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This Sunday@6 service at Fordham will be a youth service. Yours Truly is doing the talk, on “What good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?” I’m a bit nervous to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve done a talk at Fordham so the pressure is on!

I’ve spoken to Andy [assistant minister at Fordham] about the contents and he had some helpful suggestions. But I still feel like I don’t have enough experience doing these kind of talks. Still, it’s all part of getting experience, hopefully it will be good enough!

This weekend has been pretty busy – mainly with Sunday@6 preparation! On Friday night we went out to Fordham for a band practice. It all went pretty well except for my guitar amp deciding that it didn’t want to work. DOH! It was working fine on Thursday night. Fortunately I was able to plug in to someone else’s amp, which served for the practice at least. On the night I borrowed Anne-Marie’s guitar amp (thanks Anne-Marie, if you’re reading!).

On Saturday we basically spent the whole day pottering around, doing various odd jobs and a bit of shopping here and there. Not much to say really! I took my guitar amp in and that should be back within a few days – it’s still under warranty so that’s one good thing at least.

Then on Sunday we went to church in the morning, came back home for lunch, and then headed out to Fordham to setup for Sunday@6. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect – Sunday@6 is a new service, and the emphasis is being more interactive and contemporary to perhaps cater for a different audience than the normal morning service. It wasn’t clear to me how everything was going to work out, and I also didn’t quite know if all the music was going to come together.

However, I felt like it all went really well. I can’t really speak for how other areas went, but the music group all played well together – you would hardly have known it was our first service together! And I even managed to relax a bit, have some fun and sing along with some of the songs, which is unusual for me (normally I’m not able to relax when playing like that).

So it’s very encouraging! Unfortunately Phil and I won’t be able to go to the next service (we’re going to Snape Maltings to see the University of Essex Choir performing Verdi’s Requiem, which I’m very much looking forward to). But I feel very positive about the service, and I feel like perhaps God does want to bless it!

After the service we were able to go for a quick drink with Simon, and we spent some time chatting about a possible Crossring relaunch as well as various other things. It was a good time to catch up!

Aaaanyway, that’s all from me for now…

This weekend has been a good one! On Saturday afternoon Foz came up from London. We went round to see Bob and Ruth, who Foz knew from his student days and who now go to Fordham.

Afterwards we headed round to Steve & Karen’s for a gathering of people and spent most of the evening chatting and hearing random stories from a friend of Foz’s who I hadn’t met before.

On Sunday morning we went to church, and then in the evening we had the youth service. I was playing piano in the band, so we had a music practice for it beforehand. It all went well – the whole service! There were more people there than at the last youth service, and I think they all seemed to enjoy it. Apart from one or two minor blips the music went without a hitch, and people were able to sing all the songs without problems. AJ’s talk was really good as well – it involved a lot of audience participation which I think went down well!

Fordham are going to start up a second service on Sunday evenings which I think is going ot be more like a youth service. Hopefully that will pick up some momentum and will go as well as the youth services have gone.

Aaanyway, that’s all for now!

Well, last weekend was pretty busy once again! (It must be that time of year again, you know, the time of year that we’re really busy. That’s about three quarters of the year!)

Anyway. On Friday evening we went to 21. I did the talk on “The Church” which seemed to go pretty well. On Saturday, my parents came round for a brief lunch and then I headed down to London with them to see my sister. She had had an operation the day before, for breast cancer, so we went to the hospital to visit her. She seemed to be in pretty good shape considering (and is apparently now vastly improved). We came back late afternoon, and Mum and Dad stayed round for dinner before heading back home.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning, and then came back for lunch. In the afternoon we both headed off to Fordham. I spent the time preparing for the youth service, while Phil went off to hear a beautiful Bach Cantata (I was really annoyed I had to miss it, but there you go). But I think the youth service went really well though – the music was good (despite a few minor confused moments!).

