Open day review - July 2011; Louise Chic of Network Church St Albans

Some of us from the Inspire network had a most enjoyable and stimulating morning on Saturday 16th July at Highfield Oval, Harpenden.

Hosted by Network Church, St Albans, who provided a lovely continental breakfast, and only slightly dampened by monsoon downpours, we were treated to an extremely stimulating, challenging and thought-provoking seminar from Mark Warren Smith from Newport Christian Fellowship (the one in Shropshire, I discovered, not South Wales!), which is part of the VIA network.

All I can say was, it's just as well we had breakfast first as we needed the brain-food to keep up with this amazing man's thinking. Everybody who heard it was impacted by what he communicated around the themes of church and leadership, and we all requested a copy of his presentation so we could revisit what was said.

For myself, I particularly picked up on the necessity of both grace and the Spirit in churches and in leadership. As is so often the way, after hearing this from Mark, I have subsequently heard the same thing from other unrelated sources as well. Definitely food for thought and prayer.

To finish off the morning there was a prayer time for Network as the hosting church, which was incredibly helpful, and as one of the recipients I can only thank God for the way he communicates with us. Several words were given, all of which made perfect sense and some of which also tallied with similar words we had previously received.