I’M AWAY AT CHESTER’S Diocesan Clergy Conference and we’ve got off to a great start.

Lutheran Richard Lischer of Duke Divinity School set the ball rolling with Preaching into Poverty. I’m instantly struck by Lischer’s passion and grace and have a strong sense that the Conference is ready and willing to grapple very seriously indeed with what poverty is in our world today and what it says to us about all that humankind needs to become. Lischer demonstrates Luther King-like passion laced with a gentle humour … and humour is all to the good wherever there’s some really serious examination to be done.

So it’s been great that there was some good banter over supper, followed by an achingly funny “Evening with John Archer“. Very, very funny. Recommended to other diocesan conferences. There couldn’t have been a better start for this gathering than the sight and sound of a large room full of clerics holding on to their stomachs with mirth. And there are some thoroughly good sports amongst the folk who were “picked on” too.

Someone spoke tonight of the “bonds of affection” that reveal themselves each time we gather here. This is my tenth Chester conference (we used to have to queue at the phone booth clutching handfuls of change to be in touch with the outside world when I first started coming here) … and “bonds of affection” certainly rings true for me.