Prayer Room Capers September 5, 2008

This week, I had the pleasure of spending some time in a 24-7 prayer room at the church some of my friends attend.

Being in a prayer room is not a rare occurence for me. One of the joys of my job is that I often find myself constructing ‘intimacy areas’ out of old bedsheets, or taping speaker boxes together to make a Babylon prayer installation. I love the buzz of starting with an empty room and  creating something that helps people meet with God.

What was so refreshing about this week’s experience, however, was that I had nothing to do with any of this. (Except, I have to say, for printing and photocopying the sign-up sheet, but then I like to leave my mark somewhere!) And that made such a difference. I could experience the room for what it was, I could meet God there without having to worry if there was enough paper or if anyone had spilt coffee or if the fish were alive or dead (there were no fish, which admittedly made this job easier for everyone).

Walking into that room was like walking into a prayer room for the first time ever. I experienced the stillness of God’s presence there (even above above the monotonous drone of a persistent drill). I felt intrigued by the different zones that had been set up and the thought that had gone into their creation. I loved rifling through a selection of CD’s before eventually settling on some chilled strings. I felt like a kid in the prayer version of a toy shop – What to look at first? Where to sit down? Do I paint first or dance around for a bit?

One of the things that struck me most about the prayer room, and the 24-7 week in general was that it is taking place in an upper room, while the main church downstairs is being renovated (hence the drill). Interestingly the gentle undertone of construction noise didn’t distract me from praying, it actually made me think –  what better time to do 24-7! Something like a building project, when you’re quite literally changing how a church looks physically, strikes me as a great time to turn to prayer and dedicate everything to God!

Lots of things struck me about the room: The plant with little fairy lights spelling out ‘Love, Joy, Peace’ etc reminded me that these qualities are organic and they grow in us. The Bible verses dotted around reminded me of some of the promises I’ve been mulling over in my head recently. The heartfelt, post-it note prayers for God to transform the city challenged me with their passion and fervency, and nudged me to lift up afresh some of the things I’m longing to see God do. The pile of cushions that I sunk into in one corner reminded me of the importance of stopping, encountering God and finding his clarity in our confusion and busyness.

The bit that impacted me most, though, was the aforementioned intimacy area (although I’m pleased to report this one was not created from a manky old bedsheet!) Now, again the rigours of life and work mean I end up in a lot of similar purposed places. I have always liked them well enough and thought they were a good thing to have in any self-respecting prayer space, but I usually find them a little difficult to connect with. Everything is very white, very clean, very pristine and very still. This being the case, I’m generally very tempted to splurge paint all around and make a lot of noise in them. (Not because I have rebellious or destructive tendancies, I hasten to add… I just see white spaces and want to colour them in). Anyway, this intimacy area in this prayer room was different, and it included one detail which changed it from being just another nondescript white area, into a place where I probably did my most significant business with the good Lord.

The thing that made such a difference was simply a stretch of red fabric, torn in half, hanging in the entrance to the area, in such a way that to enter it you have to enter in through the torn fabric halves. For me this was a powerful symbol, speaking clearly of the sacrifice and death of Jesus tearing the temple curtain clean in half, leaving the access open for people to enter into the presence and holiness of Christ. I felt like I could connect with the theme of holiness and intimacy in a new way, because it was so contextualised by the visual reminder that the way is opened to me because of what Jesus did.

I was sad when my time in the room was done, and I was thankful to God for the spontaneous interlude that had only been planned the evening before, that meant I could have this space. So it’s a well done to my friends who’ve worked tirelessly to set it all up, and a thanks to God too for showing up when we pray.

September September 4, 2008

My life is often a feat of trying to fit a lot of diary engagements into not enough diary days. Especially in the excitement that is September, when prayer events aplenty seem to spring up all across our fair isle. I love the busyness, the feeling of being kept on my toes, the drive to keep going to God for inspiration because my own supplies have long since dwindled.

September comes with a sense that the year is drawing to a close. My ipod strayed to a Christmas song the other day and I didn’t forward skip it in disgust. Pretty soon the shops will be full of associated garb. I begin to feel the familiar sense of satisfaction that another twelve months are almost over and done with, and with that comes the urge to start looking at the statistics of my year. How many towns have I visited? What was the top moment? Where have I flown to? (and what was my carbon footprint like?) What has surprised me (there are some top contenders for that prize this year, let me tell you), What have I learned?

