This is day three of my time out from work, before the start of the advent season and the craziness it brings.  Taking a little break from blogging, with my laptop at hand and even switched on, is maybe been no bad thing.

This morning I listened to the recording of yesterday's Gathering Place service, led by one of the students from Scottish Baptist College, the third to have provided cover preaching this autumn as I have finally got round to taking a few free Sundays.  Each of the three this term has served us very well, and I hope they have gained from the experience of our more traditional approach to worship.  Amanda did a sterling job in concluding the series on James, with a very thoughtful and practical sermon on prayer.  Chris brought creativity and depth of thought as he tackled the rather bewildering title of 'volume setting' in a short series on prayer with the psalms.  And Lionel spoke with courage and insight on the challenging passage that is Mark 13:1 - 8 as part of a series on 'Who Rules?' - a lead up to Christ the King Sunday.  Each of these people had clearly prepared carefully and prayerfully, and it was a blessing to listen to them speaking.

Next Sunday I have 'Christ the King' and we are at the end of another liturgical year!  Where did the time go?

Next Sunday we also have a Church Meeting, and a lot of important stuff to discuss, so it will be a busy and demanding day one way and another, but I am looking forward to it.

As part of this year's advent blogging, I will be joining in with Andy Goodliff and others on the '25 Things' blog... it's not yet properly live so don't expect anything much if you visit it now!  I will also be offering something of my own... not quite sure what yet, as the daily Bible reflections last year were hugely demanding, but some sort of advent calendar type thing anyway.

For now, though, I suppose I ought to do such things as updating my Christmas card list as the weather is not conducive to going outside!