A Conference and a Carol service

The Biblical Evangelism conference I went to at the weekend was really good. My talk went quite well and I got some constructive feedback. The teaching about the Doctrine of Scripture was also really good and complemented what I've been reading in my core study this month.

On Monday night it was the CICCU (Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) carol service and my cu had mince pies and mulled wine first and then went along. It was a fun event, Rico Tice did a good job with his talk and lots of people came.

TEAM has finished for Christmas. I've really enjoyed it this term and am already looking forward to next term and continuing the teaching including the detailed Bible overview. If you want more details about what I'm learning ask me.

I'm really enjoying doing my one-to-one and chatting and studying Colossians together. It was good to have more time this week. Book club is going well. Reading Out of the Saltshaker was a good choice and changing the time means that we have more people coming. I think it's going to be helpful for all of us to read. I'm hosting a girly prayer breakfast on Tuesday so I'm hoping a lot of the CU girls will come and enjoy it. Can't believe there are only two CU meetings left this term!

Third month of Relay is nearly finished!

Time for a quick recap on what I've been doing. CAM went well as did my first one-to-one. Went to my first church homegroup meeting last night which was good.

On Friday I'm off on the Biblical Evangelism Conference. It's a UCCF conference and a big part of it is spending time in small groups giving a 10 minute evangelistic talk on a passage we given a few weeks in advance and getting feedback on it. I'm not looking forward to this and havent finished my talk yet. It should be a good weekend though.

Generally everything is still going well. Only got one more week of TEAM this term and another 2 weeks of term for my students! I still have till work for another week after the students finish for their holidays. Time has really flown!

Life is getting busier!

Our Relay prayer day on Friday was good and I then had a great weekend in brum and seem to have settled back into Cambridge life quickly. My essay is finally done and my talky thing on Hosea went ok. Went to my church cluster again last night and have got a home group to join so will be going there for the first time next Tuesday. Should be good.

Coming up tomorrow evening is an evangelistic event called CAM which stands for coffee and music. It involves renting out the downstairs of starbucks in the city centre and having some live music and testimonies and a very short gospel presentation. Hopefully it will be a really good night and the students will be able to bring lots of their friends.

Other than that its all the usual stuff going on. The most exiting things after CAM are starting a new book in the book club. Its called Out of the Saltshaker and its by Rebecca Manley Pippert. Its a great book about evangelism. The other exciting thing is I should be starting my first one-to-one with one of the cu girls on tuesday afternoon. We'll be looking at Colossians. Think thats a brief run down of most things going on at the moment. Life is definately getting busier even if its not really obvious from what I've written in my blog today!

Fireworks, Houseparty and Essay writing!

I really enjoyed the fireworks although it was slightly strange not being in brum and being back at a reasonable time because the firework display was much earlier than the vale fireworks! As usual I enjoyed spending time with the students.

Houseparty was great. Lots of fun, quality teaching on Ephesians and not much sleep thanks to an excessive amount of mafia playing! I really enjoyed getting to know the the students that came better.

Been a slightly odd week so far with having Monday off and having supervision tomorrow because on Friday I'm meeting up with the other two East Central Relay Workers to spend time together and pray. I'm looking forward to that and then i'm going to visit brum again :) can't wait.

Also this week i'm trying to write an essay about God's sovereignty. The title is 'If God is Sovereign and the world is like it is, he is not good - discuss' and the word limit is 1500. Making a start on it yesterday reminded me how much I don't like writing essays even if its an interesting topic because I'm not very good with words.

Oh yeah my church cluster last week went well although it is kind of hard when there are a lot of people who all seem to know each other. I'll be going back next week and should be joining one of the homegroups soon.

One more thing then I think thats everything for now. I'm still enjoying TEAM and learning a lot although next week I'm doing another mini talky thing, this time on Hosea, which I'm not looking forward to. I know it will be fine though.

Fireworks and Houseparty are coming soon!