Also, meetings about next year have started to creep into my week. Both this week and last I found myself enmeshed in buzzing conversations, dreaming big for 2009, sharing concepts and visions and working out partnerships. I was excited about the potential of this year, and have not been dissapointed, and next year seems to be following suit. 

But there is more fun to be had before it’s time for that. Highlights of the next few weeks include trips to Bedford and Huddersfield and Banbury to hang out with lovely Salvation Army praying people. After that there’s a training day we’re pulling together that I’m really excited for. Exciting social occasions coming up include multiplicitous dramatic performances from my gifted friends, plus a cool engagement party, and an evening making Fair Trade goodie bags for a coffee evening we’re having with church.

Church is the other excitement in life at the moment. For the past twelve months we’ve been out of our building, while the dear old place was razed to the ground and replaced with an altogether shinier (and less death-trap-laced) new one. It’s pretty much done now, and it’s been really great to watch the finishing touches being applied. This leaves us with the fun process of shopping. So I have been measuring the height of filing cabinets, musing over the practicality of teal sofas and observing discussions about the correct type of potato masher to buy. I’ve learned things about decking out a church that I never would have even considered before.

All in all, these are exciting times. I find my head merrily full of projects that I am really able to get my teeth into. I find myself anticipating the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, amazed at what I have seen and experienced over the past nine months, and thrilled about what is to come.

Junic Round-up June 30, 2008

I’ve been trying think of a coherent way to string all the things I want to blog about this last bit of June together, but I have so far been unable to, in fact coherence in general has been somewhat lacking today. I figure the best thing to do is to just splurge about a number of things and not worry about it making sense. Yes, that’s a plan.

Last week I travelled down to Sussex for a couple of days retreat. I loved the rolling green hills and the quietness, waking up to the baaing of sheep was a novel experience, and I enjoyed a wondrous conversation with a local taxi driver, who wondered if I, having come from London, had never seen a tractor before. (He then went on to direct me to beachy head… a fact which fleetingly concerned me.) 

We stayed in a big old house, I shared a room with three other girls. There was that initial awkward moment, where we didn’t know quite what to say to each other, but after a few minutes we were nattering away. By the end of the retreat had a number of hilarious moments to share. We renamed the place we were staying Jurassic Park, for reasons I shall not divulge. We laughed and cried together, and we took long morning walks and considered swimming in the lake. It was great to meet them and they helped make it an great experience for me.

I’m not very good at retreating, I learned! On the first day I could be found wandering around the gardens, with a notebook (as ever), asking God to speak about my church, my job, world peace etc… The heavens were resoundingly silent and I was somewhat frustrated with the good Lord. He did then point out that it wasn’t the best plan for me to try and agenda our every conversation, and that it would do me good just to be still for a bit, without ‘achieving’ anything in terms of hearing from him. So it felt like I spent a lot of time over the 48 hours lying on my back in the grass, just chilling and being with him. With hindsight I know that was powerful in itself (although I did inadvertently bring a lot of said grass home as a result).

The programme was good, intense but helpful. I’ve spent the time since coming back feeling a bit disorientated but with a real sense that good was done there, good that God will build on in the weeks and months ahead. So that’s exciting.

I came straight back into what looked like a manic weekend, so it was good discipline not to get all caught up in the busyness and lose the sense of peace I had from being away. I emptied the diary a bit and dispelled some of the madness, so actually managed to have a quiet couple of days.

On Sunday I led the meeting and preached etc… It was an amusing occasion for so many reasons. I bribed the congregation with gingerbread men to take part… no, they were all very responsive and mostly well behaved, with only one notable exception!

Today has been quite busy, but I have been having a reflective evening, being the end of June and all that (I can hardly believe it’s July, well nearly July, already!). These last thirty days have taught me some important things:

• When God starts something he will finish it, however tempting it is to wish he would/try to convince him to abandon the mission half way through.
• God’s timing is perfect, no really it is.
• However intriguing parts of this journey are, God is residing over all of them.
• Just when you think you have God worked out, he does something that you don’t expect (and likely wouldn’t have asked for!!), but it works out ok in the end!
• I have some amazing and faithful friends, and I am so grateful for their love and the privilege of journeying with them.
• Being 25 is great. York is a beautiful city. Surprises are lovely things. I love trains more than I thought.
• There are many more exciting times ahead, so there is plenty of reason to celebrate.
• Learning to ride a bike will take more than one attempt.
• Sleeping with rags in my hair to make ringlets is painful (though the resulting ringlets are beautiful).

