I'm Back!

Hello!

If you are still reading this blog, I commend your stubborn optimism. Hopefully, it will be rewarded with some more regular posts.

I err as a perfectionist when it comes to writing these updates, so I end up spending a lot of time on them. But as my friend here says, the best is often the enemy of the good. In this case, blogging has been on my to-do list every week, but I’ve been putting it off because I don’t have the time these days to write anything that I deem sufficiently interesting and engaging (just stupid pride, really). The result is that I haven’t written anything at all, interesting or not. So I’m going to try to settle for more regular ‘good’ updates rather than irregular ‘best’ articles. Hopefully I can strike a happy medium.

Well, quite a bit has happened over the past summer and early autumn. Probably the biggest news is that I’ve moved... twice! My contract on the old flat ran out at the first of July. I lived with one family, Rob and Beth, for two months while waiting for the family I am currently living with, Dan, Charis, and their two little boys, to buy and move into their new house in Sheffield.

The church here really encourages single people to live with others, either with other single folks or with families. Paul seems pretty positive about singleness in 1 Cor 7, but our experience is usually rather different; it can be lonely, your house never really becomes your home, etc. But that is where the fellowship of local believers needs to step in and help make singleness possible, even good. Living with Dan and Charis has been great. I don’t eat alone, or come home to a quiet house, or constantly check facebook updates. I love the fact that my toothbrush is once again in a cup with four others of various heights. Plus, it helps prevent me from becoming totally self-absorbed and thinking the world revolves around me – having to share the bathroom in the morning quickly reminds you of that.

My new house is also much closer to the others in my church (5 minute walk in the rain instead of 30) which makes it a lot easier to spend time with them, which I’ve been trying to do more and more. One of our goals as a church is not just to spend time together but to share life together (1 Thes 2:8, Acts 2). The hope is not to add more time commitments and activities in the mix to juggle, but to do the same everyday, normal things together, but with gospel intentionality so that “whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do it all to the glory of God.”

The idea is that the more we get rid of our individualism and share life together, the more opportunities we have to disciple, encourage, and correct one another, to be missionaries together in our neighbourhoods, and point each other back to the gospel – not simply twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays, but Monday over dinner, Tuesday after watching a DVD, Wednesday while watching the sunrise, Thursday during my Birthday party (cough, cough...), Friday while doing the dishes, Saturday while helping at the ESL Conversation Class, Sunday at the gathering, and everything in between.

But the discipling, encouraging, and correcting will only happen if we are intentional about it, which is often the harder challenge. Our Gospel Community was a bit slow figuring all that out this time last year – we knew the theory but weren’t so great at putting it into practice. It felt more like a glorified Bible Study or small group than a family that is “healthy, growing, and full of love as each part does its work.” But now, as we’ve learned, worked, served, eaten, played, gardened, hiked, and been challenged together over the past year, it feels much more like a true family. We are far from perfect, but it is encouraging to look at the transformation that God has worked since a year ago.

I say all this because I think this is actually one of the main reasons that I haven’t had as much time to invest in the blogging– I have a family here now that I need (and want) to spend time with. It’s not that I am busier, but that I simply have less personal time. When I was on my own, I could just spend all evening reading and writing without distraction; now there are people to talk to, caves to be made out of blankets and bunk-beds, and even TV shows to watch together (gasp!). It doesn’t seem right to retreat to my room in the evenings.

OK. That’s all I can do now. Everything else will have to wait for another time.

Love,

Will