Exciting but Full Weekend

This is one of those weekends when I think my scheduling is just plain awful. But, as the title of this post implies, it's going to be an exciting and full weekend.

This morning I led the Holy Spirit morning from the current daytime alpha that I lead with an ace team. We ate a cooked breakfast together then looked at who the Holy Spirit is and what he does. Then we moved on to the session "How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?". It is always such an honour and a privilege to pray with people on alpha. God's faithfulness to the guests is awesome. He knows what they need and just how they best receive. We enjoyed a very real sense of God's presence and power. I just love alpha. Hearing lots of words on the Nicky Gumbel DVD is great. The content is great. Learning to pray and read the Bible is great but to have all of these things covered over with "phileo"love - the demonstrated, natural affection of the Father is just WONDERFUL. Don't you find that when you feel his love so tangibly you just love him back all the more and so on?

After a couple of hours at home I have scurried back to finish my preparations for a new kids discipleship course tomorrow. I have 12 kids coming to learn about how God sees them and in subsequent months to learn more about growing in God; learning to pray and to listen to God's voice.

I've been hard at work preparing an (actual) treasure chest per child full of spiritual truths for those "no good, down days" (we all get them!) But I couldn't be doing this without the wonderful gals in the office who are crafty and ingenious where I run out of ideas.

Then after this I am taking some of the children to perform a sort of dance (its hard to describe!!) at a major conference of some 1,200.

On Sunday I have managed to have one service off and not over-commit to things I am personally responsible for. So I can sit in on one of the kids groups and just enjoy.

On MONDAY I am committed to leading an afternoon on a year out programme in another city. I love meeting this crew. Here's my brief, which I need to give a lot of thought to as I try to make it not a lecture but pretty interactive:-

"It would be great if your topic could be along the lines of “A Vision for working with children and families (more than Sunday School)

By the end of the session I would hope the trainees would have a wider, broader and more holistic understanding of not only the needs of children and families within church, but also their strategic part to play in advancing the Kingdom of God outside the walls of the church. I feel that within this framework you have plenty scope to touch on things like developing supernatural gifts; evangelism; family cell etc and also share stories of what God has been up to in your own experience"

Lots to prepare for and think about!