Best Birthday June 16, 2008

 

Last Thursday I turned 25. Surely not a noteable birthday you’d think, as one of my presents stated, it lacks the youthful exuberance of 21, or the gravitas of 60… but for me it was a big celebration, and I was determined to push celebration to the extreme.

The celebrations started the weekend before last, with the balloon creatures and cake I already mentioned.

We continued on Tuesday, with a lovely birthday meal with my friends from church here in Wandsworth. They made me a huge summer snow scene cake, with strawberries and cream in the middle and a snowman on top. It was fantastic.

Thursday was my actual birthday, and it was a lovely day. It started with a birthday coffee, continued with a birthday lunch with some of my colleagues, then I went back to Wandsworth and got some lovely presents from my friends here (including the most lovely ever purse!). That evening I went along to our monthly poetry evening where we had birthday poems and cream cakes.

The celebrations continued with fervency on Friday, as the ‘Unparis’ weekend began. To explain, we had orginally mused about going to Paris for the weekend, but for a number of reasons we decided to abandon that, so my two good friends organised a weekend of celebration on English soil. I knew where and when to turn up and what to bring, but not our itinery or destinations. The surprises were lovely and fitting.

We began on Friday night in Wagamama’s. I was handed a parcel and an envelope marked, ‘or alternatively’. When I opened the parcel it was the book Lord of The Rings. I knew then that we were going to the theatre to see it. And it truly was an awesome production. What made my night was that three of my other Canterbury friends were there too… that was a lovely bit of the surprise. I’d been intrigued by the present one of my friend’s was carrying, as it was huge!! It turned out to be a framed newspaper front page with an article about me in it… cool!!

On Saturday morning I was instructed to arrive at Kings Cross at 10.10am. So I did! I was then handed an envelope, which contained three tickets to York. I was very excited about that, as York is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. We jumped on the train, and my lovely friends had brought pastries to fit in with the Parisian theme. They also brought me a coffee table book on Parisian markets, which I duly entertained the train with excerpts from. I had to don a huge birthday badge which flashed… very subtle! (not!)

A bit further on in the journey I was handed another present. This was a printed sheet with the information about our hotel on. And a guide book all about York. It was cool to read all about where we were going and do a bit of plotting and planning.

When we arrived in York we found the hotel in the only rain shower of the weekend. It was a lovely hotel, with a huge triple bedroom. Very plush. We then walked into York, had some lunch, went on a Viking experience thing (complete with time travel, the opportunity to don a viking helmet, and coin pressing!). After a coffee we wandered round some more, buying some lovely fudge and taking in the Minster, which was beautiful. After this we walked along the river front, then went and had a carvary with a traditional yorkshire pudding.

On Sunday we got another train, this time I really did have no idea where we were going! About half way I realised we were going to Leeds! While there we met up with some good friends who live in a place called East End Park, and spent the afternoon with them, which was lovely.

It feels a bit weird that all the celebrating is over, but I am really aware that a birthday is just a summary of all that is to come in the coming year, and therefore there is a lot to look forward to and be thankful for. I’m so grateful for my friends who organised such a perfect weekend, who knew exactly what I would like, and also to everyone who helped make this birthday my favourite of the last 25!!

True Celebration June 7, 2008

So, Jacob cons his dad into giving him his brother’s birthright/blessing. Jacob runs away in fear of his life, and ends up stopping randomly in ‘a certain place’ (Genesis 28:11). That night he has a dream involving a staircase, lots of angels and an affirming speech from God about his purpose and destiny. To mark the place, he sets up the stone he used as his pillow as a pillar, to mark God’s promise and presence. He calls the place Bethel, which means House of God.

The thing that struck me about this story today is that Jacob is celebrating God’s faithfulness even without seeing it having come to completion. At this point in the story he is still on the run, without family or a place to call his own. I’m not sure I’d be celebrating with the same fervency.

This made me think about the way we celebrate, the way I celebrate. Sometimes, it is because we have a tangible cause or thing to celebrate - a baby being born, a driving test passed, a new job etc. Sometimes though, it’s more like Jacob’s pile of rocks: we are celebrating something we can’t see in completion yet.

