The Kings House Saturday night household meeting had fired up with a question, "What was the worst thing you can remember doing?" One brother admitted to having weed over the back of the WC pedestal when he was six, and then having lied to his mother. Clearly we weren't in immediate danger of attracting tabloid attention.
On Sunday morning I made a bid for Mary and I to get to the Coventry Jesus Centre early. I had to tee up Nick with a video I wanted to show, and to check he was happy with my powerpoint. He was simultaneously, and I hope not distractedly, updating House of Goodness's main server. Rob led the worship, and unlike last time, when we'd had a forest of announcements, I had to drag folks to the front to achieve some participation. Andy told us about the congregation's 'pitch' held on the Cathedral steps in Freshers Week. "You get two minutes. Bethel tells them they're the best for bible teaching. Another church says they're the best for worship. A third says they serve coffee and donuts in the meeting. Another says they meet in the afternoon for max convenience." He was leading up to our bit. "We said, 'We've just come back from Gloucester, where we've been training four young guys in evangelism. Come with us and be discipled.'" He continued, "I asked the girl standing next to me what she thought." "I wonder what time they serve the donuts," was her answer.
Andy also reported on how the New Friends Course was going, and the Sunday evening experiment of holding the meeting in Esquire's Coffee Bar. These had all started since I was last in Coventry at the start of September. It was creditable progress. I talked some more about the call to mission. We watched the video http://www.jesus.org.uk/videos/special-short/christian-treasure-hunting and I got people moving around praying for one another. Then the final announcement was that we'd shortly be gathering at Lady Herbert's Garden for congregation lunch.
This little corner of Coventry city centre is intriguing, and the sunshine promised to make it a pleasant gathering. Caelan climbed on the exposed section of city wall. I asked him how old he thought it may be. An adjacent plaque read 1440, so I suggested he did the maths. He got it right, just like our Neive, his classmate, confirms. Mary and I found a spot next to Jane, who has single-handedly churned out the JeD software package that undergirds the admin, services and performance aspects of our Jesus Centres. She also used to live with us in the way-back-when days, with two other graduates, in extended family. As I'm on a mission to recover some of the stepping stones to community, I fired a few questions about her recollections, and the challenges of community today.
The park-keeper announced it was time to leave, so we wound our way back to the car park. This took us past the weekly Coventry Foodbank. About 40 contributors lined up boxes of drystuffs and tables of other food on a low wall next to the footpath. About 200 punters were queueing up, and generally milling around with carrier bags and plates of ready-to-eat. I took a quick photo, as it seemed intrusive to stare. I guess we'll see quite a number of them in the Jesus Centre later in the week. So this is a Coventry snapshot. I'm back again shortly for the quarterly Management Committee meeting.
On Sunday morning I made a bid for Mary and I to get to the Coventry Jesus Centre early. I had to tee up Nick with a video I wanted to show, and to check he was happy with my powerpoint. He was simultaneously, and I hope not distractedly, updating House of Goodness's main server. Rob led the worship, and unlike last time, when we'd had a forest of announcements, I had to drag folks to the front to achieve some participation. Andy told us about the congregation's 'pitch' held on the Cathedral steps in Freshers Week. "You get two minutes. Bethel tells them they're the best for bible teaching. Another church says they're the best for worship. A third says they serve coffee and donuts in the meeting. Another says they meet in the afternoon for max convenience." He was leading up to our bit. "We said, 'We've just come back from Gloucester, where we've been training four young guys in evangelism. Come with us and be discipled.'" He continued, "I asked the girl standing next to me what she thought." "I wonder what time they serve the donuts," was her answer.
Andy also reported on how the New Friends Course was going, and the Sunday evening experiment of holding the meeting in Esquire's Coffee Bar. These had all started since I was last in Coventry at the start of September. It was creditable progress. I talked some more about the call to mission. We watched the video http://www.jesus.org.uk/videos/special-short/christian-treasure-hunting and I got people moving around praying for one another. Then the final announcement was that we'd shortly be gathering at Lady Herbert's Garden for congregation lunch.
This little corner of Coventry city centre is intriguing, and the sunshine promised to make it a pleasant gathering. Caelan climbed on the exposed section of city wall. I asked him how old he thought it may be. An adjacent plaque read 1440, so I suggested he did the maths. He got it right, just like our Neive, his classmate, confirms. Mary and I found a spot next to Jane, who has single-handedly churned out the JeD software package that undergirds the admin, services and performance aspects of our Jesus Centres. She also used to live with us in the way-back-when days, with two other graduates, in extended family. As I'm on a mission to recover some of the stepping stones to community, I fired a few questions about her recollections, and the challenges of community today.The park-keeper announced it was time to leave, so we wound our way back to the car park. This took us past the weekly Coventry Foodbank. About 40 contributors lined up boxes of drystuffs and tables of other food on a low wall next to the footpath. About 200 punters were queueing up, and generally milling around with carrier bags and plates of ready-to-eat. I took a quick photo, as it seemed intrusive to stare. I guess we'll see quite a number of them in the Jesus Centre later in the week. So this is a Coventry snapshot. I'm back again shortly for the quarterly Management Committee meeting.
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