Anyway, that’s about all for now. Someday I hope to write something on this blog which ISN’T about what I did for the weekend, that’d be a revelation, huh? ;-)

I was checking the Google Analytics account for the Fordham Church website earlier today, and I found this:

Percentage of people using various browsers for Fordham Church

As you can see, about 75% of people use Internet Explorer, 20% use Firefox, 6% use Safari… and poor old Opera is right at the bottom – below Google Chrome! Yes, that’s right, more people use Google Chrome to access the Fordham website than use Opera. Given that Google Chrome is still in beta and hasn’t even really established itself just yet, I find that quite funny.

I do like Opera as a browser, but with those kind of statistics they’ve got a long, loooooong way to go!

I had a rather nice weekend, although unfortunately Phil was away at a hen weekend (I should point out that Phil being away had nothing to do with me having a nice weekend!)

On Friday night I went to Rollerworld and Quasar with 21. I didn’t actually skate, but I think all the kids did and really enjoyed it. After what happened in May (i.e. breaking my tooth while ice skating) I’m rather wary about doing anything like that, so I was quite glad just to sit it out and watch from the sides! Afterwards we had a round of Quasar, which was quite good fun. Although I am absolutely terrible at it – I would fire off about ten shots at someone without hitting them, and they’d turn round and shoot one at me and hit me!

Aaaaanyway, that was a fun evening. On Saturday we had a guy round from British Gas to service the boiler. Although he did manage to service the boiler OK, it seems like we’re actually going to need to get a new boiler installed in the fairly near future. That’s an expense we could live without, but I guess these things have to be done. It will actually save us a fair bit of money in the long run (our boiler is currently very inefficient) so it will be worth having. Annoying about the timing, but there you go! Such are the perils of owning your own house.

In the afternoon I did a bit of shopping in town, and then in the evening I went to Pizza Express for Sarah’s birthday. There were quite a few people there – I didn’t actually know a lot of them, but there were one or two of Jon’s old work colleagues and Sarah’s friends who I’d met before so that was good.

On Sunday morning I went to church, and then stuck around for the student lunch afterwards. There were quite a few students there in the end – around 35, I think. I helped out with a few bits and pieces like clearing up, but mostly I was just there to eat the food and talk to the students! I hope we have a few come back to the church, they seemed like a nice bunch.

After I got home, I decided to get the decks out as I’d been listening to a few of my old mixes and felt rather nostalgic. They haven’t seen the light of day since we moved house, so I was a little rusty, but I really enjoyed it! Digging through some of my old tunes, great fun. What I need to do now is retrieve the rest of my old records from my parents’ house, quite when that will be I don’t know.

Right, I think I’ve rambled on for long enough now… that’s pretty much it!

We had a quieter weekend this time round! On Friday evening were at ‘21′, where I was doing the talk (on Grace). It seemed to go pretty well, Grace is a very big subject but I hope that the kids understand it a bit better now :-)

On Saturday we did the usual shopping in the morning, and then spent the afternoon in the garden. I mowed the lawn, which hopefully will be the last time we have to mow it this year! In the evening we met up with Anne-Marie and Sarah and went for dinner at Sloppy Joe’s. Although it was very busy we managed to find a table and had a nice dinner, and then afterwards we went to see “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about the film because I didn’t know much about it other than the fact that Simon Pegg was in it. It was very good – reminded me a bit of “The Devil Wears Prada”… but much funnier! There were some absolutely brilliant moments in it, although it has to be said – it wasn’t as sharp as Shaun and Hot Fuzz. In other words, it was more like “Run, Fatboy, Run” than the Simon Pegg / Edgar Wright style films. Still it was a very entertaining watch and definitely worth seeing / buying if you’re a fan of Simon Pegg :-)

Anyway. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went round to Simon and Lara’s for lunch. We were meeting up with a few other people to discuss the student work at Fordham over the next academic year, and it all seemed quite positive. In the evening we went to the service at Eight Ash Green, and then came back and watched “James May’s Big Ideas” on alternative energy.

I’ve been watching the news over the past few months and it does seem that we’re quite close to a breakthrough in alternative energy. I reckon in 10-20 years, 50% or more of our energy will come from renewable sources. We’re certainly closer to a viable renewable energy source than we are to Artificial Intelligence or flying cars!

Aaaaanyway. I think that’s just about it from me!

