Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Connect 2010

Next week, starting on Tuesday night, I'm going to be at Connect 2010 at Holton Lee.

From the website:

What is Connect?

Connect 2010 is a five-day teaching and worship event where hundreds of people of all ages can connect and grow together in Word and Spirit. The last three days will include family camping and a change of flavour as young families invade the site.

More than 30 south Dorset churches are involved in organising the event, which is held at Holton Lee (between Poole and Wareham in Dorset), just a few minutes walk from the beautiful Poole Harbour and with its own stunning heathland walks in 350 acres.

The family weekend (July 16, 17, 18) will include a full programme of children’s activities in their own separate marquee, a chill out zone on Saturday evening for 13's to 17's plus a variety of fun family events throughout the weekend.

If you come, look me up. I'll be the one wearing a Tau Cross and a green Prayer Ministry Team name-tag!

In one of those God-incidences that is always surprising, but shouldn't ever be, this morning's email from Richard Rohr's Centre for Action and Contemplation reads as follows:

Greatness emerges when, above all else, people are confident. When we believe - together - that life is good, God is good and humanity is good, we become very safe and salutary people for others.  What we seem to suffer from today is a lack of confidence, which would become a calm self confidence.  St. Therese of Lisieux wisely said that her entire spirituality was about "confidence and gratitude"!

We can all do exciting and imaginative things when we are confident that we are a part of a story line that is going somewhere and is connected to something good.  Without this, it is very hard to be either confident or grateful.

Richard Rohr, from Hope Against Darkness

This event has grown from a glimmer of an idea into this wonderful thing in what seems like no time at all - but it's not without a pre-echo, as it were. You can read my account of the event at Wareham 11 years ago on The Mercy Site.

Our Vicar at Holy Rood, Rhona, writes in her pastoral letter in July's Parish News:

People often ask why the churches don't work together more closely. It's true the amount of time we spend worshipping together is relatively small. But churches work together to a remarkable degree, supporting one another to a variety of ways. They are often overlooked as much of this is less visible to the general public...

A major new joint venture that is gathering the churches together from across south Dorset takes place at Holton Lee, Sandford this month. More than 30 different churches are involved in organizing Connect 2010. It is a five-day teaching and worship event where people of all ages can connect and grow together in Word and Spirit. We see it as a time for recognising our shared faith and mission and to find what things we can do better together than apart. It aims to be outward looking, not so much getting over hurdles as reaching shared goals.

Come and join us in this adventure of making strengthening old connections and forging new ones.

Do click over and read the whole letter... and do consider coming and joining in if you're going to be in the area. I rather suspect this will be something not to miss!

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