My first week

I have finished my first week working for YFC as leader of the band kurios.

and what a week it has been.
It has been a good, interesting and hard week.

The week's purpose was to meet the teams, begin to bond, learn how to play the songs, individually, and as a band.

The week actually felt very natural. being there i mean.
It felt natural to have a team and to lead it.

It was a week of having to learn things, and fast.
It is different (obviously) to bond with a team as a leader than it is as a friend.
In some ways that felt natural too, but in other ways it was very hard.

As the week went on I felt very lonely, I didn't have any one there to share the experience with, to chat about the team to, to unwind with.

I had R and M there - as fellow leader, and boss, and they were very helpful and encouraging, a blessing to have there. R was great and i learnt a lot from her, she has had so much experience doing music/band training, and leading it was good to watch.
R and I have very different ways of doing things, which is a positive thing. As long as there is a lot of communication.

Communication. Communication. Communication.

The answer to most problems.

So simple, and yet actually so hard. But so good when it works. When people communicate, people get to know each others hearts, to understand where the other person is coming from, and that is always good. You might not agree with each other, but thats not always the point. We as humans will never totally agree - I mean totally agree on every point, every value, every idea, every way of doing things - with another human being. Again thats not the point of communication, or even relationships. But it is about sharing hearts, ideas, experiences, emotions, worries, pleasures, excitments - and learning and growing.

sounds dramatic.... not meant to. Just was thinking.

Through out the week it was amazing to see how the teams began to get to know each other, and were willing to accept each other, and to get their heads down and to learn the music. In just 4/5 days the two bands were sounds good. It was exciting.

One of my favorite moments was when I got to tell the guys who was going to scotland - and then we could begin to work at being a team - I found it very very hard not knowing who my team was for the first couple of days.

After practicing for a whole day we stopped and started to worship. That was such a good moment. Summing up everything we were working for through out that day, and will be working for through out the next year, and after.

It is for Jesus that I am doing this job, and it is through Jesus I am able to do this job.
Only for Him. Only through Him.

I have had to spend time on my kness just to get strength from Jesus - time just spent calling on Jesus.

And actually that is the most productive thing as a leader I can do.

the job starts

Today has been lovely.

but am now too tired to talk about it, but

BBQ's - Mr B made home made burgers... man they tasted amazing.

Got interviewed at St M's tonight, was cool, didn't feel that i said all of what needed to be said, but did give some of my testimony, which was cool. - actually very interesting response. People listened - for most people at st mary's it would have been the first time they would have heard any of it - even the small stuff i said tonight - and it had an effect.

it basically spoke of God being God - and Him being incharge.
One day i shall write up some of my testimony. but not today - its a big job i want to get right.


I love my friends so much. They really blessed me today. They just came and hung out, i needed that so badly.

in less than 6 hours i need to be up to start my new job... :-) Here goes everything.

coming home to family and friends

I got back today from soul survivor c.
It has been a good week, but also very hard. - which i shall write about more latter.

But first,

Coming home (and may be its because the fact that i am leaving on monday brings it home more...) is great.
My parents are both away this weekend, but my brother was in, and it was so good to see him again and chat, even before i went away i hadn't really seen him for a while.

He put with me checking my mail, and catching up on silly admin things while chatting, and then he cooked me food. I miss real food when camping - and i love camping - but sometimes the body just wants meat and veg!

Dad phoned a bit later, and one of my special friends came round and hung out, then mum phoned, and i phoned another special friend, then randomly my cousin came round (who used to live with us for a while...) - unexpected and whom we hadn't seen for ages, and then another two of my special friends came round....

how amazing is that :-)

and.... my friend has brought me a present to say good bye... and its an nomad mp3 player... its so amazing.
I was here putting cd's on to minidiscs... and chatting to andy saying i really wanted a mp3 player.. a bit one so i could have all my cd's with me next year... and now I have one! its so amazing. Jesus has blessed me with the best friends ever.

thank you so much Mr B! I love you.

so... now i'm sitting here putting all my cd's on to my jukebox... :-)

friends and family. actually two of my biggest loves/passions.

thank you for blessing me so much everyone. I am going to miss being so close to you when i go.
I'm going to cry.
time to stop

the morning after

Gill Marshall is now Gill Van der Murva (or something like that ) :-)

The wedding was so lovely, in fact one of my favorite weddings I've ever been to. Gill was stunning, and Steph was as handsome and gentlemanly as ever. they did look great together.

