it can't be thursday already can it

Really not sure where this week has gone. It seems no time at all since I was lazing around at the weekend.

Monday saw me out for lunch with some youth worker friends, one of whom is in the process of moving to Solihull. Lunch was v nice. I had Caesar Salad. On Monday evening I played football and hurt my foot when I (accidentally) kicked someone elses heel.

On Tuesday I went down to Birmingham to meet with my dissertation tutor. It was an encouraging and thought provoking time, and I feel somewhat clearer about where my dissertation is going, or will go when I get my head down and do some work. Being down in Birmingham also provided me with an opportunity to have my second Caesar Salad of the week when I was out to lunch with a friend. In a worryingly re-occurring theme, I played football again on Tuesday evening.

Yesterday (Wednesday) saw me out to lunch for the third time in a week (v nice, but not so good for the wallet). Being the radical that I am I broke with tradition and didn't have my third Caesar Salad of the week. Lunch had been preceeded by coffee in the morning with Andrew.

Just to reassure you, I have been doing some work in between these various social occasions. I'm not a complete slacker.....

I'm continuing to do some thinking about where the youth work at church is going, and we've arranged a 'vision' evening kinda thing. The point of this being to spend time together as members of the church family, to think together about the youth work, and how it fits into the wider vision of the church in terms of nurture and fellowship, as well as outreach and service within the local community.

I've got lots of ideas about how the youth work could be developed - nothing that in my mind feels particularly radical - but as ever the question is going to be other people to run activities with. While I am keen to spend time doing some more one-to-one pastoral stuff, I do also really value small group work, and the opportunities that presents for people to learn from one another. In a day and age when child protection policies exist, (and quite rightly so - don't get me wrong here, I understand their importance) there are some new challenges which will force/stimulate/encourage a little bit more creativity in our planning I think/hope.