Today's Schedule

1. 6:45- 8:45 am: Morning Worship in the Big Top by the Church of the Province of Central Africa

2. 10:30 am-1 pm: Indaba Group 6 (Bishop Talton's Indaba Group)

3. 2:15-5:30pm: Bishop Self-Select Session in Giles Lane 1: "Leicester Youth Programme: 'Please listen to me...your future depends on it..."

4. 7:45-9:30pm: Plenary Session by Cardinal Ivan Dias- Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples at the Vatican- "Mission, Social Justice and Evangelization"

Some highlights: For both the bishops and their spouses, there are self-select sessions that they can choose to go each day. They range from topics about Anglican identity to the environment to multi-faith to human sexuality and the Anglican Covenant. The spouses self-select programs are different than the bishops, something that I want to go into at this moment...but let's just say that they range from a variety of options (much of them involving crafts to knitting...and o.k. I'll give them credit for opening up opportunities for day trips in England...but flower arranging? Where's the room for the male spouses??). I was helping out with the Youth Program session which focused on giving room for the youth to speak out in the conference...and guess who shows up? Archbishop Rowan!!! It was encouraging that he would take the time to spend time with the youth of the communion. There were about 20 or so youth involved and it was great to see their faces light up when the ABC showed up. By the way, he is also taking the time to be with the Steward group in a weeklong conference after Lambeth is over. It will be here at Kent and he will specifically spend time with us Stewards discussing some issues that are most important to us. Pretty neat, huh?

About the Indaba groups, they started meeting on Monday and they consist of about 20 or so bishops from various regions discussing various themes (youth, sexuality, other faiths, Christian values, etc.). Stephen Lyon, the Facilitator of the Indaba Groups, hopes that these smaller groups will enable "[t]he exploration to deepen our understanding not only of the issues themselves but also of the differing contexts in which we are seeking to co-operate together in God's mission." The bishops are from various regions since they will have their provincial meetings about 3 times throughout the conference.

The plenary sessions are in the Big Top and everyone is invited to attend these. The topics discussed set the tone for the following day since each day is centered around a particular theme, such as today is Proclaiming the Good News: the Bishop and Evangelism. Tomorrow is set to focus around Transforming Society: The Bishop and Social Justice. And guess what? I will be attending Gene Robinson's Fringe Event tomorrow.

I met the UK Director for EfM, Gary O'Neill, today in the Marketplace. He was quite excited to hear that I will be training as a mentor shortly after I come back to the States on September 1st. I received a lot of advice as to where I should travel for the four weeks allotted after the conference...so far I have Edinburgh, Iona, York, Oxford, Cambridge and Paris (since it's a quick trip from London). Any more recommendations?