Wiped out...

We're all completely wiped out after the wedding. No chance of much activity today. Luckily Jane invited us round to their house for a cup of tea in the afternoon, so we spent a couple of hours collapsing in their garden which helped reduce the risk of over-tired behaviour... although the girls did manage to be awake until after 10! I pity their teachers on Monday...

Mad Tueasday

Started the day at Team Space with a long discussion about Pastoral Care systems in the various churches. Great discussion and really valuable, but not much time for anything else...
Then it was time for Ministers West, which was also very good. We spent more time in general sharing than normal, and all learned a great deal...
This left an hour and a half before it was time to collect the children. I though about squesszing in a run. Decided to work instead but couldn't give time to my projects for the week since there were various emails and phone calls which needed doing right then and there. Isla picked up the children and I finished the most urgent emails by 4 when she headed off to her course.
Looked after children until 7. We explored http://www.factory.lego.com/ which is cool, and Izzy made a zoo. We had late Chineese New Year food.
Had a wedding/blessing interview at 7.30. Isla came back soon after 8. Had a fairly undproductive evening and none of us slept well...
Going to be tired tomorrow... and there'll be hangover emails and work from today's dramas...
The work on Voices is piling up for Thursday night...

Mad Monday

The week continues with another fun packed day:
Didn't have time for a run this morning - which is a shame because Monday morning is a good time for this. Started the day with emails and notes...
9:30 - 11:30am: Meeting of Working Group on Deanery Deployment. An intense but productive session. We managed to work through the proposal that will now go to the DPC. Must write it up tonight...
12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch with Ernesto. Good to catch up.
2:00 - 3:00pm: Voices Editorial Meeting: Very little material to work with this month and I'm editor! Could be some late evenings...
5:30 - 6:30pm: Had a conversation with a prospective LLM candidate with my tea on my lap.
6:30 - 7:00pm: Went to All Saints' to see the man who is running a focus group about the Door, the diocesan newspaper. I think we have between 4.5 to 9 people at this session. I look forward to finding out how it went...
7:30 - 9:00pm: Deanery Finance Committee presentation at Walton LEP: The first of our presentations to parishes about share and deployment. It went extremely well. I hope this will prove to have been a helpful evening. One key thing that came out of this evening was a clear request for opportunities to share good practice in mission across the city. People want to know what works. It would be really good to do something about this, but time is the issue as with so many things...
9:30pm - home and to work. Must do some work on the deployment proposal, Voices and the Team Meeting before I sleep. I wonder when that will be...

11:15pm - just finished work on DPC proposal. Will email it to the group. Next some work on Voices...
Got to bed at 1:00am having tried to do some work on the Team notes and agenda... Couldn't publish because Google Groups weren't behaving...

Monday

We had to wave Iona off on her school residential this morning - three nights away! This is suprisingly disturbing for us as a family. I can cope with it on one level by being glad that she's having a good time, but the house doesn't seem right somehow.

Workwise, this was a fairly straightforward day: an hour in the morning with Tim Clapton, an hour at lunchtime with John RJ - both good, worthwhile meetings - interspersed with valuable desk clearing time. I can now see one!

I managed a run before lunch. Three and a half miles in 33 minutes, 15 seconds. Not my best, but a big imporvement on recent times. My hope to run the half marathon in May could still be achievable.

A couple of key emails to write - which didn't go out because of Broadband failure...

The evening was family time, with a birthday to celebrate. We watched Walace and Gromit and went to bed. Asleep by 8:30pm!

This meant that we woke up at 5:00am - so the internal clocks must be doing something...

I do feel absolutely shattered at the moment. Reserves of energy are very low and there are so many demands... This must be the year that changes...

A short night

I was up until 5 trying to finish some work. I may have misread a dealine and needed to get the job done for today.... oops...

Sunday

I didn't sleep well - I never do before an 8 O'clock - so I got up and finished off the work on the Baptist Service for All Saints'. The idea is to have a standard card for Baptist style services, which gives the general structure, and then to have little book of prayers that ministers can use when they lead worship. This would be particularly useful for those who from a very different tradition. I'm quite pleased with the result. Whether our baptist members appreciate it or not, only time will tell.... (I'm guessing not...)

The 8 O'clock service was small in numbers today, which suprised me because the car park was full. Did everyone take two cars? Or is our space being borrowed?

At 10:30am I introduced the Viewpoints Course at All Saints'. I'd planned to do this for a while, but it's alway different when you get into church. Not sure whether I communicated what needed to be said or not, but there were some signs of interest... I don't think the readings I picked were quite right, but I have some ideas for alternatives...

