Lost in Transit...

In 48 hours I will be in the US, I have no idea what's going to happen. Watch this space.

g.

A random day:

At work we had a 'company day' today, I'm usually not a fan of these things. It started off with champagne (always a good start) and being told i'm getting a bonus (an even better start). Then it went downhill, the drinking began, and well didn't really stop. Several dissaperances of staff occured during the day, one guy made it to 1pm then puked, collapsed, tried to write software whilst drunk and eventually found his way to a floor to pass out. Interlaced with drinking were team building exercises, I have no idea why people think these are good ideas, I reckon only about 6 people in the world actually enjoy these things and find them fun....perhaps i'm too cynical. So after participating in a ping pong ball fight over dinner and watching my company drink themsleves silly I made my way to London to the city of london boiler room where Simon from this summer's mission was, to randomly meet some of Jay's friends from college station TX. I love prayer rooms, it's where you cut through all the crap and it's just you and God, i've been reading red moon rising this week which is the story of 24-7, and am nothing less than inspired and have definately caught something of the 24-7 vision. Who knows what craziness this will lead to?

g.

This weekend was good, i spent most of it with south africans, i even ate billtong. kif. I also went to a cracker of a prayer meeting with my church and the south african church in reading, got very much stirred up by God. The guys I was with were telling me about their leaf situation, yes yes very big issue. Basically their neighbour is chucking leaves over her fence into their garden (as apparently they poisin the dogs...yeah right what a load of rubbish) instead of putting them into bins as normal people do and irritating Wendy and Gail. So for most of the weekend G, W and I have been hatching plans to get back at the neighbours. Our ideas so far are

1) properly cake their house and garden with leaves
2) do the same but with mud
3) cover the cars and conseveatory with breadcrumbs to attract birds which will poo everywhere
4) buy several fluffy replicas of the dogs in question and hang them from nooses on the tree overhanging the house to wind up the leave throwers...

admittedly these are pretty tame ideas, we were't in that much of a creative mood. the people in question are snooty retirees, so i'm throwing out a challenge to whoever's reading this to come up with any funny ideas on revenge and let me know...not that as a christian i'd advocate that... no not at all

Well another week has passed since the last post. My back has recovered more or less but i'm trying to make sure I don't do anything to upset it again. It was very embaressing last night having to turn down helping someone dig up his garden due to back problems, I felt like an old man. This week I worked at Gatwick Airport for a customer at work, I had analysis meetings for 10 hours one day and 9 hours the next, I got so bored I began to nod off as I stared at the planes taking off outside wishing that I was on one of them, only to be rudely awoken by my manager asking me if i'd noted that particular point down. I began perfecting the art of looking like i'm working but staring into space, it's quite a hard thing to do, i'm sure i'll have more opportunities to do it whilst i work in IT On wednesday I finally made it to my cell group which makes a change, it was a really good time, we prayed, got to know the new people and spent the evening talking about God. What I liked about it is that it was organic, it felt natrual and God's presence was there. My friend Jay's recent post said " The church isn't something you plan, it just happens when people who are united through Christ come together" which i'm sure maybe a bit contreversial but i quite agree with him. i've found myelf getting on the church topic again, hmmm.

a brief sum up of the past 24 hours:

Dave Griff the lead singer of my band got married today. It has been a bit of a crazy day. It started last night when the PA van didn't turn up at church for setup and practice til 1030, so the sound check and practice didn't happen, not a good start. Next I stayed on the floor of Matt's (the guitarist from my band) house, unfortunately this morning when I woke up I had pulled a muscle in my back again during the night which was rather uncomfortable (i did it last week as well so it was a bit week already), then I sneezed a few mins later which then managed to make it click again leaving me in quite a bit of pain. So after praying, limping and getting grumpy I made it to church to set up, rather embaressingly i had to get someone to reverse my car as i couldn't physically turn my body to see where i was reversing....doh. After that it did get better. I was playing with a band called Brother John (who are an awesome band), everything clicked into place musically (and nothing more clicked out of place physically) and God was certainly in the place, it was an amazing sight to see the majority of 400 people going for it in worship. The wedding was great, bosh got on stage and played some songs later on, we all had a laugh and I finally made it home, back getting better. I also realised that I'd like to move back to bournemouth...watch this space.

anyway its 1AM and i'm tired, time to stop methinks.....

A quick catch up on the week that's almost over. The party that my friend invited half the church to only got 8 people, which kinda sucked in the fact that everyone was either busy or didn't want to come, but was nice as it meant we all could just chill out and relax. Work has been alright this week, I was amused to get described as having a jynx by my peers, as every bit of hardware I work on seems to go wrong when i'm working on it, no joke. This week I also made my way to bournemouth for a curry with fellow musicians from nth degree (the music organisation/collective that I am part of) as the lead singer from my band is getting married this weekend. We had some good conversations about music, about ideas on the current congregational model of church which became quite deep and thought provoking, it has stirred up some stuff that's been on my mind for a while now. For example when the recent mission was in Prague we began witnessing in the middle of a bar, and as the evening went on we began to think "why couldn't we do church here, and take church into the culture rather than expect people to adapt to our slightly cheezy contemporary christian culture to fit in to hear the gospel?" This is touching on the whole debate about the emerging church, I must admit I don't know an awful lot about this but will be researching this a bit more to try and find some clarity in my viewpoint, especially as 24-7 has been described as 'emerging church'...watch this space.

So still I haven't stopped everything and moved to azerbaijan as threatened in post 1 of this blog, however it's now under 1 month til I go to texas to hang out with jay and jeff from my earlier mission to eastern europe. I'm really looking forward to the experience, including dare i say it the attention that being in the deep south with a british accent might draw....on the flip side it will take about 5 mins each time I introduce myself as people from the US generally don't immediately understand the correct english pronounciation of my name. doh! It would be much easier if called myself Bob.

So this weekend I am going down to bournemouth, playing piano at the wedding, enjoying the beach, and sleeping as much as i can afterwards, so until next time....

g.