James Henley

Life Update

Haven't blogged in a long time, so felt it was time to get back into the habit.

Had a nice, long break at home for a couple of weeks over Easter so took a bit of a break from blogging. Arrived back in Newport ready to go again last weekend.

We had our first Lab gathering yesterday night - starting our new series for the Summer called "Pictures", which is a series of seven pictures of God and His people across the bible. We kicked off last night with Abraham, thinking about stepping out of the old and familiar to journey towrds something new.

Will probably post some reflections in the next couple of days, as well as the powerpoint from my "talk".

Also Justin brought together some really cool liturgy to take us through the evening, and I came up with a little something for a kind of confession afterwards. Although, we had a few absentees (bit of a select group), think it was a good start to the Summer for us... Bring on the sun and BBQs and cool stuff...

Some quick things I got up to over Easter and in the last week I've been back...

My little sister had a birthday - and a sleepover with some very loud, crazy girlies.

Had a birthday - yes, I'm 20... I now actually feel old... :-(

Went to the W. Midlands Safari Park to see all the pwetty animals (the giraffes blew my mind - they're so tall). More photos in my Flickr.

Got to update my little group of prayer warriors at a care home in Caerleon - been there a couple of times before to speak to them - they're an awesome group.

Weekends away, new phones and Flickr

Umm... just got myself a Flickr account to put all my photos in from my camera, as well as my beautiful new camera phone, which is incredible.

Seems like ages since I last blogged - been caught up in college work and Lab work and all sorts, and then just seemed to have so many ideas swirling around my head that I couldn't get them all down - but this week is hopefully going to be a slightly slower paced one, so hopefully I'll get the chance to work out some ideas and put down some thoughts this week on different things.

Also really want to get to grips with my chaplaincy blog, which I've neglected really badly - really want to give that another go, maybe with some more comtemplative stuff or meditation or something.

Had an amazing weekend up in the Peak District with some other guys involved in missional community and emerging church in the UK - was exactly the chance to relax and slow down that I've really needed over the last couple of week. The surroundings were incredible, as the photo bears witness - there was just an incredible sense of encountering God in the beauty of nature. And the company and conversation was amazing as well - so much I want to explore and to blog about.

Oh, and thanks for getting your fingers out and rating some of my posts - it's great to get some feedback... think my next mission with the blog is to try and provoke some conversation and build up some comments...

Please rate me...

Just added a "rate this post" widget to the blog - the intention being to try and get some feedback from you guys and work out what it is that makes a good blog post and what makes a really bad one so I can try and write stuff that works for my (very) few readers in the future.

So please, please could you take two seconds when you get to the bottom of a post and rate it for me? Thanks, that would be awesome...

It's really simple...

• If you think that what I wrote was rubbish then give it only one star.
• If it would have been okay if you hadn't fallen asleep halfway through, then give it just the two stars.
• If it made you think for a couple of seconds, but then something more interesting caught your attention then give it three.
• If it sticks in your head for the next ten minutes as you think through what I've written, then go for it and give it a four.
• And if your head explodes in either a literal or metaphorical sense, and you can still operate technology afterwards, then go straight to five stars. ;-)

Thank you. Now feel free to go on to today's real post.

PS. Yes you can rate this post if you really want to make a statement about the irony of it all...

Lent

Was thinking today about maybe giving up meat for Lent... seems like something that I tend to rely on / take for granted quite a lot. Hmm...

Used to be quite skeptical of the whole "giving up stuff for Lent" thing - was of the opinion that it was about where your heart was, and that giving stuff up didn't matter as long as you "took up" God... but then the realisation came on me that actually it's a spiritual discipline, and so the symbolic, physical process of giving something up as part of "turning towards God" for Lent is actually quite cool.

Plus, I think that going veggie is actually a historic, sustainable way of fasting?

Laserzzz

Had an awesome time Quasar-ing last night to celebrate Priya's birthday. It was insane - best thing ever. Above is Mr Matt Way, the new Newport CU President, in the midst of a firefight looking very cool.

Chillin' with Bishop Dominic

Got confirmed in Magor yesterday - in preparation for the Bishop to come to the Lab for my licensing at the beginning of February. We tracked the Bishop down to a beautiful little church in Magor to get it done - it had a really long closed in chancel leading up to a little sanctuary at the end which made going up for communion seem like a pilgrimage into the holy of holies - very cool.

Was straight back to work with the Lab then last night - talked a little about our theme for this term, which is Authentic Community, and had some reflection/worship/prayer stations set up which we worked our way around to inspire and set up the rest of the series. Was very cool even though we were only a small group with a lot of the guys still on their way back to Newport for the new term. Will put up my notes and stuff from the stations in another post.

Got the first Lab team meeting tonight to set ourselves up for the new term. The team's coming together really well - got a good feeling about this term.

Got plenty of stuff to be getting on with before college on Wednesday.

2008

Been meaning to post some kind of year review type thing all week, but everytime I was about to finally get round to it something else more attractive seemed to come up. Last night was Monty Python's Life of Brian - a beautiful work of art ;-)

This year's been a pretty crazy one - looking back to last Christmas when I was just coming home having just really settled into working at St Mary's in Malpas, it seems like years ago. Actually this summer seems like it's miles back down the road as well so maybe it's just these last few months at the Lab that have been crazy.

