Day Out for the Drop In

Yesterday, our church’s Drop In went on a trip to Stratford. I’m a bit of a nervous driver but I decided to take a risk and offer a few places in my car.

We had a picnic by the river Avon and then half of us went on some boats. There was plenty of time to explore and some of us ended the day hanging out at Starbucks.

I think this was such a treat for the guys especially as a few of them are homeless.



I am glad that I went.

I'm excited about our new homegroups

This week as a church we are launching our new home groups. As a church we tend to meet in four groups midweek and all together on Sunday morning in a community centre. We have had several months meeting in life stage groups. It was good to be able to discuss some parenting issues in ours and for singles, young couples and the older ones to talk about their life issues. But now it’s time for something new.

There is a feeling that as we reorganise this is an opportunity to deepen our encouragement of each other as disciples of Jesus. I feel that it’s time to get real with each other and to grow in our understanding. It’s time for us to allow each other to all get on board, take initiatives and to play our part. It’s time for us to do more interesting and creative activities together, to discuss the Bible over meals together, and to break bread together as well as a time to be outward looking.

I’m excited about the new groups. So this week I have been reading Houses that Change the World by Wolfgang Simson. And I've ordered The Rabbit and the Elephant by Tony & Felicity Dale from Amazon. These are two good books about church in the home. Though these books are more about small churches that meet in homes there is a lot that can be applied to our groups.

Our group is meeting for dinner this Sunday.

Soup Run

A group of us were out last night in Birmingham with Paul and Jackie Atkin giving out soup and rolls as well as some blankets, from a van. We had a good time chatting and listening, building relationships with those we met - even though one homeless guy was drunk another a bit aggressive to his mates. Paul prayed with one man. I had a good conversation with another who asked about enlightenment! Soon we got onto exploring what Jesus meant when he said to love our enemies. And one chap was just walking around the van until we left because he felt it was a safe place.

Related posts:
Down and Out in Birmingham
Churches really are working together

Noodles for Christmas Dinner

This Christmas we were invited to Christmas dinner by some friends of ours Yumi and Yenfu. Yumi cooked an amazing meal for us of noodles, rice, cucumber, sandwiches, chips, chicken, gammon... it just kept coming. When we had just about finished a pile of sausages appeared.

Nettes got me a camera for Christmas so of course I took it along to try it out. Here’s Callie just about to tuck into the feast. You can see a few more of my experiments on flickr.