this is a sign we drove by in chicago en route from the airport to ctu - no idea what it is a sgn for! i'm here speaking at a conference on mission, culture and vocation which gets started later today and i'm looking forward to. ctu is the home base for steve bevans, roger schroeder, and robert shreiter among others – they have produced amazing thinking and writing on mission over the last 30 years that has influenced me profoundly. so it's a real privilege to come and do something sharing from our own experience with pioneers at cms. it's always wonderful to meet flesh and blood heroes.

on monday and tuesday we had induction for new students starting on a certificate, diploma or m.a. so it's been quite a week so far… it was fantastic to meet people doing such interesting things and am looking forward to getting to know them. it's our biggest intake so far which is encouraging though very few pioneer ordinands in the mix (as everywhere i think). i suspect that will swing back over time.