I really enjoyed the service. I loved the fact that they memorised their vows to each other.

I really enjoyed playing in the band as well. It was the first time i had played with Tim Lomax for over a year.

The photos were really quick, I was well impressed! They had printed a sheet saying who was in what photo when, and that made it all a lot smoother - and Gill had got a friend of ours - Tony - to do the photos. Was so good to see him again.

The meal was good (even if the food was a bit late coming... was getting starving) good time to chat, I was sitting on a good table :-)

Speeches.
The speeches overall were way to long...(they prob always are and always wil be) but some good stuff was said.
Stephs speech was great, he spoke beautifully and said good stuff. I liked that.

Then the reception. The Taxi Band played, and that was good fun :-) In fact that was our last gig together. Which is very sad, but i'm glad the last one was so much fun, and that we played pretty good, and so many people danced.

I love playing and seeing people dance. It makes my heart smile - and my face sometimes.... :-)

Then set down, which took too long, and i was too tired.

but it was a good day. and Gill and Steph are now married.

I like that.

This morning i feel dead, but am smiling

Weddings

Tomorrow I am going to a friends wedding. It will be an amazing day.
A day of celebration of the union of two people. A celebration of people people becoming one.
Forever.

So its a good event, an important event.

and a long one.

tomorrow i have to start setting up the sound/band for the reception at 9am.
have a band practice for the service at 10.30
have the service at 1
have the meal at 3
start playing in the reception band at 7.30
dance etc and wait for the dj to finish at 11? may be...
then pack down.

the man hours involved in a wedding are huge.
its strange.

Sometimes i feel the sometimes there is more energy spent on the celebration than the marriage these days.
if some couples who are going through some hard stuff spent as much time, energy , money, and sacrificing themselves for their partners on sorting out problems as they did for the one day to celebrate the marriage there would be a lot less break ups. and with a lot less break ups there would be a lot less broken families - obviously there are a lot of borken families with parent who have great marriages.

This is a go at the celebration. but it is a lot of energy, and some times it seems that there is less energy being put in to save relationships than to celebrate the start of the union.

but tomorrow I shall have a lot of fun, and i will work hard to make the day as special as possible for them.

but there is also a challange for me.... if i'm prepared to put this much energy for one day for them... i need to be prepared to put much more energy in to helping them if problems do ever arise.

letters...

This morning i spent quite a bit of time writing a letter.

I find letters very interesting, I love writing social letters, when you can just chat, but there is something about letters I find interesting.

When you write some thing in a letter it is tangible.
It exists.
It is.

When you speak, words come out, and then vanish, apart from in memory.
But memorys rememeber things differently, and it can be discussed.

Letters are final.

So when you have to write an official letter - or a letter that goes to more than one person, I find that very hard.

The way i communicate is to communicate to one person - a person who you can see respond, and then you can respond to their response.
Same idea in a letter, you write a letter ot one person, and you know them, and you use language, phrasing that they understand, but when writing to more than one person thats weird.

I wrote a letter about what I am doing this year...
and I sent it to many people, all of whom think differently and respond differently etc.

I wrote a letter in a very truthful way.

I got a letter back from some one who was very offended. They were not pleased at recieving the letter. Because it talked about God, and asked for prayer, and because it asked for money - but only if they wanted to give it. But also becasue they didn't like what i was going to do.

It got me thinking, is it worse to ask some one even though they might get offended and say no, or assume they will say no and not give them the opportunity...

i don't know.

but the whole of the above begs some big questions about teaching and preaching next year.

I will need to practice the skill of communicating to a large group of people all at the same time - and gauging all of the responses at the same time etc.
To plan for a group not just for an individual.

also, when it comes to telling some one about Jesus and the hope there is in Him, do i just tell everyone, even though they may be offended, or assume they won't want to know and not tell them?

but for now I think I shall go to bed

fear.

