Thoughts From Just Another Passer By

  On a busy Saturday, I hopped around 3 churches and Gresham Methodist Church's Strawberry tea.  Armed with my newly acquired 'The Church Explorers Handbook' by Clive Fewins, OS Explorer 252, Notebook, Pen and Cherry Cola, I finally pulled over at St Andrew, Metton. This is a church I pass on the way to my own worship on a Sunday Afternoon, and on more than one occasion have turned around to avoid localised flooding.  The church is in itself so welcoming, in a popular walking area it offers - for a suggested donation - water and biscuit bars. It has a well stocked book stall, and a wonderful set of benches to rest weary feet or to recover from nearly spilling all of the cherry cola.  Metton itself is a small village in the North of Norfolk, noted in the Domesday Book as having 8.5 households with the primary occupation being that of working the land. Possibly the the origin of it's name (meadow/mowing settlement). My handy Church explorers guide needn't be the thing...

 I love churches. So many footsteps of faith - both big and small - from Saints and Sinners, entwined through history to gather at the Alter of the Trinity. Such a mystery you can't always describe it.  A quiet place was needed this week to have a picnic of all things and gather my own thoughts after a moment in life that happened. And so I found myself stumbling across Horsford All Saints. - www.horsfordbenefice.org.uk/our-parishes/horsford-all-saints-church/ . This delightful Parish church shared articulately it's history, noted that it held common wealth graves, regular worship and Eco Awards.  A quiet place to eat my lunch and to offer prayer and quiet praise (and annoyances with God.) And whilst - as the pictures show - the grass may have been dying my own heart was encouraged to grow closer to God to m visit to Horsford All Saints.   It also stirred a fascination in Church architecture with enough zeal to do further research - all because of a line between...

 So how do you record your happenings of what you are doing with the Rebel Badge Book Challenges? How to record a problem like RBB-ing? For more information about Rebel Badge Book go here: www.rebelbadgestore.com/ The premise is to complete challenge badges like you did when you were - in my case - a Girl Guide or for other a scout or other similar Uniformed Organisation.  Well handily there is a badge that I can get for doing that about  - The writer badge.  Whilst not a RBB thing I am hoping to explore Local Churches in Norfolk. There are so very many to explore.  So my plan is to explore churches and record a record of what I am doing for challenge badges.  We shall see if I can claim my writers in three months time or if I need to start again. 

I mentioned in my previous group about one of my lovely youth groups. Its reasonably small and all the young people come from a church orientated background or have been going to church for a while. We  started back in January and as a leader theres that post Christmas panic when you realise you havent planned a session let alone the rest of the term. So I used a cop out, I used my first session back to help get the young people to plan the sessions - brilliant, right! Over the last five months in post here in Conwy, theres been a real theme emerging from my work and my visits and my volunteering/volunteered(ness) at things like Faith and Order and 3Gen. This is the idea of questions and having a safe space to ask questions discuss them and not necessarily come out with a definitive answer, but having explored deeply the topic at hand. At Uni I hated the big questions discussed late at night, when one should have been writing assignments because then it felt like wor...

I've sat down to write the second part of this blog many times, but it wasn't until a conversation I had yesterday that I realised where I was going with this. The previous blog I spoke about how the covenant prayer as an individual was really important to me. Two weeks later I still have my head reeling in the enormity of the promise made through the words. I was however slightly disappointed that none of the young people in my one of my Youth groups had been invited to join in that part of the service involving the covenant, nor did they know what a covenant was, (you will get to here a lot more about this particular youth group as we explore some big questions they've asked). So we looked at the prayer and with an honesty and a conviction said that it would be difficult for them to pray this prayer and truly mean all of it and rejoice in it. I admire their honesty as it is a difficult prayer. Even when I pray it, I strive to achieve the covenant I have made...

I was walking to my car this morning and I had this sudden thought 'next week everything will be back to normal.' I've had a reasonably hectic weekend travelling to be part of an amazing rep training weekend for the youth reps of the Methodist Church (I will be one of two youth reps on the Methodist Council) and this coming weekend, if the weather holds out, I'm heading home to my family and home church to be accredited as a local preacher. Them two events are enough to make life hectic, add in the exciting launch of the CYWeCare campaign ( see what its about at the blog or follow it on twitter @CYWeCare) and boom another non normal monday. SNOW yes its also is snowing.... life at the moment is not normal. Then another though occurred to me, my life is never normal. After next weekend there will be no normal week. No two days are the same. Even when you think its just meetings or planning its still different conversations, different questions,...