Day 23-28 (Monday-Saturday)

Well I was right to choose to only commit to weekly updates as I have not had

chance to look at updating this site all week.

This week has been an encouraging week on a few fronts. Highlights being:

1. I have been appointed in a new expanded job at work; so the insecurity is over.

2. I led an alternative worship time for our homegroup and it went well.

3. We had a whole church weekend away which

was great fun & really touched me.

I won't cover the first point in any more detail,

except to say I'd still value prayers.

The alternative worship time has really

encouraged me to not prejudge whether or not

people will be open to new ways or new

expressions of our faith. It was not easy to

prepare for this time as I realised I wanted to

balance what I thought would be useful with still

being open to Holy Spirit. In the end I went with this, which was helpful & moving:

1. Explanation & opening prayer

2. Lit candle to signify Christ present with us & incence stick to signify Spirit moving

among us.

3. Shared photos of a great church weekend away we had all enjoyed and had

music from 'The Mass' podcast on as ambient meditation. People chose a photo of

others in the church that they found helpful.

4. Brief silence to meditate on what got out/enjoyed of church weekend.

5. Prayers of thanks (anyone who wanted to).

6. Watched a Christine Sine meditation video from YouTube.

7. Time of silence to reflect on what that spoke to you (& people journalling)

8. Laid out round the room poems for people to review & pick. Then people read out

ones that spoke to them. Had some Enter the Worship circle ambient music during

that time.

9. Another time of silence to reflect & journal on the poems or whatever.

10. I laid out pictures (images from emergingminister.com) on one side of the room

and challenged people to be lead by Holy Spirit to the image that God wanted to

speak to them through. In silence people did this and were prayerful about it.

11. Final time of silence and quite a while taken for people to finish their notes or

drawings in their journals.

12. Offer for anyone who wanted to do so to share from their journals whatever they

wanted to share (with acknowledgement that it was fine to keep it between them &

God). Everyone chose to share something and many were very moving. Personal

testimonies and ways images, poem or video had spoken to them & their

circumstance.

On the church weekend, I can just say that our whole church went away to a hotel in

Weston and had a whale of a time. As well as all the fun and food, I really

experienced God speaking to me and a realisation of how real and precious to me

this church family are. I shared a trilogy of short prophetic words inspired by the

story of Ruth and was delighted to be used by God in this way again (after a lull)

and to find people helped by those words. A visiting speaker challenged me to

really seek God as to my purpose & objectives. Coming at a time of upheaval in my

wokring life as well, I felt God build on this to encourage me to seek him for an

overriding framework or meta-narrative for all I do (work, church, family, et al). It

feels like a journey to really knowing who I really am and what I will find fulfillment in

doing (so that giving myself to that feels easier grace-filled not hard-work).

Meanwhile the fasting aspects (except Sundays) continue generally well - begining

to feel normal and I'm sure have made me more sensitive to what God is doing.