Citysoul, a new type of experience.

This morning I walked to Magill then was taken to the play group at Glynde Church while Hilary and Ellie were both at different places this morning. I really enjoyed working with the kids, and chatting with the parents. After play group I ran into the pastor and he wants to have a chat with me about the different ways America works with rehabilitating felons, and other types of ministry. I'm excited to meet with him to chat and learn more about how Australia is doing all of the same things.

After I returned to Magill I got a lot of blogging done, which feels nice to finally be caught up... kind of. We had lunch, and I continued to blog until some second year seminary students arrived at Magill to learn more about LCC. Yvonne (the head of LCC) and Helen gave the presentation... it was really good! It was funny because the students were complaining about having a Hebrew test the next day, and Helen's husband is the Hebrew instructor at their seminary... so basically they were putting in a plug to have her talk to her husband about cancelling the test. :) ... it didn't work too well.

Later that night we went to Citysoul, an underground church in the city. It is a house church (alternative) that came out of the United Church in Adelaide. The United Church is a combination of the Methodist Church, the Congregational Church (Scottish), and some Presbyterian churches. Today there are no Methodist or Congregational churches, but there are still Presbyterian churches. Citysoul was an interesting worship experience. The church is located on the second story of a club/venue in the city and there were no worship songs... this is how the service went:
-Dinner (everyone brings something to share... it all looked healthy and/or organic)
-Introduce a new person (each Wednesday night they interview a new person by asking the same 5 questions... it was basically a tell me your story type of thing)
-Updates/announcements
-Message (the message was open-ended and was set up to have discussion at the tables we were sitting at, so after the message we all chatted about what we think/believe)
-Communion
-Chat more at the tables
-Eventually everyone ended up at the pub down the street chatting some more.

After the service I stayed the night at Helen's house because the two of us were getting up early to head out to the countryside to network and make more connections.