Mike's musings

ERMC day 3

Worship in groups, followed by breakfast (cooked breakfast - yum! - but I didn't have very much, as I decided to try not to break all semblance of sensible diet over the weekend), and then a session on use of atonement models in a pastoral context. Given my lack of pastoral experience, I was looking forward to this, and it was, indeed, very useful. We split the group of 11 into 3, and the subgroup of which I was a part discussed the use of different models in different situations: growing in faith, bereavement and dying among others. Before embarking, we discussed how to separate the different models, and we came up with 7 or 8 in the end!

1. Christus Victor - trickery
2. Christus Victor - defeat
3. solidarity
4. sacrificial lamb (Latin)
5. exemplary
6. forgiveness
7. aquittal (penal model)
8. ransom

Obviously, there's a high degree of overlap, but we felt that there were enough differences for them all to be useful. All in all, it was a very helpful session.

We finished off with a communion service, and then I headed home to see the (absolutely knackered) Jo and (not dissimilarly knackered) Moo. Took a little over an hour, which was great, and had a lovely time with Jo before she went to bed.