[ hold :: this space ]

i’m indebted to my friend jenny byrnes, who has taught me more than anyone else about leadership and learning… and adrenaline addiction.

did you know adrenaline is a chemical, and that it’s addictive? it’s always a fine line, when in a line of work that relies on adrenaline to survive the intense periods, to know when to go into withdrawal.

this morning i finished the first draft of a major article that i’ve been writing for Easter. It’s the hardest one I’ve written. the editor will get back to me tomorrow, so i won’t know until then whether i need to find 30 minutes to do a final tweak, or 2 days to do a major rewrite. I’ve finished the liturgies that will be used in prisons over easter.  The easter postcards have been distributed to chaplains. For the Easter Saturday things i’m reliant on a couple of other people to get things to me before I can do stuff. It’s been pretty intense, and it’s about to get more so. There’s no point winding down, because the energy required to wind up again will be too great. So i’m filling my afternoon planning new things! My very favourite thing to do…

The Last Supper… we’re stealing the idea, brazenly, from ikon. We did it first when Pete was here, it got dropped over the last couple of chaotic months, but it’s time to get it moving again. I’m wondering who we should have as a guest…The person i’d really love to get is Hana from the moroccan soup bar. I’d love her to come and talk about her perspective on all things inter-faith in the melbourne context. She’s wild, incredibly intelligent, passionate about justice, feminism and islam. she talks a mile a minute and isn’t afraid of controversy. maybe we’ll have moroccan takeaway for dinner tonight, and i’ll ask her when i go pick it up.

The Learning group - i talked about this here. There are enough people to make it a go-er, but there’s still room for a couple more. Ring or email me if you want to get involved - i won’t be posting any more information on-line about this for a while yet, so if you want to find out more you’ll need to talk to me. I’m really excited about this. i know i say that a lot, but this is not a week for flinging random excitement about, so you can trust me on this one.

[am i going to regret writing that sentence?]

We’re about to begin a new phase with this project - we’re pulling together a small group of people who want to be involved in an intentional learning community, exploring alternative worship and new forms of faith community. There are a number of us around who are playing with alternative worship [or who are dreaming of doing that] in our own local context, but who know we would learn much more if we tried stuff and reflected on it with other people around us… and if we could see some things beyond our own context that would stretch and provoke our imaginations.

The learning community is being shaped to include input and conversation with some amazing practitioners in alt worship and new faith communities, as well as learning really practical skills from those who have been doing it forever.

So… if you’re from Victoria, looking for a way to explore more deeply what you’re already doing [or what you hope to be doing] in alternative worship and forms of faith community, and would like a group of people to do that alongside… get in touch with me for more information about what this all involves. The commitment would include a two week intensive in August.

We’re looking for people who

- have an ongoing commitment to being involved in alt worship / new forms of faith community

- have a capacity for critical thinking

- like learning

- are able to make the time to be involved in this.

Email or ring me if you want to talk more about this.