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Celebrations and seminars: Australia 2016 (Nov. 6)

After yesterday's slight lull, we went full tilt today. The morning began with a trip to Kew for a celebration of Kew Baptist Church's 160th anniversary celebration. Paul shared the message, and by the end of his talk about the power of prayer he had a quarter of the church down front, pretending to be their favourite Biblical characters in a demonstration of the "crowd of witnesses."

Paul illustrates the crowd of witnesses with a crowd of witnesses at Kew Baptist Church
Festivities continued with a BBQ in the church hall. Because of the special occasion, church members from all three services (the youth service, the traditional service and the Vietnamese service) and members from years past all gathered together. We got caught up in conversation with people from all of these groups, and Paul was so pleased to stumble into the pastor of the Vietnamese-speaking services. We're looking forward to working together to translate the Table Talk apps into Vietnamese! Paul is counting this as his win for the day, and we are all with him on that.

A seminar attendee, Jennifer, draws a diagram as part of an exercise on communication
Paul demonstrates the Table Talk app during his seminar on stimulating spiritual conversation
Afterward, we returned to Cross Culture for Paul's seminar on stimulating spiritual conversations. Approximately 25 very engaged adults wrestled in small groups, through both exercises and conversations, with how we can faith-share appropriately and authentically and the obstacles to doing so. As we departed, we split two ways: some left for home, while a small contingent went on to the evening service at Cross Culture. Once again Paul found himself at the front of the congregation, this time answering questions about the Ugly Duckling Company and our Table Talk apps. 

It was a busy day, but in all the best ways: full of conversation, support and the start of new relationships. We can call that a win for the day, too.