Fellowship and training

Spiritually it has been a great week.

We had a really good evening at House Group last week. Rob Davies joined us (as his old house group are part of us now) and we had an opportunity to hear about what is happening in Italy and to pray for him. We were thinking about intimacy with God and what that actually means. How do we maintain a balance between a healthy image of God's omnipotence and holiness and yet enter into the personal and intimate relationship He wants for us.

The House Group leaders' weekend away was a fabulous time too. Glenfall is a great place to stay and the food was wonderful. I did sneak off in the afternoon to play a hockey match as my team were playing in Gloucester just down the road. I welcomed the opportunity to run off some of the food. It was great just to worship together and relax knowing we didn't have to rush off anywhere or organise lifts, or clean up post-HG mess. God was present powerfully. The whole unconditional love thing was very challenging. Just driving home down the motorway trying not to judge the other drivers (or my own driver husband) was interesting.

In the bigger picture God has been speaking to me about storing up love, grace and mercy so that when I need it I have access to it. Matt talked about this at the weekend as well. It is easier to try and jump to phase two putting it into action when we don't have the resources in our heart that make the serving a natural response to who we are rather than an expression of who we would like to be.

Ian and I are very grateful for the wonderful teaching and training opportunities that we have at Bristol Vineyard. We hope to make the most of those oportunities over the next months as plans for a move of considerable proportions are well under way! More on that soon....