Our good friends Tom & Naomi Brewer have ‘very kindly’ bought their god-daughter (Bethany) a new present. Its a Liverpool football strip! Now we are going to be a divided family – Joel has a Hull City strip and now Bethany is being disgracefully indoctrinated by those who are meant to guide her through life….., into supporting Liverpool FC….
The thing is, Bethany loves it. SHe went out in the garden straight away for a kick around and she was very proud to let her big brother see her wearing it. And if truth be known, although I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone else, I quite like Liverpool as well.
July 17, 2008 at 11:24 pm
· Filed under Family, Friends
I’ve uploaded a few new photos. Some are of family and some are from a recent trip I had with my friend Carl. We had a go at taking some arty photos – needless to say his are the best!
I am currently sitting in our caravan on our driveway. It is my ‘hideaway’ where I go to avoid children so I can do some work. I broke up for the summer last week (I know I know….part timer, ****** private system etc etc…….just deal with it ok?) I haven’t let myself get into holiday mode yet as I still have a 4000 word essay to write and I know I will never get it done if I start hanging around in my pyjamas and watching daytime tv. Apart from this essay, I have now completed the first year of my 3 year theology degree. It has gone very quickly and I’m sure that the other 2 will be just the same. It has also made me think a lot more about what I will be doing at the end of the 3 years. Ideally I will do vicaring stuff for 2-3 days a week and continue to teach part time for the rest of the week. I’m not sure what the vicaring stuff will look like though. There are a few opportunities but it is difficult to know what to persue. What I do know is that I need to hold on to the reason I originally felt it was right to put forward for ordination which was to be involved in pioneering new forms of church, the same message but expressed differently to the standard Anglican way. I always remember back to ‘Village 87′ which was a Rob Frost mission that I went on back in 1987 (surprisingly). I remember sitting at the kitchen table listening to the rest of the team talk about their faith and about God and realising that I had never experienced what they had and also that I loved the fact that this conversation could happen in such an informal way… around a kitchen table. It may seem obvious now but it was quite revelation to me at the time having been brought up in ‘regular’ church. Since then I have always wanted to help create environments like this; informal places where people can relax and hear about God without all the unnecessary stuff that we often tend to add in churches. I need to say at this point that this doesn’t mean I am against tradition and ritual and all that stuff, I just think we need to look again at the reasons why we do it and ask whether it helps people to hear about God or hinders them from hearing about him. In the church that I help to lead at the moment, G2, we try to create an informal environment in which people can relax and engage at the level they are comfortable with. Of course we don’t always hit the mark, but the intention is there and we have seen it grow over the few years it has been going. Its exciting to be a part of because it is helping people to engage with the message of God which they so often never get to in our churches because all the politics and ‘churchy’ stuff gets to them first. Anyway, I realise that I always need to come back to this original desire to help enable church that is like this.
I went to my friend Christian’s ordination yesterday at York Minster. It was a long service but I found it really moving, probably because I am thinking a lot at the moment about all this sort of stuff. It was great to see Christian ‘get done’ – he even made wearing robes look good, which is saying something
 Anyway, I can’t put off starting my essay any longer -I still have loads to blog about but it will have to come later……
It’s 7am on Saturday morning, the kids are watching tv or playing on the Wii and here I am finally writing a post! I seem to go through stages of writing regularly and then having long periods of absence. To be fair to me I have been very busy, but the probable truth is just that I couldn’t be bothered……….
This week I head off to Paris with our Year 6. Its a trip I have been running for 4 years now to a Chateau run by a group called PGL. It is a great place to visit for both the kids and the staff as it is so well run and it actually feels like a bit of a break when we are there. Obviously we don’t tell the rest of the staff that, they think we are working hard  The only down side is that it means leaving Pippa and the kids for a week which on top of all my vicar training weekends is a bit much. Still, when I get back I’ve only got 1 week left untl my summer holidays…the perks of a private school job!
