Thinking and stuff

I am nearly at the end of my second week of my placement at Horley Baptist Church, and its going really well so far, I’m really enjoying the whole experience. I have been able to get involved in most of the things that the church does as part of its ‘regular’ life and witness. This has ranged from going to ‘Noah’s Ark’ which is for the little kiddies, to ‘Thursday Group’ (original name, eh?) for the oldies. Also been on a few pastoral visits to the local hospital, which has been challenging but important for me to reflect on.

The congregation is a good mixture of a bit of everything really… which I love, I didn’t just want to have a placement in a nice, leafy, overly posh church..!! So, everything is going well so far. The whole experience is causing me to reflect on so many things… what it means to be a church, how to look after people pastorally, how to deal with issues of addiction in the church community… etc etc etc. It also forces me to think about what kind of church I might like to work with/in, what kind of issues might be involved, what challenges there might be… and all that sort of thing..! It actually makes me apply what I have been learning to real people, in real life, with real issues. And if the theology that is written in books can’t stand on two feet in the real world (ie, outside of academia) then I see very little point in it.

Anyway, more to follow soon..!

“Once”

You have to go and see this film. It is perfect..! Phil and I went to see it on Saturday night, not knowing what to expect really. We had read that the film makers had a tiny budget, and that the director had decided to use great musicians that were half-good actors instead of great actors that were half-good musicians. But that was basically all we knew. And we were completely blown away. The music is simply beautiful, heart-breaking, stunning. It is the story of a Irish guy (Glen Hansard) and a Czech girl (Marketa Irglova) who meet in Dublin. I don’t even want to say any more… just go and see it if you can. If you love music there is no way that you won’t enjoy it. It has everything that a film should, plus its so believeable, so unpolished, so uncommercialised. I think that its my favorite film of all time. The soundtrack is on my Amazon wishlist..!!

National Adoption Week 5 – 11 November

Today is the beginning of National Adoption Week in the UK. It is therefore a good time for anyone who is interested, and perhaps even more importantly for those who are not interested (!) to find out more about adoption: why it should or shouldn’t be done, who can adopt and why on earth anyone would even want to adopt! The website of National Adoption Week is http://www.nationaladoptionweek.org.uk/ but there are many other websites out there that are helpful and informative.

Happy reading!