Do you want to get well?

With the boys back from their holiday, but still a little jet-lagged, and Liz back from retreat the house is slowly returning to its normal bustle and volume.  Preparing this sermon yesterday was difficult. It had nothing to do with the volume or bustle, but relates to my previous encounters with healers and the extreme scepticism I suffer from in their presence.  Do I really believe God will heal me?  Is that something he just does for others? - I have known people who have received healing  Perhaps it is the scepticism that needs healing rather than my partially healed and ageing body.  So I finished late and was still reading and tinkering with the text into the evening.  I'm not sure why I do that either - I don't speak it most of the time - except some stories that are read to ensure the key phrases come through.
Still it went down well, with some positive comments - mostly about my poor impression of Michael Palin.  All feedback is good.  I prefer it to be specific and positive (not necessarily praising me, rather helping me to do better), but all feedback is good.
That was the 8am service.  My day started about 5:30 this morning, I say that now so you will understand a little more of what happens later.
Breakfast was abbreviated as I took a look at the office e-mail system.  Whatever problems they are having do not occur on Sunday mornings.  While I was finishing the last one we found that one of the SMB visitors had a window in her car broken and her handbag stolen.  She was understandably upset but graciously said she hoped they would read her Bible.
The 10:00 service was a parade, with fewer cubs and brownies than usual.  That's a shame because the SMB folk did a really good job of telling the story. An inflatable paddling pool and sheep hanging from a 'gate' would give you a very slight idea of the flavour of what they were doing.
We arrived home before 12:00 and I promptly fell asleep listening to Just a Minute, and struggled to wake up for lunch!

Almost like starting again ...

That seems to be the theme of the day.

I was preaching Sunday morning and as I listened to myself, I was not at all happy with the balance. Here's roughly what I said. Too much concentration on the problem and too little discussion of how to avoid it.  Warner added a prayer at the end, which worked well.   However, God did manage to speak to some people through it.  I got some helpful feedback, but also just some "well done"s, which I'm never that sure about. I MUST remember to respond to those with some sort of question ...
I haven't reacted like that to the structure and content of one of my sermons since the very early days.

That was the first 'starting again'.

After lunch, a bottle of Bishop's Finger and the Hungarian Grand Prix (perhaps Mark Webbers best race?), I decided to go for a cycle.  I only managed the shortest of my courses and had a very sore knee at the end.  I was also feeling quite tired.

That was the second 'starting again'

In the evening, we took Brody and some sandwiches and went to Matching Tye for a 1.5-hour walk through the very dry countryside. Most of the time we were walking across or around fields of grain, clearly ready for the harvest.  If there's any appreciable rain now, it will all be flattened and rot. The walk officially started at the Village Hall, but we started from and returned to The Fox Inn.  They have a very large garden, so it was easy to fit Brody in.

I slept well Sunday night!

Sunday, December 16th 08:00 @ Christ Church

Yes, we really did get up and go to the 8am communion service. It a spoken service, so no music or singing. Warner preached on Joseph and the risks he took in Matthew 1:18ff. I'm not sure these are recorded, so you may not be able to listen to it on the website. Then breakfast in the Church hall. Today was special - a Christmas breakfast. That's all the usual things plus sausages and bacon, and croissants and chocolate breads. Its was very nice, and I drank too much coffee, and ate too much food. The straight on to the 10am Family Service. Our trainee reader had an assessed sermon this morning, on the same passage, but directed at a very different audience. As one of those asked to provide feedback I had to pay careful attention. I was grateful for the extra coffee to sharpen my mind, but it wasn't really a problem as the sermon was well worth listening to.


P.S. Pictures from the Bill Legend event are here