We just got back from London last night. Jamie, Marco and I attended the Quarterly Meeting of the Church of God in the United Kingdom. It is a time when all the churches come together for the weekend and report to each other and have a unity service. These kinds of things are very important to keep the country's leadership together.
We had a good meeting and a wonderful dinner with Pastor Mascall and his wife on Friday. We met with the leaders on Saturday, and then I spoke on Sunday.
It was a real whirlwind of a trip. We left at 5AM on Friday morning and returned at 10PM on Sunday. All three of us are completely wiped out. As you all know, London is my favorite place in the world, but there wasn't any time to enjoy the city on this trip. Our Sunday service was out in Goodmayes in North East London---a section of the city I had never been to before. T
Marco was patient with all the meetings. We did manage to sneak in a couple of hours at the British National Museum which is amazing, but that was about it. The weather in Berlin and London is about 32 degrees F this week so..it's pretty uncomfortable being outside for long periods of time. We did make a brief stop at my favorite Travel Bookstore and I bought that book about South Africa that I wrote about a couple of posts together. I am looking forward to reading it. Right now I'm reading the VS Naipaul book on African Spirituality which is turning out to be a train wreck.
As with all the places we have been visiting, the churches are in the midst of thinking about what is working, what's not working, and what kind of changes need to be made. Overall, we are very happy with the way the U.K. is encouraging and investing in their young people. And we are really looking forward to spending more time with them in the future as they re-calibrate and engage their awesome city.
This process of re-examination is one that I will probably write about in the future here on the diary.
In a mere 4 days, I'm off to Liverpool, England and Scotland. I will be getting to see our one church in the North of England for the first time and I'm really looking forward to that.
Through the magic of this thing called "technology", my phone can take pictures. If I can figure out how to get them off my phone, I'll post some. But no promises. It's me we're talking about here.