Change is as good as a rest

That is definitely true for me…

Spent the last couple of weeks at different groups at Woodlands and met some great people. Unsurprisingly I found God amongst these great people too.

Highlights…

Football in the scorching heat on a concrete pitch. I scored more in 60mins than the last 2 years put together.

A group for those with challenging issues ranging from mental health problems to addictions.

Simply hanging around with church leaders… learning lots.

Just tomorrow left…

River Teme Barbel

Had a great afternoon fishing on the River Teme near Worcester yesterday… a truly stunning river. And I caught this fab fish weighing 10lb 4oz (biggest every Barbel)… to say that I was chuffed would be the understatement of the year!!!

Truly dodgy photo of me though… looks like I’ve been in a dark room for 6 months!!!

New Church Placement

Had a fantastic time at my first placement – St Peters Henleaze. It felt VERY strange leaving last Sunday to go somewhere else. I’m at Woodlands Church now for a fortnight… and I’m having a great time!

I’ve been to a few meetings with different people, helped for a day loading a van and delivering stuff for a venue at the Glastonbury Festival and getting a bit of a feel of the place.

Visiting a pastorate tonight… and will try to get back blogging more regularly about it.

Catching up…

Haven’t blogged since last Thursday about my church placement so thought that I should go through the last few days.

Sat – At a diocese event in Chippenham learning a new piece of choral music… reminded me of my days as a choirboy. If I’m honest, it was a bit too full on for me – sometimes wondered whether our object of worship was God or the music… shouldn’t be so judgemental really.

Had a lovely walk along the Bristol Avon fish-spotting as well.

Sun – I attended every service at St Peters beginning at 8am for their early morning communion. I rapped, read and served the bread at the family communion at 945am. In the evening I led evening prayer… all about God’s OUTRAGEOUS grace. We looked at the passage in Mark 7 where the “sinful” woman annointed Jesus with perfume. Really good evening.

Mon – Visited a couple of people who are members of St Peters, including a 95yr old lady who has an MBE and has been on “This is your life” for her work in Bangladesh. That was a good afternoon! In the evening I went to a group studying the prophets.

Tues – Morning consisted of morning prayer (as per every day), an “accountability group” which works to ensure that things get done at St Peters. Then I went on  a visit. I attended a funeral in the afternoon, and in the evening went along to the pre baptism preparation being done with two families.

Weds – Day off and FISHING!!!

I’m really enjoying the challenge of being part of life at St Peters… really starting to build some relationships.

But I’ve got to leave on Sunday for another place.

Funny how God seems to do that sometimes…

Curry

My day yesterday finished with a superb curry with a few guys from St Peter’s in a great curryhouse in Henleaze near to the church.

Started with morning prayer and a communion service – I led the intercessions. As part of the service, Mark (vicar) got each of us into pairs and got us to write positive things about the other person and then pray for them. Considering the lady I was with had met me once for 5mins, she wrote and prayed some fantastic things about me!! I was greatly blessed!!

I sat in on a “hall redevelopment” committee and then visited the David Lloyd centre in Southmead (not Westbury on Trym as they claim on the sign outside the entrance!!) to plan for a youth group meeting next Saturday… hopefully the start of something for St Peters.

The evening saw me at Deanery Chapter (gathering of people from churches in NW Bristol) which was looking at the parish system in some detail. Boring? Not really… great presentation and raised some fascinating questions using data and looking at how so many of us commute to church across the city.

Then to the curry… and how I enjoyed that!!!

Day off today… loving it!

How do you explain…

communion, what the table/altar is in a church, the cross, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and what it all means to me in five minutes to infants (5-7s)?

No idea? Well I had to try to do just that this morning FIFTEEN TIMES!!!

I visited a church family just after lunch and then prepared the service for Sunday evening… really excited about it.

Tonight was a small group that are looking at The Shack

Doing a four week placement in two weeks is fun but a bit tiring!

More tea vicar??

