Back to school ...

Well there you have it, the summer is officially over, four months of fun all gone - where did they go??? its amazing how quickly they have gone and we are now back into the routines of college life again.

today was such a busy day - woke up here in Dublin (mum and dad were down painting and laying the carpet in si and my rooms- thanks dad :-) ) then off to bray for worship, O'sullivans for lunch, back to college and then said bye bye to the folks and hello to the new intake who seem to be great.
after a communion service and reception, dinner was served - later a few people came round for a hot chocolate and off to bed. Then came the idea to Blog!

Please do pray for the guys who have just started- it is difficult to start a new way of life in a place such as a theo college - I know in my first few days it was difficult, new faces, the number of times i was asked "well what did you do then before coming down ..?" and all of these things so please do pray that they would find their feet - pray also for their families at home.

Pray for our year group that we would continue to be united in our friendship and laughter together and that this year we would continue to hold each other up in prayer. College can be a difficult place sometimes.

This week is soooooooo hectic for us 9-5 lectures of various kinds then i'm off mon/wed/fri to CMS things in Dublin and Armagh - which i am looking forward to then on sunday i am meant to be doing something in Banbridge about the Zam Trip

Mid Africa Conference -

Challenges Galore

There are those days which just simply just fly by without much thinking, others simply make you stop and take stock about we are actually doing. I suppose we need to be prepared for both.

Today I headed across to Newcastle to the Mid Africa conference that was held by CMS Ireland, supposedly to give jules a wee hand with the kids work but over the hours in the Glenada I had some amazing challenges presented.

Stuff to think about

- Mission in Ireland – How seriously do we take our mission?, what could the church be doing? What does it mean to be missiological in our thinking within the local church?

- Bridging the gap between the pew and the pub? Mission agency / Local church?

- Discipleship as a major challenge in the African church

- Paul in Athens

- Theological education in Africa – training the next Generation of leaders??

- What does it mean for us guys in college to do be missional?

Stand still long enough and you’ll get challenged – definitely want next year to spend the weekend there – there are soooo many inspirational people at this conference – if you can GO next year! People who have lived an exciting, incredible and amazing adventurous life in God’s call. People who are just so infectous with passion for their father and first love God and who are willing to get up and GO! But also people who are just sitting and willing to share their story of faith with people who just ask! It’s not the easy life but its the best!

To look at a wider perspective on mission and what we are actually doing at college is actually quite amazing and worth reminding ourselves what we are doing. Being “equipped to serve”.

I am looking forward to a couple of days this week to sit down and do a bit of thinking about these sort of issues and generally just taking a bit of time out.

As you can see I was a bit affected by today’s stuff! To say the least! :-)