Whereas celebrating tangible things is great, I think celebrating the ‘not-yets’ in our lives somehow sharpens our faith. If, in the moments of aridity and uncertainty, we can somehow find something to celebrate (however small and seemingly insignificant), I believe those things are like stone pillars, set up at significant points in our lives to mark something of God’s provision or revelation.

I’d like to tell you about a stone pillar in my life at the moment, and the way that this reminds me to celebrate even when it seems premature, or simply ludicrous to be doing so. 

Today some of my friends made me a birthday cake and 5 balloon animals (You know the sort you twist modelling balloons to make). It may have looked like a small gesture, but I was really touched. I’m sure Jacob’s stone pillar wasn’t much to look at, but to him it was really significant. For me these balloon animals are the same. I’ve set them up around my room now, and as I look at them, like the pillar, they remind me of celebration and love, they remind me of the promises of God to help me through the hard times and to use all things for good. They remind me that just as God promised his presence to Jacob, I have the same privilege here and now and today, and they remind me that I have some really good friends who choose to celebrate with me too. Such a blessing.  

I’m much better when I have somthing measurable to celebrate, it feels wooly in those moments when I’m praying, “thankyou God for lighting this night up and showing me the paths to walk on,” while it’s still dark and foggy outside.

Returning to the story, a few chapters later, in Genesis 35, Jacob takes his whole family back to Bethel, to the stone he had set up all those years previously, and he builds a proper altar there. We are told that God appeared to him again, promised to give him an inheritance, and reminded him of his new name. At this point Jacob has the benefit of hindsight, he can go back and say, “You did what you said you would God.”

Most times we find ourselves in the 6 chapters in between Jacob’s initial experience and his obdience in returning to Bethel. But we can still remember the memory of the pillars and what they mean to us. There are thousands of symbols we can adopt to do this -  a cross & chain round the neck, a ring with certain meaning, a painting on our wall that reminds us what God tasked us to do.

I haven’t got this celebration thing all sussed, but I have been feeling that increased sense of purity and connection when I’m celebrating even from a place of difficulty or pain. I want to know in more depth what it means to have a celebrating God, how he interacts with us in celebration, and how we ensure our celebrating focuses around transforming actions, rather than our own thoughts or agendas.

Until then I’ll just stick with my balloon creature prayer-buddies.

Visby, Sweden May 18, 2008

This is another of those posts that I know will probably not do justice to the amazing time we had… hmmm.

So, we were in Visby to lead a week of teaching about different aspects of prayer. On Tuesday we did the mechanics of prayer, on Wednesday – prayer and church, on Thursday – prayer and the community and on Friday – healing prayer.

The town of Visby is amazing, I’d recommend a visit to anyone. It is very old – some of the buildings are from the 12th century, and the section of the town we were in is walled. The town is on the West coast of the Island of Gotland, which has a rich and long history involving trading, pirates and treasure. The attached pictures hopefully show a bit what it was like.

Teaching was so much fun, and we met people from Sweden, Germany, Iceland and Denmark. It was a wondrous cacophany of languages! It was ablessing to worship and pray with the group too.

As is usual with these things, God was working and connecting and bringing about some brilliant conversations, we had ‘fika’ many times, which is like a small snack, over which we discussed boiler room, and what it means to build communities of prayer. I was thrilled to be reminded that these are springing up all over the place.

After school had finished each day, we walked all over the town and explored the windy streets, marvelling at the mix of buildings and the colours and styles. It was like we had gone back 200 years. The streets were cobbly and the whole place was just really unspoilt. It was very very quiet – so different from South West London. Even the pace of life is relaxed and laid back.

Visby’s a very creative place too. Apparently there are more artists per square mile than in any other place. We could well believe it. Something about the place just seemed to bring creativity out. We both commented that it was so easy to write there. I felt like I could have holed myself away on a hilltop and just written and written, it was that inspiring.

Food was yummy too, we had real, authentic swedish meatballs, as well as lots of nice cheese!! My personal favourites were the traditional raspberry pie, and sweetcorn soup (not together though!), we also found a lovely iron-shaped creperie, which is in one of the pictures above. The crepes were fabulous!!

I know there is more I could write, and I probably will, but for now it will suffice to say that we had an awesome time, and are excited about the connections we made out there. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to meet the people on the Saved2Save course, and to have visited Visby.

Off to Sweden May 11, 2008

As of tomorrow morning, myself and my esteemed prayer-leading colleague are off to the wondrous town of Visby, in Sweden, to lead a week of prayer teaching.

