Friday was one of those hectic but wonderful days that I love. It was a day when I was at risk of becoming overawed by the many activities happening or exhausted by the amount of time taken.

The day started with my last tutorial with my personal tutor where we put together my final report to the bishop. That went well.

After a brief stop at home to make a couple of phone calls I met up with a good friend, Terry, and we went to pay a brief 30 minute visit to the head teacher of the school that I am a governor at. We spoke about plans and the role of church youth worker / school chaplain which will work in this school.

Following that Terry and I went to our favourite curry house for lunch. We had a great time catching up with each other. I value such times of honesty where no pretending has to go on. This was a special time.

Following this I popped in the car and drove to Portsmouth to meet Dave, Joe and Roy at 5.00pm to have a meal and chat before the relaunch of Solent YFC and the commissioning of Dave as director. It was a real pleasure to lead the local church of Portsmouth in some commissioning words and Roy preached well and passionately as he always does.

I got home at midnight and needed nearly 2 hours to ‘come down’ from the buzz of the day before I could go to bed.

Today I have been challenged to keep hold of the love of Jesus in my ministry and not lose sight of that. The losing of that focus often results in bitterness or a persecution complex where it is easy to blame everyone else when things do not go to plan. I have thought a lot about this on my car journey back from Portsmouth.

I guess we all know people like that – those who complain in ministry and never seem to be happy. Being with such people can be a drain. I remember when in Bristol as a church youth worker a group of us used to meet regularly in the town for coffee. I remember a certain time when a couple of people were moaning about the presures of their ministry and as we neared the end of our time an old man on a nearby table wandered over and asked a simple question that stumped us all ‘tell me … do you enjoy your calling?’

It’s easy to fall into that. As I say above we all know people like it (maybe we can name a few, but as I do I wonder how many people have me on their list?). I don’t think it is because they have lost faith, nor do I think they have even lost their original passion for their calling.

They have simply lost the sense of privilege that it is to work for God.