Settling down

I'm quite excited by the fact that I've now posted enough on my blog that it won't all fit on the first page! I realise that's fairly sad, but hey!

Since I blogged yesterday I've begun to get my head round work a little more, aided in no small part by a day full of meetings. One was with the rest of the football academy staff team (well, me and two others!!) over all-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut - it was work, honest! - and another was at the local secondary school where we're hoping Adam can do his Oasis community placement. Ascension's been building a good relationship with the school for the last few years, so I'm hopeful that this could be another step towards consolidating the joint working that's been happening. The cricket has also proved less distracting - I have to admit that I'm one of those pessimists that's hoping for a draw!

I also had a bit of a catch up with the vicar this afternoon, sharing together some of our vision for this year. Fortunately it's looking like we're singing off the same EasyWorship slide at this stage in the game with issues like discipleship and worship at the fore. Looking further ahead we're anticipating another change in youth team personnel at the end of the academic year so we talked about the need to start thinking ASAP about the potential shape of the youth work come this time next year before we look at the more practical issues of recruiting. It's a bit scary to be thinking 12 months ahead but given that I can't believe I've been here a year already it's going to go pretty quickly.

Tomorrow's a prep day. I don't often get the opportunity to lead a session with young people but I'm doing the first Sunday morning back and I'm actually quite enjoying thinking through ways of getting the year off to a simultaneously reflective and motivating start... Then we've got a youth team away morning in my lounge (!) on Monday so I'm thinking through ideas for that. Hopefully it'll be a relaxed but effective way of reflecting back on what we've shared and looking forward to the journey that we'll be taking together this year.