Ok, so I’m ticking the box of every “what a vicar does” stereotype – toddlers and Mothers Union (which by the way is one of the most formidable Christian Organisations in the world today – especially in Africa – doing more to combat poverty and injustice than most are). The group I went to today was a nice social tea and cake (proper nice cakes and biscuits) and a chance to chat with some of the ladies there.

I had some great conversations with some great people. I have made the decision to throw myself into everything and not shy away from anything that made me feel uncomfortable. I have to confess that I didn’t feel comfortable when I arrived, but by the time I left I did…

The home made Rocky Road was awesome!

Teddy Bears and U2

Both of the above were central today at my church placement. But not together.

Went to the “Teddy Praise” this morning… lots of little children with action songs, butterflies, prit-stick and shiny stickers. Lots of people, both church and non church people. Really enjoyed it and took part in the action songs. I made the 2 year olds look like professional dancers.

This evening I went along to a small group who were looking at the theology of U2’s latest album “No Line on the Horizon”. I had a great evening – firstly because there were nice ales on offer but also because Mark (the vicar) had put together a great session together on three of the songs on the album. Plenty of fantastic stuff to chew over, with lots of lively discussion, great music and God speaking…

“The Kingdom of God is like a banquet…”

Church Placement

As part of my first year at Trinity College, I spend the month of June at a local church… being greedy, I’m spending a fortnight at one church (St Peter’s Henleaze) and a fortnight at another (Woodlands Church). I visited both churches over the last few weeks, but today was the start.

I’m going to blog regularly about the kind of things I’ll be doing and some of my thoughts and experiences.

Highlight today was chatting with a lovely guy called Jack – he’s 90 on Weds!

Tomorrow I’m going to Teddy Praise… puns on a postcard for that one!! Looking forward to it!

How long?

European election results coming in

Not long left me thinks

Super Kate

Another hero…

I vaguely remember the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 – the image of the student being run over by a tank is still vivid in my mind.

Earlier today on Radio 5 I heard Simon Mayo interview Kate Adie about Tiananmen Square and what actually happened there. She was brought in to the situation in China late on after all the other BBC journalists had gone home either sick or ill. She saw first hand some horrific incidents – see her programme on BBC iPlayer (from BBC2 tonight).

Why is she “super Kate”?

She stayed on in China after Tiananmen Square had disappeared from our screens. She wanted to ensure that the thousands of innocents killed by a repressive Chinese government hadn’t died in vain. She risked her life (a man right next to her during the incidents was shot and died), and took on what she saw as a regime flexing its muscles against its people.

Everyone loves someone who takes on the bully…

In Vince we trust…

Politicians are taking a proper kicking at the moment… some would say for a good reason. Regardless, it is currently fashionable to hate politician.

It is easier for us to blame them rather than ask ourselves if we might do the same in their position (or maybe we are doing what they did)… anyway I digress.

There are many exceptions – there are plenty of good politicians in all parties (don’t ask me to name them though!!) but there is one that at this time seems to stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Vince Cable.

This is the man who predicted the “credit crunch” (how I hate that term) and for years has asked sensbile and insightful questions about what the government was doing to deal with our mounting debt etc.

I admire his humility and lack of “I told you so” when anyone else would have laid it on thick. I trust his genuine prudence and apparent lack of spin.

I for one think that having him as Chancellor wouldn’t be a bad thing…

Barcelona

I’m not sure that I’m the only one who grew to be totally sick and tired of hearing how all Man Utd needed to do last night was to turn up and they’d be European Champions… so I was thrilled to see Barca outplay them with fabulous football. Makes you realised just how good Spain are going to be at next years World Cup as well unfortunately for England.

However, I’m more interested in how Barcelona are run.

The club is owned by its fans and not a single owner who at any minute could pull the plug and destroy the club

The club is not sponsored by anyone – they PAY money to Unicef for them to be on their shirts

Interesting…

Wii Remote Issues

I have a bad feeling that I have broken both of our wii remotes (or “wiimotes”) as I currently have a “flickering and erratic” cursor on the screen.

