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Tuesday 7 December 2010

Seek the Welfare of the City

"Inspirational"..."great"..."brain and soul food"... these were some of the responses to the Seek the Welfare of the City conference organised by the Greater London Presence and Engagement Network, King's College London and St Mellitus College last week. Many of the talks - including keynote addresses by Bishop Doug Miles and Bishop Richard Chartres, and sessions with Lucy Winkett, Giles Goddard and Russ Rook are online here. Over 250 people attended the event, held at Holy Trinity Brompton and St Paul's Hammersmith, with presentations on the theology and practice of urban ministry.

Earthed in practice this was an opportunity to reflect on urban mission and ministry through a mix of case studies, keynote speaches and panel discussions. The venue for the first day was Holy Trinity Brompton and the keynote speaker Bishop Doug Miles, Koinonia Baptist Church, Baltimore. Panel topics were:- Missional church in practice; Christian Social enterprise - developing sustainable and resilient forms of social welfare provision; Urban spirituality and discipleship - beyond the rural and the monastic.

The venue for day two was St Paul's Hammersmith. Panel topics were Christian social and political engagement in multi-faith contexts and a roundtable and plenary discussion of Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilites of Faithful Witness by Luke Bretherton.

You can follow the conference Twitter feed here. Luke Bretherton's comments summed up the mood of the conference well: "Something rather special emerged as people began to connect outside of stereotypes and listen afresh - together."

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After The Fire - Life In The City.

2 comments:

Philip Ritchie said...

Thanks for the post Jonathan. I was disappointed not to be able to attend the conference but by all accounts it went well. Lots of good material to follow up here.

Jonathan Evens said...

Yes, it seems to have been a very useful event and they have been good about making materials from the conference available quickly. These collaborations, as with the Holy Spirit conference earlier in the year, seem to be the way to go in terms of getting high profile, informed input combined with discussion from a wide range of delegates.