Spring Harvest - Day 2

A quick breakfast this morning of toast and jam (the jam courtesy of Jane Dunlop), shower and then off to the Big Top for the Big Start. The theme this year is “Different Eyes” with the slogan “Seeing Differently means Being Different”. Some good worship songs to get us going too. After dropping off Mary at her group and queuing for coffee we joined Klynn and Susan at the Bible Reading Session which was presented by our old favourite, Jeff Lucas who was as witty yet instructive as ever. He had us laughing loudly and brought home the fact that Christians can have a good laugh and we don’t have to be the “frozen chosen”. I could listen to Jeff for hours. Sara and I then joined the ”Activist Group” in a discussion about the whole concept of seeing things differently from a Godly perspective. The speakers were Malcolm Duncan and Carl Beech – both young enthusiastic evangelists (young by our standards – in their late thirties!). After another quick lunch Sara and I went to a talk by Malcolm Duncan on Ethics and the Old Testament which was a quite erudite session talking about reconciling New and Old Testament teachings – I still need to get my head around it. After a cup of tea – which I didn’t have time to drink, Richard and I went to a session entitled “Godly Men” hosted by Carl Beech. Very thought provoking with a number of clips from “Saving Private Ryan” to emphasise points. Some statistics – 75% of men in the UK are non-believers/non-church goers and there are less than 1 million men who attend church in the UK. Men should not be stereo-typed and there is much work that can and should be done to encourage men to come to Christ. This evening’s Big Top Celebration included another talk by Jeff Lucas (twice in one day – what a bonus!). Drinks and nibbles were a the Blue Sky apartment of Nicola and Hamish this evening where Hamish, Klynn and I discussed the seminar on Godly Men and what we should do in our own parish. The day ended with Klynn and I going to see the Christian comedian, Joe Fisher (alias Ben Entwhistle) in Jak’s bar where, amongst other things he put on two “game shows” – Spot the Vicar and Christian Family Fortunes. Most entertaining and quite a few laughs today.