… in fact it was flipping hot!

The people, though, were really cool. It was really exciting to see a church properly investing in their youth worker. The church has bought a house which backs on to the church for Dan and Hayley and they are now releasing him, and paying for, a course for him to go in. It’s so rare to see churches fully investing, so this was encouraging.

I met some fantastic young people too. Ollie, a 15 year old doing his work experience with Dan who is convinced he is called into youth work and is already asking and seeking the best way to pursue this. I also met a guy called Tom who is finishing his GCSE’s as we speak. This was a guy who really put me in my place (in a nice way)!

After I spoke about our mission teams he asked if we had ever thought about using rugby in the same way we have skate, football and basketball teams. I suggested it would be a good thing to look into, but that we would probably need to do a 7’s as getting 15 would be hard work. The look Tom gave showed that I had desperately fallen in his estimation from YFC worker of great faith to old man of little faith! \His answer – easy with prayer and proper recruitment. Maybe even get Jason Robinson involved he said!

I was put in my place quite rightly – how easy it is to lose a sense of edginess and expectancy in our faith. How easy it is to play safe. How easy it is to say no to young people when our task is to encourage and enable.

It was good to see Dan and Hayley – they are great people and fantastic hosts, and their boys are great fun too. It was good just to spend time chatting and eating together. It was good as well, though, to be reminded by Tom how it is indeed God that it controlling everything and not our plans!