BCA Conference

My family and I have just returned from holidays and attending the BCA Conference at Grindelwald. We really appreciated the opportunity, in particular, to meet with other BCA Field Staff and discover the people behind the Prayer Notes faces.

It was also a real blessing for us as a family to be cared for with the provision of a program that was an energy-gain and in which the children were cared for. It was well-balanced time of adult-input and interaction and times as a family together. Pictured is the standard post-breakfast romp by BCA children on the "bouncing pillow" near the Grindelwald restaurant.

We made a number of new friends. It's always great to meet people with the similar heart, similar call, facing similar issues, learning similar lessons, carrying similar burdens. Ecclesiology will talk about the collegiality of ministry - but here it was in flesh and blood.

Bp. Graham Cray was the keynote speaker. Bp. Graham is the Bishop of Maidstone in the Diocese of Canterbury and is a significant promoter and enabler of Fresh Expressions of ministry in the Church of England together with new ordination streams for pioneering ministry. I had already heard Bp. Graham speak at the EFAC Conference the week before and it was good for Gill to hear him as well, and also have the opportunity to have a conversation with him and his wife Jackie. Good encouragement and good advice.

And not just for us. One of the delights was to meet with a number of those who are ministering under the banner of both BCA and Church Army involved in church planting or in situations where ministry is "one continuous church plant" because of sociologically-driven high turn-over. As it is doing with Connections, I can see BCA using its resources to establish sustainable next-generation churches. I applaud that, and it's great to be part of this network.