I have just spent this afternoon with Keith and Marg Farmer. They have been sharing about the Mentoring Network Australia. This is an open network of Christian mentors who are particularly interested in the formation of Christian leaders and pastors through mentoring. There is an annual training conference which this year will be held from May 9 –11 at Stanwell Tops just south of Sydney.
2012 Mentoring Network Training Conference
Les Scarborough from John Mark Ministries NSW is one of the keynote speakers this year along with Mindy Caliguire from Willow Creek in the USA, Keith Farmer, Andrew McCafferty and Rick Lewis.
I hope to be able to attend the last two days. See you there.
For the last workshop in our introduction to the areas of specialisation in Church Consultancy, we looked at Vision and Strategic Planning consultancies. Some time was spent on understanding the theology and spirituality of listening to God in the context of visioning. We explored processes of assisting churches to surface their vision and to engage in strategic planning processes. As usual notes are our DropBox. A highlight of the day was hearing Rev Ian Duncum outline his findings from his D.Min. research on the effectiveness of this model of consultancy on 10 Baptist Churches in NSW. 
I enjoyed catching up with the Northern Tasmania Salvation Army officers in Elizabeth Town for our first cluster group this year. We looked at the practice of the Sabbath Principle in Ministry and explored ways to incorporate dimensions of the Sabbath into daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal and life rhythms.