Happy Birthday

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Originally uploaded by SimonKirby.

Feeling a bit old/grown up this evening as we now have a teenager in the house. I decided to try and create a bit of an initiation time for Thomas as it's a fairly significant birthday, so last week we had a couple of nights away together and went falcon flying in the New Forest. We had a great time flying a couple of owls and are going to head back to fly the falcons as the rain prevented us from finishing the morning. There's some pictures in the side bar. I really enjoyed the time with him and we spent quite a lot of time sitting on a bench on the cliff top talking about life. I hope we'll have more times like that in the future.

Emmanuel Network Church are go...

Sunday saw the launch of ENC and my licensing as Minister in Charge, someone pointed out that I'm now MIC @ ENC. There's a brief article and some photos on our website (although the photos are straight from Flickr which you can access from the pictures at the side).

If was a really positive day and the Bishop talked about us being launched in our coracle which was kind of cool.

Chimnea Time

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Originally uploaded by SimonKirby.

We have a monthly get together for the guys in the church to drink beer, talk about the challenge's we're facing and the things we feel God is saying to us and needs to change in us. This month it was round the chimnea and it is quite amazing to see the effect of fire on grown men. By the end of the evening anything that could be burnt was being, old travel cards, receipts and sweet packets to name but a few. It wasn't hugely symbolic more pyromania but on reflection it is good to get life's dross regularly burnt up. I suppose the question is how we regularly create the spiritual chimnea that allows us to bring out the rubbish in our lives and effectively deal with it.

Hope you had a good summer!

I did although it's a bit gutting that the weather is now improving as we return to work and the boys head back to school. I may get round to posting some photos from time away, but while I remembered I just wanted to highlight
30th September 2006
A few friends and have planned this day in Reading and emailed various people about it and are now sitting back to see who turns up. It should be a good day so if you can make it why not join us...