It’s a bit of a heavy schedule, with 4 lectures each day (so we’re leading two each, each day!). So if anyone can spare a prayer or two that would be cool.

We’re back Saturday 17th!

Blogging Backlogs… April 25, 2008

So, I seem to be suffering from a similar ailment to certain friends of mine, who neglect their blog for a couple of weeks and then have a million things to fit in one entry! I have only been neglecting for 9 days, but even still lots has been going on, and so in an attempt to be organised I am going for some categorisation

Work – Work has been very cool over the last couple of weeks. We wrote a resource to help people get to grips with praying for their communities. It basically has 28 questions you work through, which then gives you a workable foundation to build a prayer strategy on afterwards. So that was much fun. I enjoyed canvassing opinions to work out the best colour scheme for it, and spent days agonising between green and purple (all the while secretly adoring shocking pink). Purple won out in the end. I spent this week despatching said resources to lovely praying people, so that’s nearly all done. Have some other writing stuff to do but having got around to that yet.

ROOTS – (I’m cheating because the work paragraph was getting too long!!) ROOTS is the SA’s annual renewal conference, held in Southport. To cut a long story short, we get a huge tent, pack it with prayer stations and a glorious prayer team, and then 4000 people descend (There are loads of other top quality venues too).  It’s the first bank holiday weekend in May, so a week today we will be there (argh!). So this week has passed in a flurry of packing boxes, losing gazebos, purchasing silk flames, compiling endless lists, misplacing vital components, driving round South London and squeezing stuff into mini-buses. I can’t wait for ROOTS this year, it feels like God has some exciting things up his sleeve!!

Wandsworth – Wandsworth is great and wondrous. Good things are happening here. Last Saturday we held a Civic Service, with the Mayor, Head of the Council, Police and MP’s etc. We also lauched the Wandswoth Street Pastors team, which was very exciting. 170 people came and we chatted, prayed, networked and generally had a fab time. There was a cool gospel choir too! The next few weeks look exciting too, as we have a couple of specific days set aside for prayer and prophetic intercession for the borough. So I am really looking forward to those. I’m heading up a lovely team of ‘Prayer Pastors’, which is great experience. Oh, and the corps hall is nearly built. It’s looking very swish and it’s all feeling a bit more real! We should be in the new building by September. Apart from that, life at the Boiler Room is exciting. Oh, I’m speaking this weekend there and haven’t written my sermon yet – this is not so good!!

Life – Life has been an intriguing old thing the last few days. Along with a host of other joys, I was ill last week, so was looking forward to a nice week before the madness that next week will be. But my life has resembled an Eastenders script over the last few days, with one late night drunken admirer turning up at the door, and then a couple of nights later the police!! It’s ok, I do not have a secret criminal past… they just wanted me to help them with some stuff. (I’d have been wholly more appreciative had it not been 12.15am!!! )Think it’s all sorted now though. Although I think my housemates probably think I’m mad!! Hasn’t been much space for much else, what with ROOTS prep. Oh, I went to Costa on Monday and debated the issue of grace… that was a highlight!

Misc  – I can’t think of much else but I love the word miscellaneous. So must think of something interesting to say!! Oh, that’ll do. I’m looking forward to May 12th, because me and an esteemed Wandsworthian colleague are off to Sweden to teach on prayer for a week… So that will be fab.

Also, I want to recommend that you all read ‘A Certain Rumour’, by Russell Rook. It’s all about Cleopas and the journey along the Emmaus road, but it’s about so much more than that. It’s about the Kingdom of God, hope, lots of exciting things like that… a top read.

Philip Pullman is another of my favourite authors, and he’e just published a book called ‘Once Upon A Time In The North’. I am very very excited about Monday, when I will be able to buy and read this.

Now, I need a new book to read after that. (I am behind on my target of 100 this year)… anyone have any suggestions?

Unbelievable April 15, 2008

I think it is unbelievable how many things I have managed to cram in since last posting. (I also think it’s quite unbelievable that I am still standing!)

Early last Saturday (after about 2 hours sleep and a battle with an evil wasp), I jumped aboard a train at Euston and wended my way up to Liverpool. I’ve mentioned before how train travel is one of my favourite things to do, but even I ended up sat staring into space for most of the journey!

Three hours later I disembarked to a crisp yet sunny Liverpool. I navigated myself around an underground station and caught a local service to a place called Bidston. I mused on this journey that I had absolutely no idea where I was going! Eventually I made it to the small hamlet that is Heswall where I was picked up and ferried to my weekend’s location.