Took Iona to see Aladin in the evening. Great fun - particularly when the "Five Toilet Roles" got stuck in the lighting rig... Bradley Walsh on top form. He seems to have built up quite an MK fan base, indicated by big blokey blokes shouting out, "We love you Bradley!" To be fair, without his mucking about, it would have been fairly pedestian, which shows what a good front man can achieve...

Thursday

Up early. We're not feeling 100%. But good to get up and get on, since I have a meeting at 9:30am and still have papers to prepare. This is a meeting of a DPC working group looking at new appointments. I need to make sure we've got the best information we need before hand, so that the meeting is productive. The archdeacon asked about clergy numbers and workload. It would help to have most of this data on the table before the meeting, otherwise we'll spend the whole meeting assembling it...

The meeting went well and there were some really good ideas. It felt like a significant moment. We looked at the whole picture and how posts could be created and moved around. We meet again next month...

Went to Kilkenny House in the afternoon. One or two of the residents have gone since Christmas, which is sad. There was a particularly smiley one who will be missed. It was a subdued and small gathering. Linda and I planned the sessions for 2008 and she has some good ideas for activities. Always a priviledge to be involved here...

The rest of the day was taken up with bits of paper work and emails. Spent the evening trying to work out how to structure the Baptist service at All Saints' and resource it so that any minister can lead it - not an easy task.

Was glad when we called it a day at 9:00pm. Watched two episodes of the Boosh and went to bed... Feeling achey - must be coming down with Isla's bug...

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to Everyone!
Hope 2008 will be good for you!

Slept until 9:00am this morning. Stayed in bed late - great!
Am now up and working - clearing the desks and the emails after the seasonal chaos...

Being Awake on the Second Sunday of Advent

I rarely sleep before an 8:00am service. It's partly because I'm worried about getting up in time, and partly because I'm worried about waking everyone else up... I was woken early at 3:00am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. This gave me some extra time to contemplate three very different services - which required three very different sermons...
(Last night Isla and I calculated that I have preached between 60 and 90 "Advent" sermons in Watling Valley... How do I say something new?)

Services this Morning:

8:00am - Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer) - All Saints'
It was still fairly dark when I headed out to All Saints'. The 8 O'clock congregation have become a close knit group over the last couple of years - Ann and Roger have been particularly key in building relationships - providing a good example of a "Care Circle". The closeness of this community was demonstrated during Tony Knight's recent illness, death and funeral.
This morning's service was quiet (appropriate to the season) and I preached a fairly somber sermon... (Not one of my best, but gave me a chance to explore some themes...)

9:00am - Holy Communion - Holy Cross
A very different service at Holy Cross. In theory, this is the quiet communion service which takes place before "all-age activities" at 10:45am. In reality this is a fairly all age communion service with children and a wide range of people in the congregation... Christmas decorations were up and there were a number of visitors. This service therefore required a fairly high energy all-inclusive approach which I hope I was able to deliver. This service felt positive and fun - and I thinks the congregation were in good spirits...

10:30am - Holy Communion - All Saints
By the time I got to All Saints' I was completely exausted - mentally and physically - not only because of the day, but also because of the week and the long crisis and project filled term. I'm finding it difficult to cope with three morning services these days - must be getting old...
I had decided to try a more challenging sermon here, wanting to respond to critisisms from certain members of the congregation. To be honest, I was too tired, time was too tight, there were too many things going on, and I'm really not sure this is the right time or place.
Couldn't finish the service within the hour - which is a disaster for visitors and community development. Not a good morning...
I've tended to think of ASL10:30 as a "seeker service" where the emphasis is on the visitors and fringe members - on baptism families, wedding couples and those who drop in from time to time. These people need brief, engaging, simple but relevant sermons that communicate more by the way they are delivered than by their content. I can just about deliver this if I hype myself up on adreneline and get on with it. Content based expository sermons targeted at church members just don't work - and I haven't got the time and energy to write or deliver them. I think I'll write this morning off as an experiment that was never going to work and stick to the "seeker" agenda. I believe in it - and I can just about pull it off...
The question that remains is how to encourage the congregation to meet their own needs through the other opportunities on offer...

Night out with Crowded HouseWe don't get out much. This was our one night out this term and we were determined to enjoy it! Duke Special and Crowded House at Wembly Arena! What a night! Good to see DS although they were relatively tame compared to their wild performance at Greenbelt. Crowded House were phenomenal - they kept playing till 11:00pm! Great gig, great evening!

They'll soon be going back to New Zealand - a place very much on my mind since we have family there and Local Shared Ministry is big news... Shame it's so far away...