It’s been a busy few days and I need to get up early in the morning to travel to Weston Super Mare to meet up with some of our centres working in the south west.

But I wish to write some reflections on the past few days – I welcome the discipline of reflection and writing and have a concern that the less I do this, the less I force myself to stop and reflect.

The church planting conference last week was a great day and a good opportunity to catch up with some friends, and make new ones. I had some concerns which I shared in one of the workgroups that a ‘motivation’ given for church planting was that the church was in decline and so we needed to plant. I have a problem with that. I think we plant because God has started to do things. Motivation from a negative self preservation stance is always going to be artificial and humanaly motivated wheras the creation of new church as a response to God must be the only possible way forward.

My day in London was a time to meet with a variety of people. It was great to be able to meet up with Andrea Minichiello Williams, of LCF and Christian Concern, who I have not seen since we left Weymouth Grammar School some 24 years ago! Andrea was one of those people at school who was integral to my coming to faith. We shared stories and I left the meeting glad that we were able to find the time catch up and very conscious that Andrea needs the support of our prayers as she deals with many complex issues of todays society.

Afterwards I caught up with John Baxter Brown from Churches Togethr in England to chat a little about the Olympics and Greenbelt. Afterwards I was able to check out a coffee shop with Rachael before meeting SEITE friends to think about worship using a Labyrinth at our next residential.

Packed days … I love them!