I find myself now in a completely different role and a completely different place than I would have even dreamed of last year - or even wanted to dream about - it feels very strange. But I'm loving every minute.

Especially over the last few months I've grown so much in confidence and purpose. I feel like I'm beginning to really become the person I was made to be. It feels awesome.

I just had this feeling going to bed last night (this morning) that 2008 is going to be an amazing year - so much to do, so many changes to make. I think I'll be turning around at the end of it all again saying how 2007 feels like so long ago.

So, New Year's Resolutions... I don't tend to really go in for that kind of thing since I know I'd wouldn't really keep them, but I guess this year there's one thing I want to try and manage. The first would be reading my bible - I started a few days before Christmas at the beginning reading three chapters a day, and still seem to be going okay with it. I want to have read the whole thing by the end of the year.

If I end up getting bogged down in Leviticus or something then I guess I'll switch and start reading three chapters from three different books (of the bible) rather than trying to work through start to finish. I just realised that although I think my bible knowledge is pretty good - I know the bible better in some nice, fluffy places than others, and there are some books of the bible I actually don't think I've even looked at.

For 2008, I've also moved over my blog to a new address and a new look. Blogger was getting a bit boring. Don't worry though if you're subscribed by email or RSS the feed will still be in exactly the same place - one of the wonders of Feedburner, but from now on you can view the new look blog at http://jameshenley.typepad.co.uk.

Sorry for a really self-centred post, hopefully I'll post later in the week with something a little less "me me me". Oh and happy 2008.

God with us

Felt I should post some kind of reflection on this Advent with the big day tomorrow. Will try and do some review of some kind of this year in the next week leading up to 2008, but though it would be good to write something to mark Christmas itself.

For me, this Christmas has been a strange one – part of the transition involved in growing up and moving out I guess. Christmas has always been about family for me – time spent with my little brother and sister, and Mum and Dad. But looking back in this advent season and thinking about the things that have really hit me, it's also been much more about time spent with friends than in previous years. Maybe this Christmas, God has been with us - in the time just spent being together.

Back in Newport, the run up to Christmas was about late night viewings of Home Alone 2, Love Actually, and other Christmas classics I can't really remember at the House that Love Built with some of the guys from the Lab – the Christmas movie fest took off in a chaotic kind of way. Late night (there might be a theme here ;-) painting sessions at St Paul's to get our Christmas boards ready to go up outside – as well as late night trips to Tesco's looking for sheets. The unforgettable Christian Union Christmas party with a huge game of WarioWare, and the Space Hopper relay – but possibly more about the roadtrip afterwards to campus and back.

And in Aberystwyth, about a drink with old friends to catch up – and converse with eternal significance.

I thought that I might have lost that childhood warm feeling of being Christmassy – but looking back maybe it's just been displaced a little.

Nearly home...

Driving back to Aberystwyth tonight or tomorrow morning (but probably tonight). So looking forward to being home and seeing my family. Ever since our first Christmas service last weekend I've suddenly been pining to get back home.

Spent the last couple of weeks tying up loose ends and getting everything done so I can go home, and everything seems to be just about done now. Met with Bishop Dominic for the first time this morning, which seemed to go well. He's a good bloke - sometimes I don't think I give Bishops enough credit for the job they do - just think of them as old and crusty, but Dominic is anything but.

The CU put this together for the Uni Carol Service - Jack makes a very cool, if a little cheesy, Rob Bell - but the thought he puts across is very cool. He's a little star - need to get him at the Lab speaking more in the new year. Anyway, enjoy...

Lots of stuff…

Realised that it's been nearly two weeks since I last wrote in this blog. Guess it's just been a really busy two weeks and I haven't really found much to reflect on that I can blog about easily. My first essay is due in another couple of week's time so until that's out of the way you might not hear very much from me.

Busy preparing my talk for the Lab on Sunday when Aardv:ark are coming up to join us – it's one of the last in our current series on Living the Jesus Life – Living with Hope. Meant to put my last talk up here but never got round to it so maybe I'll put the two up together sometime next week I don't know. Anyway, really excited about this Sunday – it's going to be big, fun and exciting I hope.

I've been growing in presence on Campus at the university a fair amount in recent weeks – with the blog, as well as my first show with G on Radio Noize, the campus radio station. Radio was really good fun, looking forward to it again tomorrow (12-2pm – and you can listen online at the website ;-) and getting to play around with all the sound equipment. The first uni blog entry was received really well all-in-all – when I went in on Tuesday Lawrence, the head of Student Services, commended me on it as well. Really need to get round to writing another post on there as well – but they take a little more thought than my ramblings here. I want to communicate something useful and thought provoking and that takes a little more production time than the usual five minutes.

Had our first Lab Team Meeting on Wednesday night which went really well – there's so much to plough through though and make decisions about. Hopefully we'll get there eventually. Some of the stuff that we talked about for next term was really exciting though – sounds like Sunday nights might change quite a bit in the future (I can't say much more than that).

Finally, G gets even older today, so Happy Birthday to him.

Phew. Think I'm done.