Which doors to push?

Dear all,

Well I guess the first thing I should mention is an update on my situation re: extending my contract with Lee Abbey. I would love to go into the detail of how this decision was made, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to mention here, especially given the fact they’re still my employer! Suffice it to say however, I’m currently contracted to work/live at Lee Abbey until June 2007 (that constitutes a “one year extension” this being the third time I have asked for an extension).
Anyways, I have a peace about it which I know is from God, yet I’m already starting to plan/think about my next step…more about that later!

In the meantime, another big thing for me was leading my first Host Team. It was my 10th time on Host Team. I’d co-led twice before, which for me means letting the leader plan it all but help out more with the up-front type stuff during the week. Well this time I was the one doing the planning, in fact, I was so keen to prove to myself I could do this, I only brought my co-leader in on it all about a week before it started!

Even the smallest of things was stressful, for example: I was “heading up” the welcomes & introductions” evening on the first evening…but I knew how I wanted it to go…I’d asked for dancers to come on without being introduced (so the lights needed to be dimmed to signal the start), then they would burst into their dance called “All Creation” while their was a PowerPoint presentation showing on the big screen behind them. Then as they left, I wanted our worship leader to kick us off with a few songs (again uninterrupted) and then she would hand over to our “acting warden” who would give all the wardeny notices…who would then hand-over to my co-leader who would then invite me and the rest of the team to join her and introduce herself before inviting the guests speakers to come and introduce themselves and the theme for the week before announcing “hot chocolate will now be served in the gallery”. You can now breathe! Well…it worked…it went really well and looked really professional. So you see…I wasn’t leading every aspect of the week personally…but I had planned most of it so it was quite stressful.

As the week went on, I relaxed into the role and was immensely encouraged by a truly WONDERFUL group of guests who couldn’t say “Thank you David” enough! I also learned a lot and indeed found the week to be a turning point in my life.

The week was called: “Whose earth is it anyway?” and was lead by Dave Bookless (from A ROCHA – a Christian charity passionate about the conservation of God’s creation) and John Wibberly (who only days before the week had been speaking in Ethiopia about his field of endeavour – agriculture. Both spoke well and answered the many questions that came their way. Above all I have learned that taking conservation seriously (in effect – caring for God’s creation) is absolutely NOT an optional extra for Christians, nor is it new age, nor is it a field that it’s “nice for some Christians to be involved in”, nor is it down on the list of priorities in the Christian walk below evangelism and soul-winning etc…it’s a primary command Throughout the Bible and boy did it challenge me! Please e-mail me if you’d like details of A ROCHA’s quarterly magazine…there is no subscription requirement before you may receive it. They live by faith and obviously hope that if you start wanting it regularly you might want to contribute something etc. But I was fascinated about the grassroots examples of a mother/housewife who has a column in there. Also bits for kids etc etc…it’s really well put together and they have a highly respected council of reference.

Anyway, I’m sure A ROCHA will play a large part in my future ministry but for now, it’s the little changes that we all put off making that I’m going to try and implement…but admittedly, it’s not easy! Especially when you know that Brazil cuts down a chunk of rainforest the size of Wales each year…it’s easy to get disheartened! (please visit www.arocha.org.uk for more info)
For now though, I have made enquiries about doing an Access course as an evening class whilst I’m at Lee Abbey. I was sceptical; knowing it would be as hard as A-Levels yet doing it one evening a week whist trying to be the Housekeeper for a Christian conference centre. It seems God has already intervened on that somewhat grandiose idea and when I phoned North Devon College today, it turns out it’s a 3 day a week course and no way could I do that while I’m living/working at Lee Abbey.

It’s interesting, because my agreement with God was that if my extension was anything LESS than 3 years, I was to take that as a sign to not extend at all and leave June 06. So please pray guys as I’m kinda confused about it all. Being the kinda pro-active prayer I am (I don’t expect God to move a lamp 3 inches to the left if he wants to say “YES” but I do want a sign!!!!) I’m probably going to send of an application form to London School of Theology to enrol on a “Theology and Counselling” degree in September 2007. If it comes back as a resounding yes, then I’ll take it to be God’s will. If it’s a no, then I really will have to think about leaving Lee Abbey in June 2006 (not sure how they’ll feel about that but…) and enrolling “somewhere” on an Access Course and then I’ll probably do a degree in History at DeMonfort University or somewhere like that.

I don’t feel I need to “prove” my independence by going to Leeds or Plymouth running up a high debt in accommodation costs…it would be cool to do a degree and live with my folks.

So I guess it’s crunch time, as none P.C. words like CHRISTIAN vs. SECULAR are, it really seems like I now need to decide between Christian academia or secular. So…all I can do is start pushing doors…and yes my heartbeat quickens when I think about uprooting and doing either of them!