I’m about to head off to Carberry Tower near Edinburgh for 24 hours to our Synod Programme Committees.

On the agenda for me are Children and Communion and Safeguarding as well as working with the Children and Youth Ministry Committee on our future plans for the Synod Youth Forum and some other stuff in the pipeline that I’ll tell you more about later!

… after a busy Saturday.

I spent this morning with the lovely people of Righead URC in east Kilbride leading worship and talking about the Child Friendly Church Award that the URC operate.  It helps churches to think about how they include children and young people in all aspects to the life of the church.

At the moment I’m watching Chelsea V Middlesburgh while trying hard not to fall asleep.  What is daylight saving all about?  I want my hour in bed back!

Later we’re heading off to Edinburgh for Together @ MCT.  More on that later!

It seems the pressure of being favourites for today’s rugby against france was too much.  The game was littered with mistakes, forward passes and bad bounces.  We don’t seem to do well when we are fancied to win.  Never mind.  Back to being underdogs next week when we play wales who beat england yesterday.

In other news, I was at Barrhead URC this morning where I managed to fill the bottom of an upside down goblet with wine.  Oops!  Apart from that it went really well.  Someone even told me I’ll soon be  a ‘fully fledged minister’ soon.  I know that’s meant as a compliment but it doesn’t half devalue everything else you do!!!

So that’s the end of my ‘week off’.  In the coming week I’m

• meeting some people to talk about a distance learning youth work course
• writing a service for next Sunday at Lanark (which might end up as a podcast if Bryan gets his act together)
• coming up with a question for my masters research
• organising the Synod of Scotland Youth Forum
• meeting a colleague to talk about online learning tools
• looking forward to seeing my new nephew for the first time (and giving my sister her birthday card - only two weeks late)

Should be a busy but fun week.

I know it’s a little late but I was up late and slept late.  Happy New Year to you all.  I hope 2008 brings you many blessings.

I thought I’d reflect briefly on 2007.

I’ve been privileged to meet some great people this year and share in their lives and work.  I’ve spent lots of time working and preaching in Drumchapel, Dunfermline, Saughtonhall (Edinburgh) and Annan.  They are all very different places with one thing very much in common, the warm and welcoming people.

This has been a year of moving on I think.  2006 was all about me getting settled into my job with the URC and I think 2007 has been about getting things done.

Some work highlights have been:

the labyrinth at General Assembly

Together @ MCT has been a source of great excitement and hope…

Connected, our online conference was a brilliant day of information and inspiration and it was great to meet Ewan McIntosh.

And my last Crossover…

And I’ve been to some great places, Skye & Tenerife on holiday!

All that and Scotland played some pretty decent football, Ben and Jack have both been to see Motherwell (and they won), Avril and David are doing really well at uni and I have a new nephew.  Not a bad year!

It’s Advent.  Not that I’ve really noticed yet.  I like Advent.  I like the usual sense of anticipation, of looking forward, of pause.  But this year Advent is rushing past.  Life is busy.  There’s work to be done, essays to be written and sermons too.  Time seems to be hurtling on towards Christmas.

I wonder if that’s how it was for Mary and Joseph.  They must have been looking forward to the birth.  Getting excited.  Getting things ready in the way that you do when a child is expected.  My sister is expecting her 3rd child around Christmas.  She’s been painting and getting things ready.

But then Mary and Joseph had to go.  At the last minute they had to up sticks and head to Bethlehem.  No time for arrangements to be made, no room to organise, no nursery toys, baby grows and bibs.  Just a rush to get there.

And yet Advent is the time of waiting.  Waiting to me suggests a pause.  A nothingness waiting for something to happen to fill the void.  I wonder what happens when the void is already full of busyness?  Does the thing awaited still happen?  Does it still have the same impact?  Will anyone notice?

I’m looking forward to Sunday.  I’m leading worship at Dunfermline.  I’ve decided I like the discipline of preparing worship.  It’s good for me.  I learn and it slows me down a little and gives me things to ponder.  Perhaps once Sunday comes and the busyness slows a little I might have time to stop, and be still, and wait…

The alarm went off at 4am yesterday morning, and it wasn’t an accident.  It was probably a little earlier than necessary but even at that time of the day I’m a little paranoid about getting to Glasgow airport on time from my house. 

Why the airport at that hour?  A trip to London to meet with my some of my colleagues and take our part in an ongoing review of what we do.

To get to London for 10am I had to get the 6am flight, be in Luton for just after 7am and get the train into King’s Cross for just after 8.  A stroll up Euston Road with a leisurely stop at McDonalds for a McHeartattack with fresh orange juice and a further wander up to the Methodist Offices in the very posh Marylebone Road and I was still almost an hour early!

The upside of my visit to the Big Smoke was spending the day with Doug, my former colleague and still my very good friend.  It was great to see him and I have to say he was very professional in his reviewing role! (Our jobs are being reviewed)

Afterwards we managed a coffee and catch up and then he had to rush back for another meeting.  I wandered down to the station and caught the train back to the airport.  I had hoped that the earlier flights might not have been busy and a nice easy jet person would have let me travel home early, but not today.  So I waited.  And waited.  And eventually, just after I decided to get my laptop out and start writing this post, the plane was called!

A good flight home with a great crew who were saying goodbye to one of their number who was off to the promised land of long-haul.  They were lots of fun and made the flight much less tedious.

Avril picked me up at just after 10 and we went home, shouted at Melanie Sykes on Question Time, wondered why Charles Kennedy doesn’t just become Lib Dem leader again, then went to bed and slipped into a coma!