Why do weekends go so fast?

This weekend has not been great – with too much work to do (training with some trustees and getting an essay completed), and not enough time spent with the family – sadly it won’t get better next week as I am away for 3 days leading part of a retreat with YFC and then off to the MBS fair on the Sunday.

The week after is half term and I do intend to take a few days off, so I hope I can rectify lost times then!

the highlight of the weekend …
got to be sitting on the floor, with a KFC bargain bucket, getting scared with my kids as we watched the cyber men try and take over the world (Dr. Who for the uneducated!)

The blog world is cool.
I have had a couple of comments here and s couple of emails ofrom people who are / have praying/prayed for Kim.
Thankyou.
I spoke to her on Saturday (when did hospitals put in bedside personal phones?) and she sounded great and very pleased that people were praying for her.
Keep praying!

It’s been a day when you feel helpless.

I heard yesterday from Steve, my brother in Weymouth, that Kim, his wife since October, has just been diagnosed with stomach cancer and is currently in hospital.

I use this blog for a lot of things, and it strikes me that as most people that visit here are Christians then a good use of this blog could be to mobilise a few people to pray for Kim and for Steve.

Steve and Kim are not Christians, but are have said they are happy for us to pray. If you are able to pray over the next few weeks for healing, please do – and thank you!

I’ve just got back home from an interesting, but scary, meeting!

I was with a few others at the CMS building with Jonny, as we look to run a stall at the Mind Body and Spirit Fair next week in London. Jonny and others have great ideas on how we might engage with the people that will be wondering the stalls.

Theya re good ideas, but I am still sitting here getting scared! As I said last week, we are very good as youth workers at challenging young people to step out of their comfort zones, but I sit well and truly in the centre of mine most of the time.

A week on Sunday I will be well out of mine as I help run a stall with a few other, just as nervous, people. – Please pray for us!

It’s kind of a strange position to be in, I feel a strong ‘God Calling’ to be getting involved in this, and yet I also feel a strong thought telling me I should not be there! It’s amazing what years of teaching and advice can do to a person’s outlook. I have been brought up in the ‘good evangelical’ tradition, whose response tradtionally has been to avoid or pray against such events. It’s encouraging to see this outlook starting to change.

One thing is clear to me though, as Christians we need to be present where the spiritual seekers are – so although I am scared – I’m looking forward to what is going to be a fantastic day (few days for those giving more time than me!) I’m going to be there on the Sunday and there will be a laugh-a-thon, which kinda makes me smile!

Seems like I chose the correct option last night! Instead of choosing to watch some football team that play in red I went to St John’s Tunbridge Wells for a party YFC style.

Again, I was struck by the number of people who came out on a wet night (when football was on) to attend a YFC fundraising event. It was an excellent evening, and it seemed that loads of people signed up to support the work of British YFC. I also spoke to a few people who are interested in thinking about things in their areas. It’s always a privilege to speak with people about mission.

I was interviewed briefly about my role by Gemma Hunt which my children were excited about as she is one of the BBC / CBBC presenters. I show my age by thinking she is a really sweet, lovely young girl – particularly as she helped me to become popular ad number 1 by signing 3 autographs addressed individually to my 3 children – what a star she is!

I returned back yesterday form a 520 mile round trip taking in Taunton and Ivybridge as well as the delights of Yeovil Travel Lodge.

the meeting in Ivybridge was amazingly exciting! If I am honest I was not expecting to see many people, but there were 60 present who asked questions, shared dreams and so on. WE then appealed to the people present to consider their involvement and how they could support. People have signed up to become trustees, to become volunteers and also pledged somewhere between £8K – £12K – not bad for a nights work!

With that level of support after one evening, God clearly has plans for something to happen with the young people of Ivybridge.

I’m on the road for the next few days so I doubt whether I’ll be able to blog.

If interested I’m leaving early tomorrow morning to meet up with various people in Taunton YFC. The director is moving on and the trustees are looking at what next for TYFC.

Following that I will make my way to Ivybridge Methodist Church for a 7.30 pm meeting to chat with what I hope will be an enthusiastic group of people from various churches in Ivybridge who are thinking about how they can reach the young people of their town. My aim is to consider what an Ivybridge YFC might / could look like and discern whether there is a church mandate for such a possibility.

After that I will travel east slightly (well 90 mins!)to a travel Lodge in Yeovil to spend the night before moving on to Tunbridge Wells the next day for a YFC event, Heavens Having a Party, and an opportunity to talk with church leaders there about mission with young people. If you are in the area, why not join usas it should be a good event with Andy Flannagan leading worship, Gemma Hunt doing stuff and Roy preaching.