Today i'm feeling quite scared of my job.
I feel i have so much to do and no time to do everything - that makes me feel unsettled - and then fear comes and attacks.
I hate fear - because there is nothing to be fearfully of. I mean a bit of scaredness is ok - makes you trust in God, on his strength and not mine - and stops any pride, but this fear thing keeps rearing its ugly head, it makes me feel awful.

was reading
2 corinthiansv17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Well I have the Spirit of the Lord in me, but yet i don't think i have freedom from this fear stuff. so thats interesting.
I was thinking yesterday - that the verse above I could claim as a promise. and that actually felt good.
so shall do that again now as i've remembered it.

protect your ears.

about 4 and a half years ago while i was at Nexus (Academy of music ministry) my brother bought me hearing protection - custom moulded ear plugs, which cut all noise by 15db, which is a fair amount. He did it cause i was always playing drums... and he knows what its like to be deaf.
So i have worn them more and more over the years, till now i don't play drums with out ear protection. In fact i had a bad experience at a Vandels gig where i was too close to the speakers and hurt one of my ears badly through stuff being too loud.

I went to get new ear plugs today (your ears change shape over the years... and mine were beginning to crack) and while i was there the guy gave me a hearing test.

My ears are not good - one of my ears are bad through ear infections as a kid, but the other one now has pernament hearing damage, and thats with me always wearing ear protection - so... if you are a musicain and you play near a drummer... get hearing protection - music is so beautiful that you don't ever want to not hear it.... and much more than that - imagine you're a grandfather (or mother...) and you can't hear your granddaughters laugh. 150 pounds is not a lot of money to protect your ears.
do it.
do it now.
book an appointment - Jesus only gave you two ears, protect them. please!

todays been pretty long, but i think i've got quite a bit done...
Jesus is good.

in some ways my last week

Sitting in the pub today I was made aware of how little time i have till i start my job. I basically have one week to sort my life out... but so far most of that is booked up.

I've had a good weekend,
played a gig in brighton on sat, so.... drove 100 miles to the gig, and got there, and found out that i had left my bass drum pedal at home.... argh!
prayed. lots, and ran around looking for an open music shop, but eventually one of the band members had a friend, who had a friend, who's daughter used to play drums who had one in the loft... so got that, it was a horrible pedal, but it work, so did the gig. Was really good fun - it was a wedding. Made me feel very single - lots of couples dancing lots. They look really happy which was good. Made me happy actually - i love making people dance and enjoy themselves :-)

The last week or so i've been trying to catch up with people, - so everything i'm doing i'm taking people with me, so i can spend my time seeing people, I have so many amazing friends. I'm really going to miss them when i move. I beginning to miss them already.

service was good tonight. Jude preached a really good serman on friendship :-)

A degree and a visit to scotland

It has been a busy week this week.

I went to Scotland and visited Crieff, the place I will be working next year.
It is so beautiful, very beautiful. Kurios will be working with a group called Logos, who work with youth in schools and have a cafe which is open most lunch times and in the winter most evenings.
The head of Logos is very cool, I am looking forward to working with/under him, i wil learn so much from him. We chatted with him more about what the plan for Kurios is, and about lines of communitcation etc. Was very very useful.
Seeing Crieff was good, got to wander round for a little while, and i saw both the schools, there is such a difference between the two.

The trip has made me really excited, and quite scared, but Chris (head of logos) will teach me... i hope :-)
I also got to meet the team at YFC Scotland, who are lovely. Loads of exciting things seem to be happening in scotland, looking forward to being able to get involved!
Training starts in two weeks!! way to close, as totally not ready

Hanging out with Mel was good too, good to get to know her a bit better.

When i got back from Scotland, an envelope was waiting for me.... and it was my degree results,
i got a 2.1! I'm so happy :-) Jesus is good to me.
When i got my last set of results the head of my course said so you'll need to work hard and get a 2.2. So i did work hard... and so pleased with a 2.1 is unbelievable. :-) I have a degree! Jesus is so good.

if you can't beat them... join them...

Not sure what i think about that statement, but i have sucummed to having a blog... with blogger... I always thought I'd just make my own site.. but have run out of time.

I start Kurios in 3 weeks.