As I have now entered the fourth, and hopefully final, year of curacy, I thought it was about time for an update (seeing as this blog is supposed to be a record of my curacy journey)! As I posted in the September last year, I have been trying to think and reflect a lot more about Self Supporting Ministry, and reading as many books as I can find on the subject (and there aren’t an awful lot). Part of the upshot of this was a realisation that I needed to give my day job (and ministry there) more respect – […]

My “365” project has had a fresh lease of life recently, since I started almost entirely using my phone camera. It hugely simplifies the workflow (as the photos are auto uploaded from the phone), and also means I’m not lugging around my DSLR. It does mean that the photos are more like snapshots, and perhaps less considered, but I’m quite enjoying the freedom of not really having many options around aperture, shutter, etc. It’s kind of the instagram philosophy I guess.

I recently did a live streamed church service from home, and along the way learned what is needed to get certain types of microphone to work. I have a couple of microphones I use for video work – I have a Rode VideoMic GO shotgun microphone and a Rode SmartLav+ label microphone. I use my Canon DSLR for filming stuff, and almost any external mic is a huge improvement on the built-in one, so this has worked well. However, when I plugged either of these into my laptop for the broadcast, I had to boost the gain, which in turn […]

A few weeks ago, I was praying with someone, and I had what I believe was a prophetic word from God for them. While it was for them personally, it came back to me this morning as a much wider word for our times. The essence was about seeking God in the “micro” choices. In the right now. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen in 3 months, 6 months, 5 years, or even next week. Just here. And now. What is God saying to you about the next 5 minutes, 30 minutes? How are you going to be aware […]

It’s Easter morning – Hallelujah. What a strange Easter morning it is though, stuck as we are in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown. Much much more to be said about all this, about church, about community – but the inspiration for this post was when I was awoken at about 4.30 this morning. You see, the more Easters I have, the more I feel that we jump the gun a bit. It took the first disciples a further 50 days before the joy and release of the resurrection took hold. Immediately after Easter, they continued to be in “isolation” […]

At my work we regularly have business development sessions, where we review performance, do some forward planning, and so on. We also usually do some organisational development – around teamwork, communication, that sort of thing. Last summer we had a session on culture, and the organisational culture in particular. Now I am lucky enough to work in a company that has a very healthy and positive culture – we have a high level of transparency, trust, encouragement, cooperation, and a low level of passive aggression, sabotage, negativity, secrecy, politicking, and so on. All good stuff. But then one of my […]

My new “rules” for the 365 have had the opposite of my intended effect! I had hoped they would spur me on to take more photos, but actually there have been two times already when I haven’t taken a photo because I alreeady have “today’s”, and at least one time when I haven’t taken on Saturday just because it was Saturday. I think partly as a result I haven’t taken one at all for two weeks! So I am abandoning the new rules, and going back to my old rules, which is as many as I fancy a week, and […]

As one of my resolutions/intentions this year is to take more photos, I’ve decided to resurrect my 365 to a limited extent. I’m aiming for 6 photos a week, with one day off (Saturdays), and I will probably use the camera in my phone at a lot more. As per the original project, it has to be a photo I have taken, and it must be taken on the date it’s posted – but if it takes me a week or to to upload them I’m not too stressed about that. So here’s to 300+ photos in 2020!

Over Christmas I watched “Home Alone” with my younger son. I must admit I’ve always wondered why this gets categorised as a Christmas Film, as  the only thing Christmassy about it was the fact it’s set at Christmas (a bit like Die Hard), and has some nod to being apart from those you love. Home Alone (I would have said), was a film about at 8 year year old setting traps for hapless burglars (such as bowling balls dropping on their head) for 2 hours. It turns out the film is not about that at all. Not even remotely. The […]

It is my experience that some books just scratch where I am itching. It might be the writing style, subject, or simply that it has come at the right time for me to “get it”. These are the books you read that just help things make sense, or put into words the things you’ve been struggling to vocalise. The best example of this for me is Contemplative Youth Ministry – Practising the Presence of Jesus with Young People” by Mark Yaconnelli (SPCK 2006), which is a book that spoke deeply to my heart, and opened up contemplative spirituality for me […]