Challenges

Wednesday 30th September.
Soooo tired!! We stayed up talking till about 11:15 or something last night – the ice has finally broken! – in our room. Great fun. Now absolutely shattered.

Went to a meeting today about the interactive groups. We each get a chance to lead our group in pairs, and guess who’s got stuck with leading the UK group on Monday? That’s right, gubbins here who usually runs from public speaking like Usain Bolt – mentally, at any rate. On the plus side, I have an idea and Sofi (the girl I’m leading with) and I managed to get it pretty well worked out reasonably quickly. Now if only I could download the video we want to use . . . Apparently they’re just little discussion groups, we get to do whatever theme or topic we want. We just need to make sure everyone gets involved and we have a prayer time at some point. So why am I still terrified? How much time have you got?

More introductions to the Bible. It started with us being told that we didn’t need our Bibles. This coming from the Managing Director of Capernwray – you can guess the horrified gasps etc. that got! Turns out we had a quiz about the Bible – its content, not the history of it. I didn’t do too bad, but there’s quite a bit that I didn’t know. But that was the point, it was meant to be challenging rather than the sort of test that got marked.

We also got told about the outreach opportunities that will be available this term. The prison ministry sounds amazing. There’s quite a few children’s/young people’s ministries available, quite a few of which are with ‘unchurched’ children. There’s the International Café at Lancaster University which is aimed at international students; an open air in Morecambe; some church events; work with old people and RBC. I quite like the sound of the RBC one: it’s going to work for Radio Bible Class, packing up and sending out evangelistic and Bible study materials worldwide. It sounds like there’s a great atmosphere there and it’s right up my street. Of course, that’s the problem. Carolyn told us all to pray before we signed up, and I think she’d rather we stepped out of our comfort zones. I get the feeling she’s one of the staff members who might push rather than jut encourage or challenge you to get out of it. I mean that in the best possible way!! So, something to pray about.