Sunday 15 October 2006

A CUSW does not live on coffee alone

I haven't posted for almost a week, apart from the Pascal quote which generated an inordinate number of comments. Outside of the blogosphere, I've been dashing everywhere and each time arriving just in time.

Saturday SLOBS Got some quality small group leaders, who took a good few hours on a Saturday morning to get prepared for leading their small groups. No slobs in this SLOBS - one even suggested Saturday morning for our weekly training session! And not even a coffee in sight. Quality. Haven't discovered any of them blogging yet though...

Expresso after a rain storm. JB was surprised to witness me down an expresso after we'd both been soaked to the bone (umbrellas unavailing) going through town in a rain storm for a meeting that didn't materialise. Apparently drinking expresso makes me more hard-core than he'd thought. I don't know about hard-core: I was drenched, cold and facing the return trip back home, and there wasn't any filter coffee!

Coffees without coffee Meetings with strange (but lovely) student CU leaders. A couple in Wolverhampton and a couple in Aston. Strange? Well we met for coffee and they didn't want anything to drink! Strange but true. But encouraging to hear of relationships strengthening in Wolverhampton with more freshers than ever before, and very interested non-Christians coming along to meetings in Aston. I love that God has Christian students take part in his reaching of other students with his gospel. And that I get to share in it.

Rich Harvest My church mission week, with BCM helping out. This included a "Rich Coffee Morning". I mention this not that I was able to go to Rich Coffee, but because a coffee theme is developing in this post, perhaps because I'm hoping to redeem myself to my fellow-Coffee Bible Club Bloggers after having admitted a regular absence of coffee in my life.


© 1999 Mantis Design

So, who's for a bit of oh-so-holy must-have-coffee Christian busyness then? Midlands Staff Day in Nottingham included a look together at Chester's The Busy Christian's Guide to Busyness. Challenge for me: "We are called to balance work and rest. But we are not called to balance service and self-indulgence. You were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). All of your life is now to be lived for Christ's glory and in his service." While we wrestled together with those of my colleagues with husband, wife & parental responsibilities on how gospel priorities & family responsibilities fit, I was compelled to praise God for my parents, who lived the following gospel priorities with us:

Whatever we say about ourselves, our true values come to the sufrace in our aspirations for our children. Do you hope your children will be comforable and well-paid? Or do you hope they will be radical, risk-taking gospel workers? If it's the latter then what better way to further that end than by modelling it for them? And not only modelling it, but involving them in it. What does family time actually mean? Watching the television, eating Big Macs, trips to the shopping centre? What values do these enforce? What about making the service of others what unites us as families? What about weekly times when the whole family does something together for the good of others?

No comments: