Great piece on Football Focus on the BBC this morning around Christians in football. Hosted by Gavin Peacock who was well known for being a Christian at Chelsea they had interviews with Tottenham's Jermain Defoe and Portmouths Linvoy Primus. They both spoke really well and honestly. It was good to see this focus at this time of year.
Well it's that time again on a Friday afternoon when i have to motivate myself to get set up for our youth club tonight. I love it when it actually starts it's just that the set up is a bit of a drag but hey ho.
When looking at my archives November proves to be my bloggiest month in the 2 and half years of this blog. Well it's the start of advent and i haven't got a calendar which i think possibly is the first time ever. I may have to rectify this however. It's been fun this week to get groups making very basic advent calendars with promises from God behind each day.
I'm looking forward to getting back on the football field in the morning after a month lay off. Hopefully my newly mended hamstring will get through ok. That is followed by the north london derby at luchtime, come on you spurs.
Our third game of the season ended up in a frustrating draw. Although the better team by far we unfortunately let our 2 goal lead slip in no small amount down to an amazing amount of injuries that left our team basically playing with 9 men as both our main striker and of course me struggled around the pitch with hamstring strains. I seem to be getting alot of injuries this season and i also managed to get a bang on the head which had resulted in a bad headache and strange eyes for a couple of days. I think i'm getting ove that one though. Hamstring still a bit painful and all the more frustrating as it happened soon after getting my first goal of the season, straight from a corner (i've never done that before).
With all these bumps and knocks i'm hoping that i don't get a place in the 2007 London Marathon which i should here about soon. Here is me looking fit and ready to go before the 2005 event.
Thanks for the link Andy. Someone has obviously been watching me play recently. I'm sure i've missed some bad ones over the years but i'm not sure if any are as bad as these ones.
I had one of those really nice and fairly relaxing weekends. With no commitments in terms of teaching/leading on Sunday it was nice just to be.
Saturday saw my first football match of the season. I must admit that I was looking forward to this with an equal mix of excitement and fear. That first game is always a bit of a killer as you wish you had eaten less food, drunk less beer and gone out for more runs over the summer. It was a pretty enjoyable game although I did struggle with my new found responsibility of moving from my usual right midfield role to become a box to box centre midfield player. We did manage to get back from 3-1 down to grab a 3-3 draw. My legs are currently telling me as usual that they don't appreciate being thrown around a field for 90 mins, much pain. As Jo had gone shopping with her mum it also meant that I was able to watch the football guilt free although it was rubbish, that was interspersed by a visit from my brother and his family.
Sunday was also a nice day and it saw the launch of our new form of evening service/discussion time. Using the first Nooma 'Rain' clip here we looked into the area of trials and tough times in our lives and where and why they come. It waas good to see a fairly decent turn out and the more informal environment (coffee and candles and people around tables and all that jazz) seemed to go down well with the people I was sitting with. I'm sure it will change and develop as the months go on but it was a good start. Again it was nice to see our church doing something that will be different and a challenge to some people. It's hardly radical in the grand scheme of things but for our little church family it may just be that. For me personally it was nice to look at something that I have used and taught with with other people. It is so rare that I am in our sunday services it was good for me to engage with issues such as this. I do struggle that often we shy away from difficult issues, I hope that these times will help me to start scratching some of those itchy subjects that often whirl around in my head. I hope that this group doesn't become a place of sharing the right answers but instead looks at the struggles we have and values that process of tackling and thinking them through.
It seems that my love for quotes in catching on as people send me or ask to borrow things that I post here. Andy sends a little offering which fits rather nicely with some stuff that was being articulated last night.
"To demand that others should provide you with textbook answers is like asking a strange woman to give birth to your baby. There are insights that can be born only of your own pain, and they are the most precious."
(Janusz Korczak)
If you have quotes that should be shared please send them to me or post them in the comments. Before someone points out yes the best piece of life advice is still
'Never eat yellow snow'
By the way Christmas lights have just been put up around the lamp posts here in Winchmore Hill (frightening). I'll try and get a pic some time.
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