I'm a pretty sleepy Trundle in the office today. Tuesday evening I returned from six days of camping with 300 other good friends for Transmission, 24-7 Prayer's festival for mission. I usually find it hard to judge how an event went when I'm involved in organising it but this time I can honestly say it was a great success!
With the solemn back drop of Thursday's bombings the festival was an incredible time of teaching, worship, friendship, hearing God and equipping to go make disciples. It's hard to write about because I could never fully describe the moments, conversations, whispers and atmosphere but hey, here's an attempt. My highlights include...
***The people. I always love it when the 24-7 community gathers but this was particularly great. For once we had a few days together, time to chill, talk and deepen friendship. It was fantastic to see Coxy from Kansas, Veronika from Frankfurt and get to know Andy Frost and Jo Wells from Share Jesus a little better.
***The Revs contingent. For the first time in ages there were a serious number of Chichester people at a 24-7 gathering, I loved it. My handsome man was being musician extraordinaire playing with Onehundredhours and the Revs band. I was so incredibly proud of Michaela and the boys who really stirred everyone to worship.
***The humbling moments. I forgot who I was meant to give a bunch of flowers to so stood like a goose with a microphone. I walked through the main venue with my skirt tucked into my big blue boy pants (truly humiliating) and generally stumbled, stubbed and staggered around :)
***The Transmission Team. Wardy, Mulrooney and Cally especially were absolute troopers and worked their pretty little bottoms off to make it happen.
***The diversity of teaching. I really can't explain how bizarre and wonderful this was. There were so many speakers from different disciplines and backgrounds that the event was wonderfully schizophrenic. There were things I loved and things I found really hard to listen to but chatting with Steve about it we decided that it's rare for a community to invite voices that don't completely fit with the culture of the community to shake you out of your complacency.
***Morning Prayers with Ray Simpson. This was truly one of the best elements of the weekend. Ray is from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and brought their unique brand of morning liturgy to lead us in prayer. I absolutely loved it. I was surprised how much it focused me on Jesus. I was raised occasionally attending a Catholic church so I'm fairly familiar with the format but never adopted it for my prayer life. Truly inspiring.
***Evening teaching. Ian and Pete especially impacted me. What am I building? Mission isn't about a nice little experience once a year but a lifestyle, a lifetime, a life view. Lots of questions, lots of chats over tea me thinks.
***Exploring Vows and Rules of Life. Markus and Ray spoke inspiringly about the place of orders, vow taking and monastic communities in contemporary Christianity. Really interesting, I’m preparing to take a vow my self, lots to chew over.
***The comradery. Everyone was truly fantastic throwing themselves into every aspect of the weekend. It would have been rubbish if everyone had sat back and expected to be entertained.
***Trent Sheppard. He was awesome! I love the way he talks about the story of God and unpacks the Bible. It was inspiring, fresh and passionate, lots of stars, spaceships and mud. You really need to check the 24-7 site in the next couple of weeks and get the mp3s.
***Monday morning; it all kicked off. Trent shared about going out and taking the world for the Kingdom of God. I was leading the meeting, time was pressing and logic said lets move on but I felt so challenged that if we moved on we'd miss something, it would become just another talk that would never lead to action. As we knelt in silence Tre (Trent's older Bro) jumped up and got us praying for the different spheres we were called to. He looked each group in the eye and said,
"You are our plan, go out and change the world. You're our plan for education, you're our plan for government, you're our plan for the family, go make disciples, transform the culture, bring the Kingdom of God."
Lots of nervous laughter ensued and Tre looked perplexed.
"I'm serious, if we don't do it who will. You're our plan, make it happen."
I loved it, people met for coffee exchanged numbers prayed together and decided to see what would happen if we connected and started getting pro-active in the spheres of society we're part of. Watch this space.
***Pete and Samie. Thank you Lord for bringing them home in one piece. Love you guys very much.
Aaaaagghhh! There's so much more but I'm gonna stop there or I'll go on for ages. Lots of love to everyone, if you didn't make it get the mp3s, the teaching was awesome.