A Long Overdue Blog Post

It’s been a while since I last posted an update, so I’ll try to summarise.

I’m in the middle of a busy period at college. I have four essays to write over the next three weeks, one of which I’ve handed in already. People said that second year is the hardest in terms of workload, and so far that seems to be about right! Luckily, once these essays are out of the way I only have one exam and then I’ve finished second year!

That realisation is a little bittersweet though. I’m not sure I’m ready for second year to be over. My girlfriend, Annie, is in third year so she graduates this year. We’ve become used to being able to see each other all the time, so neither of us are looking forward to having to spend time apart. Still, it won’t be the end of the world! Once summer is over (4 months of it!!) I’ll be back at college for my third year and raring to go. 

One thing I’m looking forward to over the summer is my placement. As part of my course I have to do a month-long block placement in a Christian organisation. I’ve chosen to do mine at Selly Oak Elim Church in Birmingham. I know Iain, the pastor there, and we get on well, so I’m excited about spending a month there. It’s a really interesting time, because Iain has just taken over the church after its previous minister retired, so he’s in the process of taking it through some changes and reshaping it for the future. I’m looking forward to being a part of that process for a month, and seeing how the church develops over that time.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to serve as a volunteer at Elim Bible Week, which is Elim’s annual conference. Initially I was just running the open mic stage, performing some music and encouraging others to get involved too. That ended up only taking up a couple of hours of my time per day, so I joined Annie in the hospitality room where she was serving. It was our job to look after Elim’s National Leadership Team, as well as any visiting speakers or guests. We served them drinks, and talked to them. It was a great experience for us to see the NLT together, just being normal people. Sometimes we can put men like them on a pedestal because of the position that they hold. This can lead us to assume that they’re more bothered about their position than about the people they represent. The good news is that that simply isn’t true. I think that ordinary people can project ideas of arrogance onto people in leadership, when they are actually incredibly humble people. My experience of the NLT was that they were gracious and cared deeply about us. They really appreciated us serving them, but didn’t insist upon it. I had a lot of respect for them already, but after serving them for a week that went up considerably! I’ve seen one or two of them since then, when they’ve been visiting college for meetings, and they’ve made a point of saying hello and asking how things are going.

This last stretch of second year is going to be long and difficult. When I allow myself to think about the months after June it’d be easy to assume that it’s going to be harder. Still, I know that I’m here for a reason, and I’m going to finish what God asked me to start. What happens after that, I don’t know, but I trust that God will reveal that to me at the right time. He has continually shown himself to be faithful, and I don’t expect that he’ll stop now.

It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.

But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.

Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.

David Cain, “Procrastination Is Not Laziness” (via pawneeparksdepartment)

This totally justifies every excuse I’ve been giving myself from not doing that thing I’m supposed to do.

(via aaronmoles)

(via wilwheaton)

Source: pawneeparksdepartment

Tension & Thrill: I love people watching. It is one of my favourite past times. In fact,...

tension-and-thrill:

I love people watching. It is one of my favourite past times. In fact, there was once a bench in West Quay shopping centre that was a prime spot for me and my best friend at one point. Weekly we would go and look at people, watch their movements, enjoy what they were wearing. Just fascinating to…

The Halfway Point

So here it is, I’m half way through my degree. That’s a scary thought! In a year and a half I’ll be leaving Regents and heading out into the world to do whatever it is I’ll be doing.

For now though, there are other things to focus on. This coming term will be a busy one for me. I’m taking over leadership of the Student Representative Council (SRC), and organising the summer bash. Honestly, I feel quite a lot of pressure about those things. I trust that I’ll do a good job, but I have some big shoes to fill. Last year’s bash was really good, so this year’s has to be at least as good, if not better. Also, the previous chairman of the SRC did such a fantastic job, I kinda just want him to stay on!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future recently. I guess that goes with the territory of being half way through my degree. People say that second year is the year when your plans start to change or take shape in some way. That seems to be the case for me so far. I don’t really know exactly what I want to do, but I’m feeling secure in the knowledge that God has given me gifts and that He’ll place me somewhere where I can use them. I’m becoming more and more convinced of the saving power of Jesus, and I’m passionate to see people come into that same realisation.

Maybe that’s why I’m not too worried about the future, for all the time I’ve spent thinking about it. A few months ago I was freaking out about not wanting to be a ‘conventional’ church leader any more, but now that seems a lot less relevant. The simple truth is that I want to see people coming to know Jesus. I want to meet people with the same interests as me, and build friendships with them. I want to help people understand their relationship with God more, and encourage them to get out there and bring their friends to Jesus too.

I don’t see myself as an Evangelist. I put a capital E deliberately, because I think there’s a distinction between the gift of Evangelism as shown in Ephesians 4:11 and the call for all Christians to evangelise which Jesus gave us in the Great Commission. My thinking on this has changed drastically over the last few years. The idea of Christians trying to ‘convert’ non-believers used to bother me. I think I just didn’t really understand, or maybe I wasn’t as sure of the Truth of what I believe. I’ve since come to understand that evangelism isn’t just something that’s done by the more ‘crazy’ Christians, or by people who put on rallies. It’s something that all Christians should be engaging in, in some way.

in which my cat is an asshole (one in a series)

  • Luna: HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY.
  • Me: What?! What?! What's wrong?!
  • Luna: IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING!
  • Me: ...seriously?
  • Luna: IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT. GO BACK TO SLEEP AND I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING.
  • Me: You're an asshole.