Two important ministry events...

Tomorrow I go out to Lesley's place up a quiet valley where we will perhaps get to feed a wild pheasant and smell the countryside.

It's my first official team meeting as interim Enabler, a role that I haven't exercised since I retired from stipendiary ministry in 1996. And I am SO looking forward to it. We'll be working in "Beginnings in Local Shared Ministry" - perhaps more for my benefit than theirs, since they've been working together for some time. It'll be a time of visions and plans and strategising as the team of three continues to cover the work that might occupy five members if the team were up to strength. It's going to be fun.

Then Bev and I will immediately drive four hours to Auckland so we can attend the induction of the Trinity Theological College Principal in the evening. I'm keen to be there as a former staff member. But also because I was in the Synod from which David Bell came up as a candidate for ministry. He made quite an impression then and I think he will do that again in this position.

That service will be different from sitting in the sun at Lesley's.

But both events are to do with ministry and mission. And along the way we will get a couple of quiet days in the caravan right on the beachfront at Orewa.