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Alan has seen Dave Bilbrough stage dive and crowd surf. It was at a Delirious? concert back in the late nineties. |
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Family News
Well, what an eventful start to the year!
In January, the PCC (church eldership) made a decision which puts us in a really difficult and quite stressful situation (for people who are members of Christ Church, the details of the decision were in a PCC paper that was made available to the church family at the PrayerWorks meeting in February).
Recently, the Children's Worker at Christ Church made the decision to leave her position in order to spend time working as a teacher. The culture of youth and children’s ministry in the UK at the present time means that for many there is a bit of a ‘glass ceiling’ which means that it is often wise to have a secondary career to fall back on. In order for her to be able to fall back on teaching, it was right that she spent some time maintaining her experience in that particular field. Hence, her decision to leave. Please pray for her, both for her work and witness in teaching but also that she might be able to return to vocational children’s ministry soon (good people in children’s work are often hard to find!).
As part of a wider vision of Christ Church, the PCC made the decision at the January meeting to make my post of Youth Pastor and the post of Children’s Worker redundant with effect from the end of August this year, and to create a new position of Associate Minister for Children, Youth and Families. The new position will be advertised shortly in various Christian publications, etc. As the current Youth Pastor, I was free to apply for this new position and to have my application considered with other applicants. After much prayer and consideration, I have decided to not apply for the new position and am therefore currently looking for work as a youth pastor or associate pastor in another church.
As I'm sure you can imagine, a decision like this is a massive one. I'm also sure that the PCC of Christ Church would value your prayers, particularly that God would help them to continue to seek his will and wisdom as they work out this decision. For us, the impact of this decision on our future means that last few months have been a very difficult time for us, especially as we are expecting our second child to be born in mid August. Although we are both really happy that we will soon add another blessing to the family, the prospect of having a baby and then moving two weeks later is not that much of an attractive proposition at the moment!
Therefore, we would really appreciate people praying for the following:
- Pray that we would seek God's will and be fully dependent on him in this situation.
- Pray for wisdom in how to finish well at Christ Church.
- Pray that God would provide a place to live, safety and security for my family, and a new position in which I can serve him from September.
- Pray for wisdom as we think through the various possibilities that God brings before us.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 31 March 2010 21:50 )
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It's been a full-on summer once again. Some highlights... Summer VentureKirsten and I are leaders on Bredon 2, a summer venture held in Bredon School, Tewkesbury. This year, Kirsten led a helper's dorm and I had the eldest boys dorm. It was a great week spent with the members, but very exhasting as well... I was practically out of action for two days afterwards! Holiday in the peaksAfter a brief stop off visiting friends in Nottingham, we travelled up to Eyam in the Peak District to spend a week with some friends. Eyam is famous for being a significant town during the Plague in 1665 where the entire village was put under voluntary quarantine. For those interested, Wikipedia has all the answers here (well, plenty about Eyam, anyway). Afternoon walks, cream teas and Settlers of Catan were the prefered past times for the week, one of the highlights being a 6-7 mile walk early in the morning (early for a holiday, that is) to Grindleford Station Cafe. Thoroughly enjoyable and tasty, too. Back homeNow we're back home and I am trying to get back into my work, while Kirsten is also hard at work making sure Joshua gets it into his head that he is not the boss - God is and he put mummy and daddy in charge. I'm sure he'll get it eventually. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 27 August 2009 18:59 )
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I am well chuffed. Kirsten has spent this last week staying with her sister, Meryl, and her family while I blast through prep for the summer. I took the train over to join them on Friday. When I arrived, Joshua was very excited to show me his new and growing skill... at playing the guitar! Meryl and James were very kind to let Joshua have the half-size guitar he has been playing on, so we will be hopefully be jamming away together very soon! Oh yeah! |
I love going to New Word Alive. Sure, Pwllheli is closer to Iceland than London but a few fleeces in your luggage soon solves that one. Besides, it is worth it for sound as a pound preaching and helpfully led praise. The only down side to NWA this year was that I was on a weekend away at the start of the week which meant I missed the first 24 hours or so. I actually arrived at 2am on the Monday morning, having driven the last 2 and a half hours in pitch black without seeing another car on the road... not one! But after a chilled out morning and a very large caramel latte from Starbucks (the only one in the north west region of North Wales, apparently!) I was soon back to a reasonable state of alertness. I was gutted to have missed Don Carson, as I think he strikes an excellent balance between deep theological content presented with superb clarity. Bring on the DVDs... Hey ho, I was still able to catch the morning Bible studies (on TV in the caravan!) and the remainder of the evening celebration talks. Plus, as always, the days were spent catching up with old and new friends (all over a nice tall latte)! All in all, a great time away and a helpful encouragement in my walk with Jesus. |
Joshua (who is now 1 year old!) is wondering what the deal is with that strange man dressed in a red and white suit with a clearly fake bushy white beard that seems to be lurking about on street corners selling garden equipment (who wants three hoes when only one would suffice?). He would be grateful if someone could fill him in on what it is all about. Thank you. |
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