architecture expressing theology

It was encouraging to receive a number of emails, all of them very positive, about Thursday night's Denis McNamara lecture. The session was well attended, and some of the comments I have received include:

• "Inspiring talk - I hope we take notice of him in the rebuild!.."
• "It has been an exceptional visit, great turnout last night 200..."
• "Just home from Denis McNamara.  Excellent.  Much the same content as the you tube bits, but with more warmth and enthusiasm.  I was moved by where it took me..   So powerful to have a strong frameworks to check out ideas by."
• "The session last night was amazing (to say the least) - he is extremely articulate and full on—he didn’t pause for a breath for one hour and a half. It was well attended (various religions) with good dialogue at the end."

Also Rev. Bosco Peters (who is the author of www.liturgy.co.nz - one of the half dozen most popular blogs in NZ!) has already blogged about the session. He finished his post saying: 

"Last night there was a public lecture, excellently attended. I was delighted to be able to attend this lecture where he stressed the above points in a theological framework of anticipated eschatology: don’t rush; architects of church buildings need to be experts not just in architecture but in church architecture expressing theology; don’t let fear motivate.

"I will rework the points of his lecture into a blog post in the near future.

So watch Bosco's blog for his updates, and I will add bits and pieces over the next few weeks here at foodforfaith. 

Just before Thursday night's lecture Denis heard that his father was unwell. When he returned to his hotel after the session, he received the news that his father had died. Denis' commitment to his work saw him continuing with Friday's session for architects and engineers before leaving NZ a few days earlier than planned for home and his father's funeral.

I invite all those who read this post to take a moment to pray for Denis, and for his family, and especially that Denis' father will know God's eternal peace and joy.

Eternal Rest, grant to him O Lord

and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace.

Amen.