Tuesday, June 26, 2007

General Catchup

It feels like I've had a pretty laid back time over the last couple of weeks, but am going to be doing a whole load more in the next month.

To Be Done:
  • Two weeks shadowing a prison chaplain, starting Monday
  • 6,000 words reflection on the experience
  • Team pastoring at New Wine North
  • Leading Services at St Peter's
  • Start process of finding a curacy for next year
So, if we don't blog that frequently then please don't forget us, but do pray for us to find some time for family stuff in the busyness.

TimC

Friday, June 22, 2007

First Sermon in Placement

I am trying to write my first sermon in my placement church that I'm going to preach on Sunday. Actually what I'm doing is unwriting my second sermon (my spell check doesn't like unwriting but I don't care). Let me explain. I am preaching at both the 8:00 am and 10:00 am services, on the same readings. At the 10:00 am service I have a 15 minute slot, at the 8:00 am service I have a 5 minute slot. Because I have prepared 15/20 minute sermons before I wrote that first, and am now attempting to work out which bits to leave out / trim / otherwise reduce, to get it to a third of the length. I suppose I could just speak three times as fast as normal, but that might defeat the object of clearly communicating something of God's word :-)

TimC

Friday, June 15, 2007

A Classy Sermon

A mate of mine preached this sermon at her placement church. It is a really fantastic example of how to preach a story. Please go to the download site and download "I am a widow" by Kate Bottley.

Thnx

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Back to life.....

Finally gettiing back into the swing of things after being out of it all for a while with this last bout. Thankfully it seems the last load of abs knocked it on the head and I'm back to (almost) normal now. yay.

Even felt well enough to go to the college Summer Bash last night and stay til almost midnight....things definately looking up!! Unfortunately we couldn't get a babysitter so it was me on my ownsome but it was really a great night. Kate had outdone herself on the whole thing - it was a western theme, with everyone being encouraged to dress up western style, and the whole place done out in keeping with it. There was a bucking bronco (no you didn't see me anywhere near that thing, well I was wearing a skirt, having gone for the tavern girl look as opposed to the cowboy thing) , this provided much amusement for all. One of the girls is great at horseriding and had also been on some kind of rodeo holiday thing, so had all the authentic gear plus was pretty good on the bb. Was fun to watch :o)
Then there were all kinds of bits - pinatas, blow up cacti, country music, etc etc, 3 chocolate fountains and a candy floss machine. All really well done.
Most people dressed up and had a whale of a time. Haven't had such a fun night out in ages :o) I also experienced tequila slammers for the first time and wondered why I hadn't come across this phenomenon in all my 35 years. Something of a kick, those things, about 10 minutes later!
Anyway great night, would have been better if the hub could have come but never mind.

Nothing much to report.....all bumbling along quite nicely at the moment. It is a very wierd time, the leavers are all....leaving, funnily enough. Having only known them for 9 months or so it feels very strange, quite sad, and quite scarey knowing we'll be in the same boat next year (and how quickly has this year gone?) We will be thinking about curacies very soon. it all feels so transient and unsettled, but still determined to make the most of being here and we are mainly having lots of fun and making some great friends.

For now, looking forward to the summer....we are going away for the weekend to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary (yes 10 years!!!), the kids will be staying with my bro and sister in law. Then we're off to New Wine, then later in the summer a couple of weeks in the lakes.

Will blog more....honest guv! ;o)