food (lots of... as well as some improptu singing by kids, lots of chat and laughter together)
Sunday morning was all 'in house' leadership stuff, and in the evening a worship experience signaling God's work of 'newness' in a PCANZ that like many other churches is in the image of Andrew Bell who was guest preacher like the old Irish man dying and smelling the cheese scones he loved so much, scrambled and crawled with every bit of energy he could sum up, grasping the bannister and nearly at the table, reaches in a stretch to get a scone when he gets whacked on the hand by his wife who says " leave them alone! They're for the funeral!' Cruel perhaps, but he pointed us to this as an image of Pressie church.
Don't misread our delight at the newness we sense. There are huge issues to grapple with and some challenges mission-wise which will take many to dimensions of faith and witness they have not gone before - it will at times be painful, but we will also experience joy together!
celebrations 
music
ONe dynamic that is actually becoming quite fun in a way is the manner in which people around beyond us are very curious about us. They may even be more than curious. We've had all the 'modernity' stuff asked of us and challenge us, but I think we've managed to run the fine line to get us to the juncture now when we can begin to risk newness beyond old paradigms.What's so different? Unlike other tacks on 'mergers', this one has so many unresolved matters of facilities, money... etc. Why? no being blind and nutty, but actually grasping a dream living with it and sharing it and in the oddness beginning to capture and word a vision of mission. Mission is the thrust if this into unknown territory but it happens in our particularity.
It also now means that we create spaces for the new.
