A day with my new boss!

Today saw the St Michael's Church Core Staff Team (Julie Bradley, Wiz Sammons, Karen Needham and me) travel to Chieveley to spend the day with Si Jones, who will be joining us as Team Rector in the summer... and I've come back SO EXCITED!
Put simply, the guy is absolute quality and I still can't quite believe he's coming to join us! I didn't dare pray for such an ideal guy. I think he'll be brilliant here... just what we need. I'm not going to say too much about the things we talked about, mostly because I think you should hear it all from him and get to know him for yourselves, but suffice to say he's going to fit in well and doubtless bring some great new ideas with him too. Roll on the summer!

That said, I have to comment here that I'm so proud of the way those of us still here have coped since David Widdows' departure. I'm the first to admit that it hit me hard, and I struggled at first without him, but life has indeed gone on, and gone on well. We should ALL be very proud of our church.

That's all I've had time to do today, despite having a mountain of other stuff to get through. Tomorrow, then, will be busy as you like... a sermon to write for Christ the King's all-age worship on Sunday, various phone calls and emails to catch up on, teaching at Youth Alpha and then RE:fresh. Busy busy busy (and I love it like that!).

Freedom Day

So Freedom Day has been and gone... and what a massive success!

Our lunch and promise auction raised around £2500, which was a brilliant result... so a massive "THANK YOU" to all those who contributed and donated items. I couldn't have hoped for better.

And the Youth Service in the evening was great too... I get so excited when I see young people getting stuck in and involving themselves. A special word for Emily Feltham, who wrote and performed an AMAZING monologue based on one of the trafficking stories, and to Jeni Hine who led the whole service at fairly short notice, and did a cracking job. Also, Trevor, who preached for the first time and appears to be a natural.

Unfortunately, there was one piece of traffic that didn't stop during the day... the car that bashed into mine as it left the car-parking space next to me. I was inside raising money for charity at the time, and the driver didn't even bother to leave a note. It's done three panels down the driver's side, and looks like it's going to cost a fortune. It's only metal, I know, but it's still annoying, and I would have hoped the driver would stop. It's such a shame that they didn't have that much decency.

Today's been interesting, too, as it's been the interview day for the Team Rector (and therefore, my boss!) job. Obviously, can't say too much, but I will keep you informed!

Pretty tired today, not a surprise, and my day off tomorrow begins with a trip to take Lucky to the vets at 8.00am! Still, I can leave him there to have his teeth done, and go back to bed, which I fully intend to do!