I have tried smacking both controllers (advised by many including Nintendo) but fear that this may have made it worse.

I was doing really well on Fifa 09 as well…

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Getting arrested

On Saturday I watched the interview with Martin Sheen on the Jonathan Ross show on Iplayer. Normally I can’t bear watching the Wossy show because it is simply all about him… however, this interview was something different – Martin Sheen actually shut Ross up…

You can catch the whole interview on Iplayer but there was one thing that really struck me – Martin Sheen has been arrested nearly 70 times for various acts of civil disobedience whilst protesting against different things. He puts his beliefs into practice and campaigns about nuclear proliferation, war etc etc.

He doesn’t just talk; he does something.

Faith without works is… dead (James 2:26)

End of term

Finished my lectures for my first year… all I’ve got left is one essay on ethics to hand in and a Greek exam to revise for.

Then my church placement begins. Four weeks split into two – two weeks at St Peter’s Henleaze and two weeks at Woodlands Christian Centre.

I’m looking forward to it. I’ll keep an online diary here about it whilst it happens… in case anyone is struggling to get to sleep.

More importantly… June the 16th is coming up quickly.

The party has started…

Just got back from speaking at our church (Crossnet) on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. They’ve been exploring several of Jesus’ parables over the past few weeks. You can find this one HERE in Luke 15

Most people focus on the younger son in the story – how he comes back and his Father greets with with a total lack of any dignity… but the conversation between the older son and their father is SO revealing.

The older son is gutted, angry and resentful. He can’t even call his younger brother his brother – “That son of yours”.

The father begs him to come into the party that had started to celebrate the return of the younger brother but he refuses…

The Kingdom of God is a party, a banquet, a festival, a celebration that “sinners” love and the religious hate.

Isn’t it tragic that sometimes we create a party that the religious people really love and “sinners” hate.

I wonder where Jesus would be.

²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Friday Afternoon

It’s hard for a busy person like myself to find time to put my highly intelligent thoughts on to this blog

The last few weeks have been a bit busier than others (honestly, I’ve really been working on a whole load of things!!) and so I’ve just not got round to adding anything to this.

Since the last blog I’ve eaten a freshly killed pheasant, played volleyball a lot, scored a goal, shared a bed with a 20stone rugby player, lost a bit of weight, prayed a bit, planned some more of New Wine Youth stuff, spoke at a leadership conference, drunk more coffee than is healthy, and still not been fishing since March.

I plan never again to do at least one of those things…

Last few weeks…

… have been really good. Not been great on the blogging front for a while (other than THAT injury – how self indulgent am I??) so thought I’ve give a quick potted history of what’s been happening.

SPRING HARVEST

We worked on the “Distinctive” team (11-14s) over Easter and had an amazing time! Always great to see young people who are really up for worshipping God and learning about him. One girl in my small group had her eyesight totally healed!!! She was wearing her glasses when everything suddenly went blurry – she took them off and realised that everything was crystal clear. Awesome!!!

SNOWDON

My Dad and I had planned to get up Snowdon just after Easter… unfortunately on the day we had planned to climb there were severe thunderstorms forecast. So instead we climbed up the two highest peaks in Dartmoor. It was a bit cloudy, but some fab views. Just nice to go for a good walk… oh and see my folks too!

BACK AT COLLEGE

Nice to get back at college to be honest – started a couple of courses – Genesis and Ethics. Had to lead chapel last Thurs for the first time… managed to avoid wearing robes as well…

Not much else comes to mind… other than Wolves are now CHAMPIONS!!!!

Half Marathon – Injured

Well I’ve been to the “Minor Injury Unit” (sounds pathetic) and the lovely (but very firm) nurse told me that there was no way that I should even think about running the Tewkesbury half marathon on May 10th. Not even a “see how you feel” or “miracles do happen”.

I haven’t broken my ankle – but I have damaged a ligament and have a bad sprain.

Gutted