‘Unbelievable’ was the title for the divisional youth councils there this year (area youth celebration thing, if you’re not of a salvation army persuasion). Saturday was also the kick off of the area’s 24-7 week, so the two were merged together and the youth had a sleep-over-prayer-service thing.

My job was to be interviewed, to enthuse them about prayer, to do a little bit of speaking and to fill an hour of prayer. This all went ok, with no major disasters. As well as this, they had other prayer activities to do in the other night hours, some rocking worship times, and some passionate games of football.

After everything had finished, a very lovely friend came and picked me up from the middle of nowhere, and then we went back to Liverpool overnight. It was great to catch up. Then I got the train home yesterday.

I’m so tired it feels like I am thinking and writing through soup, but it was a journey worth making and as ever I was encouraged by the prayers and the lifestyle modelled by the youth up there.

That’s the end of my manic journeying for a couple of weeks (only for things to get super mad again in may), so I’m going to take the opportunity to relax a bit, write a bit and hopefully recoup some sleep!

Travelling Tales April 6, 2008

Sometimes seven days in the life of Vicki will involve travelling only as far as the SA’s headquarters and home, four times. Other weeks, however, involve a little more variety. Last week was one of the latter. I’ve probably racked up about 17 hours of travelling this week, on top of the usual commute, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to regale you all with some tales from my journeying

My first soiree of the week was to the wondrous town that is Maidenhead. I am a bit of an English geography wizz, and I have to admit to having almost memorised the entire British train network layout, but I was initially flummoxed as to a) where Maidenhead was (after some unfortunate confusion involving Maidstone), and b) how to get there. After a bit of websearching I worked it out, and so Thursday found me hot-footing it to Paddington and heading west.

Maidenhead was lovely. I like small English towns (maybe growing up in Northampton caused this?). Anyhow, it was nice. I met a very inspiring friend of mine, we shared some dreams over apple juice, and then we went back to the Salvation Army church there to pray. I was reminded again that there are some real visionaries out there, and found myself thanking God that I have the privilege of walking alongside some of them. It’s top!

My next journey took place on Thursday, when I headed ’down south’ to Worthing. Now, I have a long established love for the sea, so Worthing immediately makes the list of favourite places of mine. I also know some very lovely people there. So a trip that way is always a joyous occasion. Thursday was no exception to this. The sun shone (so much so that I abandoned my coat on the beach at one point), I enjoyed catching up with friends and meeting new ones, and I generally felt very relaxed and refreshed for having been there. The pace of live down there is so different from the hectic nature of London, and it is definitely good to enjoy that peace and serenity. (I’m not sure the people who watched me lobbing stones into the sea had a very serene time, but I enjoyed it!)

Friday involved the longest trip, and the one I approached with a mixture of joy and dread! (Joy, because I was going to another of my most favourite places, but dread because of the mode of transport I had chosen!). I have already mentioned my train obsession, so it was a sacrifice to go all that way on a double decker, and five hours in one challenged my short attention span and inability to sit still… but I made it. I arrived in Oldham in the late afternoon, and embarked on a whirlwind of activity:

I caught up with old friends, met cute babies, chatted to kids (who were much shorter when I lived there), admired painted fences, read cool books, entertained cute babies, talked about nappy rash, wandered round the estate, slept in my old bedroom, broke a shower without touching it, ate a glorious pub lunch, watched doctor who, played a dvd game (badly), got hit in the eye by a flying chocolate brownie, laughed a lot, discussed the legalisation of drugs (into the early hours), wandered round shops in the snow, got disorientated by road layout changes and demolished houses, crammed into church, talked about the salvation army, incarnational living, hospitality and dreadlocks, admired new homes being decorated, marvelled at gargantuan snowflakes falling in April, made a medal, shivered a lot, walked around Manchester in the snow searching for a coffee shop, and then headed homewards today (another five hour journey, exacerbated by blizzards… hmmm!).

I love Oldham, and I love my friends who live there. It is exciting to see how they are living church in their community and really having an impact there. I love that, even four years after leaving I can still go back and feel part of that family. I love seeing the colour and love and vibrancy the church can bring to a place that can look bleak and grey. I am excited to see what God is going to do there in the future.

So, those were my adventures last week. Here’s to another intrepid seven days!