THE WEEKEND THAT WAS:

Because of the Bank Holiday weekend this seemed a fairly relaxed weekend. Numbers were significantly down across the board; youth club, both church services on Sunday. The evening may also have been affected by the crucial Premier League matches taking place on Sunday afternoon. In the end, most people around here were ecstatic with Sunderland preserving their place in the Premier League and local rivals Newcastle being dumped into the Championship.

I had a sense of holding the fort on Sunday with both of my colleagues being away. David is in Angola training church leaders there and Alistair is in Hungary at the European Leaders' Forum with Wayne Grudem, Michael Green and John Lennox. Sounds good. We had an excellent time of worship and teaching on Sunday with David Wallace on 'Unanswered Prayer'. I had a good session with the young people and we had fun roleplaying some unjust situations (linked to Luke 18:1-8). In the evening, because of numbers, I had the youth join with the main service where David Neil taught on 'Being Subject to Authority'. It was interesting to consider the line that we must draw between obeying the law of the land and obeying God's law. God's law must take precedence, but we should then still be subject to the laws of the land and bear the consequences. We were reminded of people like MLK who showed a great example in this. Funnily enough, I had just watched an interview with Martin Sheen on Friday night where he said he'd been arrested on 87 occasions, mostly as part of civil protests. Made me wonder, what would I be prepared to be arrested for?

I spent Bank Holiday Monday in Scotland on a flying visit to see Mum and also to visit my elderly aunt who is in hospital as a result of a very unstable bout of diabetic hypo episodes. It was a beautiful day to drive and I enjoyed listening to the sport on the radio as I gobbled up the miles.

WHERE I AM AT THE MOMENT:

in the office

ON MY TO-DO LIST THIS WEEK:

Create a comprehensive form for all attending our summer trip to the Lake District.

Organise insurance for our missions trip to Romania in August.

Write up my Youth ministry vision and strategy and send it to my trustees.

Prepare two teaching sessions for Sunday on:

1) Luke 18:9-14 The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

2) I've just realised that Sunday night's teaching is sorted as I didn't use it this week! Result! On 'A Servant's Heart'

PROCRASTINATING ABOUT:

tidying my office and having a good purge of books that I'm never going to pick up again

BOOK(S) I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF:

I want to make time this week to look at Erwin McManus' book 'Soul Cravings'

MUSIC PLAYING AS I TYPE THIS: Best of The Pretenders

NEXT TRIP: same as last week

HOW I'M FEELING ABOUT THE WEEK: Great. Should be a week of high productivity as most activities are on hold as it's half-term week. My door won't be knocked as much, my phone won't ring as much and the email intray shouldn't overflow.

Looking forward very much to indulging myself tomorrow night with the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona. Come on United!