The EMBA Roadshow is travelling to 16 venues - rather them than me - to share a message and a vision based on Ezekiel 47 and the river that flowed out from the Temple to the Dead Sea bringing life. Tonight they came to our patch.
It was a great evening but the turnout was very poor - no more than two dozen people from five churches, and around ten churches had been invited.
The input was thoughtful and well delivered, and some of the small groups had great discussions. Some did not. One of my colleagues was in a group with three folk who sat, chins on the ground, and offered gloom and doom. I sat with a group who were reasonably cheerful but, as one of them said, 'did not want to answer silly questions' and had expected an in depth Bible study (i.e. sermon) on the passage. The study that lay behind what we did passed her by. I was glad that the one enthusiastic person from my congregation got into a good group and obviously had a whale of a time.
I don't regret my choice of group, part of being the minister is to get alongside the difficult folk or grumpy groups and to free up the more positive folk to enjoy themselves. The trick is not to get dragged down in the process.
I came away encouraged that what I am trying to do here is in keeping with what God is doing in this area, and glad that my ninth or tenth (I've lost count!) evening meeting in as many working days was such a good one.
Thank you EMBA team for such a good evening, I do hope something will come out of it, I'm just not sure what.
Comments
Remembering past 'bible studies' maybe what you need is a silly sofa to get people to open up, though not sure how you would do that with several groups.
Hi Rob,
I hope that, almost 8 years on from my departure, someone is maintaining the all important tradition of the silly sofa. Tricky to do in a church with stacking chairs and people from various congregations, but I do miss the laughter and the added depth we gained from being willing to be a little silly in our approach to Bible study.
So, did Ezekiel enjoy his metaphorical paddle in the ankle deep water, and when it was 'very deep' was he still trying to walk along the river bed or was he by now swimming?
The passage reminded me of the regeneration of Warrington town centre in that (very clear links between Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22) and lots of 'signficant' songs, so lots of memories were evoked along the way.
It's a silly bean bag these days, as we've run out of room on the sofa! Still doing our best to keep up the noble tradition though ...... oh no, does using the 'T' word to describe it mean it has to stop??????
Yours sillily......