the long term strategy of our work amongst the under 18's. The big question I am asking is that if a child is born into our community and benefits from our love, care and input for 18 years what will we be producing? We often just cope to get from week to week, but we need to start thinking generationally and long term change not just short term fix.

Will write more next week in the mean time for regular updates on the world of Sim Dendy follow me on twitter - www.twitter.com/simdendy