a surprising clergy conference...

This week James and I have been at our diocesan clergy conference in Busselton. It's held every two years.When I arrived in Perth the first clergy conference was a pretty grim affair. Roger had just arrived as Archbishop and morale was low.While large gatherings of Anglican vicars always strike me as a convocation of odd fellows (and girls), it is wonderful how, under Roger's persistently gracious, caring leadership, the mood has changed. Across huge diversity, clergy respect, like and engage with each other. It's our only chance to all meet together and I'm thankful for it. We worship, chat, eat and even play at clergy conferences but the highlight is studying the bible together.Another thing Roger has been doing is making good appointments to important positions. Dean Spalding is one such appointment that we have benefitted from directly at St Philips. Another is a bloke who took the bible studies: Jeremy Haultin is his name. He was a Professor of New Testament at Yale University by the time he was 30. Now, being really clever is never a sure sign of Godly wisdom but in Jeremy's case it is. The theme was Storming Strongholds. Jeremy spoke about what he believes Paul meant by that and how he and Jesus lived and communicated to achieve it. I can sum it up in three or four words but it would not do justice to the challenge of his teaching. Suffice it to say, it was like two days with C.S. Lewis. When someone says,“What did he say?” I respond, “I’m not sure I can do it justice but it was amazing, even life-changing.” The inspiring thing is to know that we have young men like Dean and Jeremy, appointments of the Arch, teaching God’s word.Apart from Jeremy, there were a number of highlights: spending time with James and Nick Lockwood - we don't get as much time to really get to know each other as one might think; the worship times were simple and inclusive, which felt so much more accessible than normal; and I got to ride my bike on the Busselton back roads in the early mornings - stunning!My final highlight is an encouragement to us all. God is alive and well and moving. Throughout Perth, in the Anglican church and beyond, I heard stories of God moving, especially where people are choosing to trust Him for things that only He can do. One military chaplain shared a horrendous story of being mocked and humiliated by his commanding officer publicly on a deployment. The story ended up with the heads of the deployment team revering the chaplain’s work and him baptising five guys in the Jordan River with 30 others wanting to come and be part of it.It's a great privilege playing in God's ‘firsts’ with you.Every Blessing,Malcolm