I’m getting slack with updating this blog! I do apologise… NOT!! Bwahahahaha.

Ahem. Anyway. the weekend, then… on Friday evening we helped out at 21 again. We were leading this week… it went pretty well for me – it was the first time I’ve ever played my guitar for a group of people! I only did one song but I think it went OK.

On Saturday, I picked up Jon B and we went down to The Great Lodge Experience at Great Bardfield for Andy B’s stag do. We had a look round the grounds and the vineyards, and the proprieter (Alan) explained to us the wine making process there. Then we tasted some of the wine, and had a ploughman’s lunch. All in all, it was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours! The wine was really good – I didn’t buy any bottles afterwards (mainly due to lack of funds…) but will see if I can find some soon.

Afterwards we went back to Southend to see Andy B’s new house (well, bungalow). We went to the pub for a bit, then came back (getting an Indian takeaway on the way), and in the evening played a “Pub Quiz” game. Unfortunately I had to leave fairly early as I was making my way back to Colchester that night, but it was a really good day. I liked all of Andy’s friends (me and Jon being the only people there from Essex Uni apart from Andy) – although the conversation did get incredibly dodgy at times! (Even dodgier than the CU…)

On Sunday we went to Fordham in the morning, where Mike preached a very good sermon about contentment. It did rather make me feel quite guilty — I don’t think I’m very good at being contented! There’s always something that needs doing, or stuff you need to get. Doing up the bathroom, replacing the car, getting a new boiler… sometimes I think we just need to sit back and relax a bit! All of those things are or will be necessary, but we could relax a bit in the meantime.

Aaaaanyway. On Sunday afternoon we didn’t do very much (unfortunately Phil had to work), which was followed by not doing very much on Sunday evening. So now you know!

I’ve been off work today with a cold – I had it over the weekend, but I felt awful this morning. Seems to be going now though so hopefully I’ll be back in at work tomorrow. Right, that’s all from me for now!

We were doing some more entertaining this weekend! Two weekends in a row, gosh… but more of that in a moment. On Friday evening we helped out at 21 (in the new John Owen Barn at Fordham, which is very impressive). It has an earlier start time than it did last year, so we had dinner at lunchtime and then just had a light tea when we got back.

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping during the day, and I mowed the lawn. Again. (The lawn has been growing like wildfire since the GreenThumb treatment – not a bad thing, mind, as it was in a bad state – but it’s quite unusual for this time of year!).

In the evening Foz came up by train. We got a Chinese takeaway from EXP, and then watched “The Beast with a Billion Backs” which Foz hadn’t seen before. Foz stayed the night, and then in the morning we all went to Fordham.

Afterwards, we went to lunch at Bob and Ruth’s – Foz knew them from his student days (they went to the same church), but a couple of years ago they started coming to Fordham so we know them as well. We had a lovely roast dinner anyway, and a very enjoyable afternoon sitting outside in the garden.

We left there late afternoon, dropped Foz off at the station, and then headed back home to relax for the evening. Ah, it’s a busy life – not that I’m complaining! Haven’t seen Foz in ages so it was good to catch up.

And, I think that’s pretty much everything for the weekend. Ta ta for now…

We had a couple of friends from Germany (Peter and Martina) staying this weekend. We’d been out to visit them last year, so it was good to be able to return the favour. They arrived on Saturday morning, just in time for lunch. Afterwards we headed out to Nayland for a walk around the countryside there, which was lovely (it was such a beautiful day!).

Then in the evening we went to Tenpin in Colchester with a couple of friends from church. I have to say, I am absolutely useless at bowling. I really am awful – I didn’t manage to break the 100 barrier, and we had two games! Doh! I must go again sometime soon just to get some more practice in.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning and then came back for lunch. In the afternoon a few people came round, including Mike and Andy (the minister and assistant minister at Fordham) to catch up with Peter and Martina (Peter was the apprentice at Fordham a couple of years ago, until they moved to Leipzig in 2006).

So, that was pretty much our weekend! Very enjoyable – it’s always good to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while. Although I’m pretty hopeless at keeping in touch with people so it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like… still, c’est la vie. must resolve to be better at keeping in touch…