If you are reading this regularly sorry I missed a week. I was busy and am reworking my timetable slightly to make better use of my time. The last couple of weeks have been ok. As usual the best bits have been spending time with students. Since I last wrote I've been to SLOBS (Small group Leaders Own Bible Study) a couple of times which has been good to be studying the bible with Steve and two students who are leading the small group. I've also been enjoying just getting to know students better. Chatting in starbucks or the pub is so much fun.

Study has also been particularly good recently. I've been studying God's sovereignty. It has been great to be reminded that God is good and in control! My mini talk thing for TEAM went quite well in the end even if I did leave it to the last minute which I am not going to do again! too stressful!

Coming up this week is lots of exciting stuff. On Thursday its the firework display on Midsummers common so no CU meeting because we are meeting up to go to the fireworks together and hopefully the students will bring friends too. And then on Friday its the CU Houseparty (weekend away) at a place called Greenhedges in Sheringham. I'm hoping and praying it will be a really good time to get to know the students better and finally figure out who I'm going to do my second one-to-one with.

I'm going to my first church cluster tonight. Clusters are basically a group of 2 or 3 small groups that meet together every other week with small groups meeting the on the weeks in between. I'm hoping that I'll have a good time and get to know more people in church through it. Think thats pretty much all I have to say for now so to summarize Relay is good but challenging!

Back at work after a great weekend!

I'm now back at work after an amazing weekend in brum seeing lots of friends. I loved seeing people and there were definatelty times when it didn't feel like I'd been away for two months! A nice bonus to seeing friends was Jenson Button finally becoming F1 world Champion!

Last week was ok. Had to do my first study response which was less fun but I'm still loving being a Relay worker. It was good to see people at our team day the other week. The main CU meetings on Thursday night are still going well and numbers are still good which is really encouraging. Had our first book club meeting on friday which was pretty good. We had 2 students come in addition to me and the 2 girls organising it.

This week I'm hopefully starting my first proper one-to-one with one of the girls. Just need to finalise time and place! Should be good. Also need to figure out who else to do a one-to-one with. All the usual stuff happening this week plus at TEAM this week I've got to do a five min mini talk thingy explaining a passage in Ephesians so need to actually do that before Wednesday! Got my first SLOBS (Small group Leaders Own Bible Study) this week too. This is helping the two small group leaders prepare for the small group they'll be leading on Wednesday lunchtimes I think.

Since the last time I posted I've made up my mind about church, which I'm pleased about. My new church is similar in style to my church in brum but a bit smaller so there are less students there and at the moment I think all the students are Cambridge rather than ARU students. Looking forward to sticking around and getting to know people there. Need to get my act together and sign up for a cluster/small group though!

First month of Relay done

Can't believe my first month of Relay is well and truely over! I sent my first monthly report off this morning. For those of you reading this who aren't ex or current Relay workers its basically a review of what I've been doing with my time, how study is going, my finances and what I'm planning to do in the next month. International cafe went quite well and I'm going back tonight. There were quite a lot of people there which was good to see. CU last week was good. Was great to see lots of people there again. Thursday CU meetings are definately one of my favourite times of the week.

Didn't do much at the weekend. Still slightly odd that I don't need to feel guilty for not doing much on Saturdays! I also still haven't made up my mind about Church. There are a lot of good churches in Cambridge which doesn't really make the decision any easier! Need to make a decision and stick to it soon though.

The elective section of my study is now sorted. On Wednesdays I'll be doing a course called TEAM which stands for Training for East Anglia Ministry. I think the easiest way to explain it is by quoting from the website! 'TEAM is a one-year, one-day-a-week course focusing on learning to understand and apply the Bible, both to our own lives and to contemporary culture, in order to teach it effectively to others.'

This week I've got another team day to go to on Friday. Should be good to see the other East Central Staff and Relay workers. Other than that its TEAM and all the usual CU meetings and study and working out who to do one to ones with. It's the first book club meeting on Friday but I wont be able to go because of my team day. I'm hoping and praying it goes well and lots of people go. That'll do for now, mostly because I'm not sure what else to say and have had enough of writing for now!