Today was the first session of a new module in mentoring being piloted at/by the Scottish Baptist College, and which I am taking.  Whilst I find it hard not to groan at the prospect of yet another round of enforced theological journalling (sorry Stuart, this is year 11 and the umpteenth iteration of this...) I am looking forward to what the module has to offer.

It was good to see the college 'in the flesh' and to meet those who I'd only spoken to on the phone or in the ether, and good to meet some other ministers with varying experiences of mentoring/supervising those involved in workplace/work-based learning.  It was interesting to compare how students here work with how I was trained/formed in Manchester and I will at some point give some time to reflecting more on this.

However, I am not sure whether to be amused or annoyed that the University of the West of Scotland cannot spell my first name... I mean, c'mon, it's not like it's English or anything...

Anyway, a good day all in all.

Yesterday was my first Church Meeting since moving north.  It was a good natured affair and people seemed to engage well with the material I gave them to help us begin to reflect on the next step of our life together.  As part of this there was an opportunity to ask any questions they wanted about the story to date concerning the redevelopment of our premises (yes, my role in life is a bit of a Joshua-meets-Samson-meets-Nehemiah role it seems!) as well as starting to think about life beyond that.

So, on Friday the question was 'what does the minister do all day'?

On Sunday it was 'what do the Deacons (by any other name) do?' (and also one of the other groups)

I think the follow-up to these must be... 'and what does the congregation do?'!

Once you move beyond the laughter, they are actually not bad questions to think about.

Anyway, I have collated more than two dozen questions raised by our folk, am seeking answers from those in the know where I don't yet, and am yet to collate the ideas and thoughts about "what next" which is where the excitement really begins.