Here is a round up of some of the things that I have been up to this week. Sadly, as is all to often the case these days the week was marked with two funeral services for two very strong, proud Methodist women, Dorothy from our own church and Doris who had recently moved to Shirley from Newcastle to be nearer her children. Their families will continue to be held in my prayers as they mourn their loss.
After the first of those funerals on Monday morning I went to a meeting at Queens Foundation to discuss a piece of academic writing I am about to undertake, I am quite excited about this piece of work - but more of that in another post. Afterwards, late afternoon, I made a pastoral visit. On Monday evening I chaired our Church Council meeting at Shirley, a good meeting where, apart from the usual reports we talked about strategy and change in line with a report from the General Secretary of conference.
On Tuesday the ministers of the new circuit met for an away morning at Lozells Methodist Church to discuss supervision of ministers and to set up a system whereby we can offer support and challenge each other in our role as ministers. In the afternoon I attended a sub-group meeting of Solihull's Interfaith Forum and on Tuesday evening there was a meeting of Shirley Churches Together, an excellent meeting in which we continued our discussions regarding our continuing commitment to work together to serve our community.
On Wednesday I did a few admin jobs at church in the morning. Then in the afternoon conducted the cremation and service or thanksgiving for Dorothy, a service that went very well thanks to the usual hard work and team effort of many of our members.
On Thursday I visited some of our poorly people before going to Cranmore Infant and Junior School to talk about Harvest in their school assembly. After that, a few more visits before taking an evening off.
Friday was my day off and I spent most of the day studying.
As I write this it is Saturday afternoon and I am at Birmingham Moor Street station waiting for my train home after being the guest speaker at Epilepsy Action in Birmingam Centre.
So that is my week so far - tonight is Saturday which can only mean one thing- X Factor!
