Check out this little movie courtesy of Mosaic.

The worship leaders’ retreat at the weekend was in Lee Abbey, in Devon, right by the sea. It’s always nice waking up and hearing the sea rather than the motorway. We were only there for about 30 hours, and the weather had broken on Thursday night, but it didn’t stop us making the most of walks to the sea, or nearby cliffs.

On Saturday we hooked up with Pete Beaumont and visited the local pub at nearby Lynmouth where they were airing Wimbledon to the soundtrack of Ace of Spades by Motorhead – a unique combination.

The Banquet in the Bearpit was great fun. I took a bunch of people into Broadmead Shopping Centre and we wandered around offering prayer. Whereas last time we went out giving cards which offered prayer for healing and waited for people to come to us, this time we went to people and explained who we are and what we were doing and had quite a few good opportunities to pray with people. I love that stuff.

Well, another week of being pretty slack on the blogging front – apologies to all. It’s been another whirling dervish of a week, from ‘running’ down the steep slopes at Castell Coch with Dave and Emma on Saturday to the coming weekend which will include both a Worship Leaders’ Retreat and the Banquet in the Bearpit.

The weather is awesome and made playing of more Kubb and Ultimate Frisbee possible on Sunday afternoon at the Downs (none of that ‘touch rugby’ for me).

Monday night we had a Point Break night at Emma’s place which included the use of the in-house ‘Swayze’ (a scruffy blonde mullet wig reminiscent of Patrick Swayze’s hair in the film). Check out the gallery for more on this one.

Last week I had a dream that Jack Johnson turned up at one of our Sunday meetings. The funny thing was that it was Zoë who pointed him out to me and said “hey, look, it’s Jack Johnson.” I went over to him while he was getting a coffee and doughnut and introduced myself. He was like, “cool man,” and decided to hang out with us in the afternoon when we were playing frisbee in the sun.

I didn’t tell him that I knew who he was because I didn’t want to look like I was putting him up on a pedestal.

This week has been strange and I haven’t felt much like blogging. There have been some great moments and I know God has been completely at work, but at the same time some confusing times.

For example last night Chris called me to let me know that one of the guys we were in college with died in his sleep at some point last week. I was by no means one of his closest friends. We had had some great conversations while at college and I would certainly consider him more than just an aquaintance. The thing that really hit me about his death was that life is so fragile and that the people we know and love are so precious and deserve to know that.

I was left feeling pretty confused as I cycled home – what right do I have to piggy-back my emotional journey on the back of this young man’s death? How should this inform the way that I live? Am I just a hopeless melancholic?