Thought it was about time I got round to updating the blog. I was planning on doing this much earlier but the longer you leave it the more work you have to do to catch up and the harder it is to convince myself to actually sit down and do it.
"Procrastination is the thief of time."That one is just for you mum and dad.
So, anyway, 4th October already? What's up with that? I can't believe my last blog entry was after only nine days in Newport. I was thinking I'd do a huge update explaining everything over the last month, but I'm not sure that'll work out so mayb I'll just cover a kind of now-then comparison with the last one and you can fill in the gaps yourself or something. I've also realised I have this habit of whittering and going completely off-topic so back to the point...
October Already? So I've now been in Newport just over a month (34 days I think) - and everything's going really well, and I'm really enjoying everything about city life and working for St. Mary's - even prayer meetings at 8.30 each morning - I'm thinking the Youth Team at St Mike's should take this up. There's so much I figured I'd break everything up and just write a little about everything.
SchoolBoth the Juniors and Infants Schools are going well, and I'm getting on well with both the kids* and the teachers. The infants I'm enjoying slightly more, possibly just because I settled in there quicker, and I've been doing all kinds of things like helping the children** use the computers and doing craft and helping look at their work and give spellings and things.
The Juniors has been a little more of a challenge, especially staying awake listening to pupil after pupil read to me - which seems to be the only job they've had for me. I perfectly understand why, because the teachers have to get round to listening to each pupil read at least once a week with most of the pupils reading twice a week and some everyday depending on ability - so for me to come in and get through about ten or so of them in an hour takes a lot of pressure off of them. It's just really boring for me.
Last Friday, though, I started helping one of the teachers with his research project (he's doing some extra qualification like an Ma or something whilst teaching) - which is to start off small groups of pupils doing all their everyday schoolwork on the school's tablet PCs. So I've been setting up the PCs and the software they're going to be using (Microsoft OneNote) and helping them get used to using them. So Friday was great fun, and I was chatting to the teacher before SMASH yesterday and he seemed keen to get me to carry on with that so that should be really good.
* I've started saying kids instead of student just 'cause its got less syllables but I always thought it was a bit disrespectful so feel free to shout at me to make me stop.
** See better already - thank you. SMASH - After-school Club / Children's Church Service
SMASH has been really good - especially working in such an able and enthusiastic team - although there have been some creative differences, they haven't evolved into anything more and hopefully won't. It was really sad to miss a week last week when I was away, and this week I was thrown back in having to dress up as an Israelite and do a little roleplay of the Exodus and the Ten Commandments which was... well... interesting I guess. No, I'm really enjoying it, and hopefully the children are as well.
24-7 - Youth Home Group24-7 hasn't been on for the last couple of weeks, because Catherine (Ass. Vicar) has been away so it was good to be back at hers on Monday evening. We watched another of these Nooma DVDs which are really good (the whole set arrived at church on Monday), and ate cookies and stuff. I'm finding I'm most able to relax at this because it's closest to what I'm used to and the guys are my age and I get on with them well.
Worship Group / Sound System / Time for Praise*
Time for Praise is going well. My team led our first one last week so I got to stand up and speak and stuff and try and move things on a little - there's a tendancy because of the way it's organised by a group of teams for it to sound a bit too much like a school assembly rather than a church service. I'm really happy with my group and the way it went because I think they share the same vision for a professional, sleek look to the service.
Worship Group has been going fine, but I don't really want to say much because we're really in a transisional period as as soon as the new sound system is all sorted we're going to be introducing drums and individual vocal mikes and things like that that I used to take for granted at St Mike's so I'll talk about that in a couple of weeks time and tell you how it's going.
The new sound system was supposed to be in by yesterday, but because of stock not coming in and other commitments, the company installing it have messed us about a bit and so we're currently still on the skeleton of the old system until (hopefully) next Thursday when it finally gets sorted.
Last Sunday was an interesting one, as our choirmaster has gone away and for whatever reason there was no organist available - so at 9.43, David comes down to Sunday Club to find me and tell me that there's no organist and can I play guitar instead, so after a rushed rewrite of the Order of Service, St Mary's Formal Congregation had its first experience of informal guitar-led worship, which was suprisingly positive. We did a couple of easy enough hymns and some of your standard 80s worship (Abba Father etc... that Graham Kendrick guy wrote so many songs he must be good right?), but instead of the expected uproar at the end it seems the congregation were much more open to it than David had thought and the general response was "It's a nice change", with a couple of people going as far as "Are you available next Sunday too, and the Sunday after that, and..." so maybe we'll get a few more staying on for Time for Praise after the formal service.
* But not nessessarily in that order. Youth Club - Hypoactive 11-14s-ish Fantastic, but tiring. This is also one of my favourite activities, and also my weekly workout.
Worship Central Worship Central is a load of day conferences organised by HTB, hosted by Tim Hughes and Al Gordon, in partnership with Soul Survivor. So a few of us went off to the first one since the summer a couple of weeks ago, which was really good. A great opportunity to really worship God and to get some sound teaching and stuff on worship*. We drove in as far as Osterley then tubed into Knightsbridge. It was great to be in London as well - I havent been there since I was like 6 or something I think - so we went into Leicester Square for lunch and had a look around. I didn't realise what an amazing position HTB is right next to the V&A and the Natural History Museum - where London Fashion Week was just finishing.
* Oh, and I also picked up the new Chris Tomlin album "See the Morning", which you can see down below and it's amazing.
Careforce Induction Course
Last week from Monday 'til Thursday I was at the Quinta in Oswestry for the first (of two) conference organised by Careforce. I left Newport not really wanting to go at all, but by the end of the week I really didn't want to leave to go back to Newport, which is usually a good sign that it was amazing. The teaching really impacted me and by the end of the week I'd gotten to know so many British and International volunteers from so many different places. Just generally awesome! I wish I had the time to write more about it - and maybe I will sometime in the near future.
My original plan of twice a week still stands just with a big hiatus in the middle, so normal service will (hopefully) be resumed next week, and this Friday my plan is to do a little update just on something special.
Prayer
Thankyous: - Thank God for an amazing first month in Malpas.
- Thank God that whether a purposeful decision or just by coincidence that he's is moving on the Worship at St. Mary's and that His people are following and are open to the change.
- Thank God for a great Induction Course with Careforce even though I expected much less of it, and for new friends made on the course.
Pray for:
- The sound system that it will be up and running as soon as possible with few hitches, and that God would be calling a few people to start training to use it and to monitor the sound at the Worship Team practices and on a Sunday.
- All the services on Sunday especially Time for Praise.
- SMASH next week that it would go well and that we wouldn't see our attendance levelling off but that more would continue coming for the first time.
- Our Alpha course starting next week that (a) Numbers would be good and (b) That God would be calling those that attend back to Him.
God bless,
J.
