Brief LA Update - With Pictures!

Hey Readers,

sorry for the lack of Posts this week - I've been at a conference in LA which has been brain-stretching, challenging, engaging, and absolutely brilliant fun. I've enjoyed the fellowship of like-minded brothers and sisters, and its been a privilege to hang out with some great thinkers, in the awesome atmosphere of Vineyard Anaheim. Having never been to LA before, and only really experiencing it through the series '24', so its been awesome looking out of windows - plane, van and car - to see what I can see.

I'm blessed to have an awesome room-mate, who pastors a church in Michigan, and also to have some letters from my wife which have been so lovely to have and read. The conference attendees are all great at having conversations, so I'm loving talking theology and Vineyard till the cows come home. Yesterday evening was a wine and cheese gathering at a local church home up in the hills - which was great. Not least because I finally discovered an American Beer that is genuinely palatable!

Downtown LA from the plane. Its a BIG city!

Thus far I've enjoyed a long-form paper from Beth Stovell on Hermeneutics - which was a great overview of Charismatic/Evangelical hermeneutics and challenge to press on for a Vineyard-specific hermeneutical approach. A couple of attendees have been caught out by weather and events, so the programme got a bit skewed. I went along to a really interesting panel on 'Spirituality and Discernment in the Vineyard: Philosophical and Historical Models', where four very different papers brought some great ideas to the table. The afternoon, for me, saw a long-form paper from Christian Philosopher J.P.Moreland, which was an interesting example of engagement between modern and postmodern scholars, and the challenge to be people of courage. 

The evening plenary session was a real highlight, as Richard Mouw came to talk to us about 'Christian Scholarship and Popular Religion: Drawing Wisdom from "The Sense of the Faithful"'. This talk was brilliant, and came after the joy of worshipping Jesus together. Mouw was whimsical, thought-provoking, and gave much to reflect on. His awareness of the broad spectrum of Evangelicalism and Mission resulted in some brilliant challenges, and some great doorways to future projects and thinking! Certainly a couple of blog posts here will owe a dept to that session. 

This morning holds plenary sessions from Amos Yong and Cherith Fee-Nordling, and papers on all sorts, including my room-mates. I'm also looking forward to Ken Wilson's long-form paper. I have a lot of time for Ken, having read and loved "Empowered Evangelicals" (co-authored with Rich Nathan) and some of his other stuff, and so his "Third Way Approach to a Challenging Pastoral Issue" is something that I'm sure will be inspiring, challenging, and thought provoking. Tomorrow I've got the chance to present my paper, so prayers appreciated and lets see what happens!

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