Family growth

Well, we're just back from a marvellous long weekend away. The site was awesome, sitting just the other side of the Porthills, overlooking the Lyttleton bay and being perfectly equipped for the kids and familys and everyone. Just look at that view. It took less than 25 minutes to get to Living Springs from home.

The whole weekend was awesome really. Apart from the sunburn - I really need to learn that the NZ sun burns so much faster than the UK sun, even when it doesn't feel hot. We arrived on Thursday evening and in total I think there were almost 200 people either there the whole time or coming out for day visits. Probably 50 of that number were kids. I think that's one thing that has really struck us about St John's, is the family feel. On the Barge we had some people with kids but they were in the minority. At St John's, at least at the morning service, they're a whole lot more prevalent. Also, becuase the kids have grown up around each other and around each other's parents there is a true family feel. When a child falls over, anyone's child, any parent will comfort them. And more tellingly, the child is willing to be comforted by someone other than their parent. It made quite an impression on us.

We are really enjoying being part of a church family with a whole mix of people and ages. We had a church camp photo taken before we left today. I'll try and post a copy when I can get hold of one so that you can see what I mean. We've had chats this weekend with young people, people our age, and older people alike. Sometimes it was easy, being at St Helens or on the Barge, to think that the evangelical Christian world doesn't have any older people in it. It's refreshing to be around older, experienced Christians, Christians who have lived their lives following Jesus and so have so much to give to the younger generations.

The teaching has been fantastic this weekend too. Jay, who is Wally, our vicar's son, came to talk to us and taught us around a theme of Firm Foundations, the building blocks, if you like, of the Christian faith - faith, love, hope and repentance. Faith - trusting in and relying on the work of Christ on the cross; love - for God and our neighbour, as perfectly demonstrated in the Father sending his Son for us; hope - hope in the world to come, focussing our hope on God's promises for the future; and repentance - the right response to our salvation through Christ.

There were also a couple of seminars we attended. One on living a rich married life - we shouldn't need it, but it is good to be reminded to refocus our relationship with each other on God, and another on St John's - the next ten years. This weekend was perfect timing for us in so many ways. It was great to have a chance to spend time with our church family (the last one was four years ago) and given we moved to Christchurch to be involved at St John's it was great to have a chance to hear about the developing plan for the next ten years.

Speaking of our involvement at St John's we've been asked to be involved in the Christianity Explored course that is being running, starting in February. We're really looking forward to it. We enjoyed leading CE back on the Barge and then the follow-up course. It's going to be exciting, and challenging, to be involved in it again. Also, it's on Wednesdays so we can still be involved in our Tuesday bible study group.