October has come and with it an event that has been months in the planning. The kiwi-made preaching forums are just around the corner.
75 Questions will be asked by 49 Question-askers in 3 venues around the country (Auckland - October 25; Waikanae - October 27; Christchurch - October 29).
It is designed to be 'kiwi-made', with every single Question-asker being someone wrestling with preaching in this Kiwi context. It is conceived not so much as a seminar filled with answers from the experts, but as a forum filled with questions from a few thinkers. And it addresses what we know as 'the sermon', a feature of the gathered Christian community which is often maligned even as it continues to persist.
We aim to provoke, spurring minds into thinking new thoughts, by providing a smorgasbord of options from which those minds can be fed. And the 'but wait there's more' feature of the forum?
Chris Wright - in demand all over the world as an author, Old Testament scholar, leader within the Lausanne movement, and International Director of Langham Partnership International - is coming all the way from the UK just to be our companion for the journey. While we Kiwis are asking the Questions through the day, Chris will open and close each forum with an Exclamation.
The first forum was held in April 2009. It was the highlight of my working life. "That is a big call, Paul." Yes, it is - but I mean it. We were overwhelmed by more than 200 people from all around the country. Someone came up to Auckland from Mosgiel for the day! The people, the questions, the space, the tone, the hospitality, the subject, the community - all of it contributed to an exhilarating day. Whether we can reproduce it all again is probably more in God's hands, but we sure are gonna try with both our planning and our praying.
One outcome of that first forum was the establishing of a website, with various interactive features, as it gathers a virtual community and resources it. Have a browse here.
The forums are brought to you by Langham Partnership New Zealand, in partnership with Tertiary Students' Christian Fellowship (TSCF) and Carey Baptist College. Costs are $75 (waged); $30 (unwaged); $300 (groups of 5 from a single church). Registration is a simple step-by-step process on-line here.
Please register now - for catering purposes (lunch is provided), as well as to secure your first selection of Questions from the smorgasbord. Registration on-the-day will cost $95 to encourage this early response.
nice chatting
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