Friday evening Kris and I drove down to Evanston for an event at 1st Presbyterian Church in Evanston. We had a wonderful time at this historic and influential church in the heart of Evanston.
This was David Handley‘s (pastor) last weekend and there was an air of transition. I was delighted David attended each of our sessions and asked great questions. George Atkins, a former student of mine at TEDS, impressively organized and directed everything. It all began with a dinner with many of the folks attending our retreat, and then we shuffled into the historic sanctuary for some worship and our first session.

My theme was a community called transformation, so looked at the gospel, the Lukan thread about kingdom as community transformation, and the ethic of transformation (Jesus Creed).
1st Presbyterian is an intelligent church, filled with thinking and theologically-aware folks — to the credit of course of the years of pastoring and teaching but also to the initiative of the congregation.
A highlight was to see our friends, Sonia and Peter Bodi. Sonia was a colleague of mine at NPU before she retired. And to meet up again with George Atkins. Allen Wakabayashi, author of a book we blogged about a few weeks back, came Saturday morning and pushed back on a few of my ideas about the relationship of kingdom and church. I could go on but it is always the case that we come away on the receiving end.