I think there's light at the end of the tunnel

As I speculated, I did reach fifth heaven yesterday. The holiday was booked without undue difficulty. I had a helpful conversation in an Apple shop about the possibilities of replacing my PC laptop with a MacBook. The postman delivered two external hard drives (one of them is bound to crash sooner or later but if I keep my backup storage on both, then all will not be lost) and these seem to plug and play very easily. Even the fact that a spring in my study chair broke (making it less comfortable but still functional) did not dent my cheeriness.

By the by, we booked our holiday in a converted mill by the river Stour just outside Blandford Forum in Dorset. A news item on the radio this morning said that since licensing hours were extended only a small proportion of pubs have been granted a 24-hour licence, and only two in the entire country actually remain open for 24 hours a day - both of them in Blandford Forum! I wonder if we will be disturbed by the drinkers of Dorset converging on us at all hours of day or night.

But more importantly: One of my emails yesterday contained the comment that some feel the church has lost its way and is looking to me for strong leadership. I was supposed to write a paper for tomorrow's Church Strategy Group to address such an issue, but have not yet done so and so have postponed the meeting. The good news is that I am starting to get an inkling of where we might go as a church. Something about making disciples and how that might revitalise our particular congregation. I can preach on it and submit a paper to the congregation at the same time. The thoughts are not yet fully formed, but I've made a start. Better still, it does feel like the prompting of the Spirit rather than my own desperate ideas.