We had a great time last week for our half term. We started it off by going to my parents’ static caravan in Scarborough for a weekend with our friends Luke & Hannah. The kids stayed in York with some other friends, Kate & Simon, who are real saints considering that they already have 3 kids of their own and they looked after ours at the same time. They hired a bouncy castle for the weekend which was a stroke of genius…. Of course that first weekend was the one when Hull City became a Premiership club. I watched the game with Luke in a hotel in Scarborough…..good times! On the Sunday we went for a walk on the beach and threw a frisby around. I got so involved in chasing after the frisby that I totally missied the fact that there was a great ‘lake’ left on the beach in front of me and ended up crashing into it, submerged, fully clothed, successfully ruining my mobile phone, my watch and the contents of my wallet. Still you had to laugh……. well Luke did anyway. Fortunately it was a nice day and I dried off after a couple of hours.
We then spent another few days at the carcvan with the kids and Mum & Dad which was noiser but still great fun. Dan came over as well and we had a good day explring the Sea Life Centre together.
Towards the end of the week we pulled our tourer caravan to a site near Harrogate to camp with some other friends. It was only our second time camping and it was a lot beter experience that our first. Being with other people and having nicer weather makes a big difference.
Well, I’ve got to get up now – I have a school open day today – one of the down sides of working in a private school
Went to see the U23D film at the Bradford IMAX last night with a few friends. Was everything I hoped it would be The clarity of both sound and vision was amazing. You really do feel as though you are at the concert, except this time you get an amazing view and the sound quality is the best you could hope for. Before the film we went for a curry which is always a good thing.
We’ve just had a great weekend in Oundle with Pip’s parents. We don’t get opportunity to go down there that often but when we do we always have a good time. There are so many people that we care about a lot there that a visit is always an emotional time (in a good way). The service at Oundle Baptist Church was really good. The church meets in the local secondary school and is always a joy to visit. There is always a real sense of God there.
On the Sunday we went to visit a farm that were in the process of lambing 1600 sheep. The shepherdess who goes to the church said we could come over and watch and help a bit. It was quite daunting to be standing amongst all those sheep who just stood there and stared at you. In large numbers they can be a little daunting. I think watching the film Babe hasn’t helped! Anyway – the really cool thing was that Joel decided he wanted to help deliver a lamb which he did. I was really proud of how he was up for doing it. He says he wants to be a vet and I suppose this is as good a start as any. The video shows him delivering the lamb. Its a bit ropey in quality as it was taken on my phone but hopefully you can make out what’s happening.
Went to see Mr Bean today with Joel. Good fun – not amazing but good fun.
Also went to see Bradford Bulls play Leeds Rhinos tonight with Ben & Carl. Great game. Bradford lost but deserved to win – some pretty dodgy refereeing. What amazed me was that I have tended to support Leeds Rhinos but standing amongst all the Bradford supporters I really wanted to support Bradford. You may say “no surprise there” as I probably wanted to avoid a good kicking. But it was more than that – it was wanting to be a part of the crowd. I really wanted to belong rather than to go against. Interesting insight into crowd mentality, especially when you ask the really serious questions about why people in the past have gone along with some of the horrible things that have been done in their countries. The need to belong is very powerful………..
Also had The Biggest Kebab in the World Ever â„¢ just round the corner from the stadium. It was from a place called ‘The Balti Ranch’. It was UNBELIEVABLE the size of kebab they gave me. Just feeing the weight of the thing made me feel full. Anyway – here is a picture of Carl eating his…..the picture doesn’t do it justice.
There are some comments relating to this post in the comments section after the ‘server change’ post. I had to copy them over after I swapped servers………
Our good friends Tom & Naomi Brewer have ‘very kindly’ bought their god-daughter (Bethany) a new present. Its a Liverpool football strip! Now we are going to be a divided family – Joel has a Hull City strip and now Bethany is being disgracefully indoctrinated by those who are meant to guide her through life….., into supporting Liverpool FC….