A few hundred miles in 48 hours, lots of conversations, possibly the odd can of Red Bull – but great and privileged time I will have! If you get a chance, please pray I will bring inspiration, encouragement and arrive everywhere I should safely.

the weekend was good fun. the people in my year (and some in the other years I ‘spose) are alright!

highlights:
seeing friends.
laughing with friends.
crying with friends.
being trusted by friends.
praying daily office next to the river.
watching people share and benefit from the ‘God spaces’ our worship group set up
stevie gerrard goals
beating Micahel to his punchline in the joke!
Having just ‘one more pint’
Iori’s whisky!

Interestingly – my memories of the weekend are all tied with emotion – showing a distinct lack for the academic things which probably says quite a lot about me!

An interesting weekend – and one which will have some memories for me, and other SEITE colleagues.

One memory will be that of what must go down as one of the greatest FA cup finals. We only got to see the second half and on our way to the pub we thought how ironic that we had probably missed all the goals while in a lecture. How wrong we could have been. Liverpool – the mighty recovery agents. I’m now praying Stevie Gerrard plays just as well for ‘us’ in Germany!

Memories are things we thought about this weekend. As we looked at ‘what makes us who we are’ and ‘what it means to be human’ and ‘what is created in the image of God all about’some of that stuff is related to our memories. I can’t remeber who, but someone said that as humans we needed to be able to forget things. Remembering everything would be a nightmare, and I think that is probably right.

This writing is going to be a bit of a therapeutic exercise tonight, and a work in progress to get me to think for essay writing, so you may well wish to switch off now and go and find something less boring instead! This weekend has thrown up a few things which took me by surprise, especially this morning when thinking about what I had learned about myself this year, and how I was going to put that in my essay.

In my room I suddenly got hit by the emotion of the rejection from my natural father about 5/6 years ago. The thoughts came rushing from nowhere. I thought I had dealt with that, I thought I had thought about it, refleted, learnt from it and moved on. This morning’s memories were painful and so show me I have been kidding myself a little bit. I now know there is something there still to put to rest, to chat again with God about, and a need to remind myself that I am totally accepted by my heavenly natural father.

This weekend, well in fact this whole module of ‘persons in relation and formation’, has left me with a lot more grey areas in what I think. I thought I knew who I was, but now I am not so sure. I know I am complex, the Psalms tell me I am fearfully and wonderfully made, Genesis tells me I am made in the image of God. But …

… what does all that mean in reality …

To say I am mysterious and complex seems to be a bit of a cop out. I am a God creation, so I am complex and wonderful (yee hah!)but I need to be able to understand what some of that means. I used to think it was all about being creative, being rational, and being able to love at will – but now I am not so sure if it is any those things, some of those things, or none of them at all.

I wonder if I am more an individual, unique, complex person due to the relatonships of my life, in which I would include the relationship I have with God. In addition, though, that must also include all the relationships I have had of varying levels of signifiance and continue to have today.

How does the interaction I have with close friends, new friends, and the postman I speak to every now and again have a bearing on my individuality, on my identity, on who I am? Maybe they have none; but as I mull this over I believe they must have some influenece, or at the very least my perception of those relationships, of what those people think (I guess!)of me must have an effect. If I perceive they like certain aspects of my individuality then maybe I develop and use that characteristic more than those that I perceive people do not like. In other words, am I, are we, moulded as individuals by our perception of how other perceive us?

One example to possibly support this could be how I was when at school. I was incredibly quiet; I would never speak in class let alone lead events and talk/preach to groups of people, as my mum and step dad always told me I had nothing of value to say. A relationship with Jesus, and meeting others who have had different perceptions of me, who saw potential, has resulted in a changed character who comfortably willdo those things – although the actuality of having nothing of value to say is still there!

God’s love towards me, his approval of me, his grace has literally turned my life around and transformed a quiet unobtrusive, inoffensive, painfully shy lad whom teachers went to great lengths to get to speak; into a loud, sometimes over-confident lad (even at 41!) who people will now go to great lengths to shut up!

Does that mean I have changed; does that mean the Rob Ryan of 41 is totally different to the Rob Ryan of 16? Is this an identity change or an identity development? If I had stayed where I was, in Weymouth, in the same environment I had grown in for 16 years what would be different today? Have I had any significant choice in who I am today? Was this pre-ordained, people moulded, good luck or chance?

If you have any thoughts or wisdom, share a comment – if I have an answer, I’ll let you know!

SEITE weekend!

The penultimate one of the year!

Strangely, and I guess a result of the Easter School, I’m quite looking forward to seeing my friends even if it is at the King Charles!

This weekend we are looking at persons in relation and formation – I’m going to get all confused over who I am again!

It’s also our groups turn to lead worship and we are (thankfully!) getting away from Common Worship for most of the wekend and bringing a Celtic flavour to the weekend. I’m particularly hoping to create some space for reflection on the Saturday evening as there does not seem to be a lot of opportunity to just ‘be’ anymore. We’ll see how it goes!

Have a great weekend … C’mon Liverpool!