My apologies to anyone who is concerned that I haven't posted for a couple of days: the reality is that although I logged in a couple times, I had nothing worth saying so I quietly signed out again.

I read or heard somewhere recently that it takes three days to establish a habit and three weeks to break one.  I have no idea if that it true, but it is interesting that it is meant to be easier to start doing something than to stop.  I do wonder if context is needed, since I find it REALLY hard to establish some 'healthy' habits and no bother at all to establish less healthy ones!  Likewise it's easy to stop doing exercise or reading worthy books and difficult to abandon eating junk food or watching trashy TV.

Perhaps the difference is between 'habit' and 'habitus'.  If 'habit' is something we do regularly and perhaps unthinkingly, 'habitus' is far more conscious and involves practices consciously undertaken in line with our values and beliefs.  I think, if I am honest, blogging has become more 'habit' than 'habitus', something I do because I do it, rather than because I feel I have something to share.

I have been quietly reviewing aspects of my life, especially the more reflective, spiritual and 'professional', development parts, and am actively working to establish frameworks or structures that will nourish and nurture me as a perosn and as a minister.  So, I am exploring a couple of Baptist networks in England, one spiritual, one developmental, I am becoming a little more active in the life of both BUS and BUGB (without the two conflicting), I am training for a volunteer role with a national breast cancer charity and I am looking more critically at how I use my leisure time.  All of these help me to feel more energised, more alive and so help me serve better as a minister.  Maybe 'habitus' habits are those that give life rather than sap energy?

PAYG continues to be a daily friend, the first thing I do when I switch on my computer, and if I'm at home often shared by Holly:

After a much needed year off from the tyranny of Bible reading notes (of any hue) I am now using two 'popular' devotional readers, each of which manages to irritate me and each of which has nuggets of pure gold.  To this will be added some for of daily office, once I find the one that works for me.

And blogging?  Yes, that will still be part of my life.  And knowing me will still be pretty plethoric - after all any time I predict a quieter time, I write a dozen posts in short order.  I think I just want to be a bit more intentional about it, not habitually posting something for the sake of posting something.  Whether or not I will succeed only time will tell.

Thank you for continuing to read, and I hope whatever I write this year will interest and entertain you - this is never going to become a highly sophisticated or erudite blog!!

This coming Sunday the focus is the call of the first disicples according to John's gospel.  Yesterday I had lots of fun comparing the four gospels, reading assorted commentaries and beginning to think a bit about the similarities and differences in what is said and why.

I have one big fat NavPress book on the topic of disicpleship.  I don't much like it, because it has a defensive tone along the lines of 'we had to rescue this ancient understanding from dodgy liberals and main stream churches and make it our own' rather than 'hey, look what we can learn from Catholics, and those with a different emphasis in their theology'.  I also don't like that is way to literal and precise in its time-scale of Jesus ministry (this phase took x months - really?!).  Despite that, dipping into it was very helpful in stirring my creative juices.

I also have an equally fat book on the varied quests for the historical Jesus, which also talks a lot about disicpleship/ disciple making.  Not defensive, and pretty academic, it expresses ideas and prompted thoughts consistent with and/or complimentaty to, those in the first book.

PAYG this week also has a 'call and response' flavour to it (today was the call of Samuel), which adds another slant to my thinking and hearing.

Lots of ideas bubbling away in my subconscious which will, hopefully, emerge into a half-decent sermon.

So, a teaser for anyone who wants to do a bit of advance thinking - what are the first recorded words of Jesus and why?  (And yes, that question is deliberately open-ended as to which gospels you look in!)

Today has an odd start as I have an appointment at 10:30 to get my new lympohedema sleeve and glove... as my right hand is puffed up and straigthening my fingers hurts, I will be very glad to get it squished! 

Anyway, I have already done Sunday's PowerPoint and a round up of blogs and social media stuff...

New Blogger on the Block, well kind of, is Ruth my former research superivsor, preacher-inner and I like to think, friend.  I am looking forward to reading her musings and hope she will get some fun from blogging along the way.

Since (metaphorically) getting my fingers badly burned a couple of years back, I've been much more wary about linking cancer blogs.  But this one has been recommended to me by both ministers and medics and I've followed it on and off for a while.  It seems to be gaining a higher profile of late, is clearly genuine, and is a thoughtful, intelligent read.

I'm not a fan of soap operas, though ocassionally I succomb to 'River City' just because it's set in Glasgow.  Last night the Eastenders breast cancer story began in earnest, and for some reason it was on in the background as I did other stuff.  I think what surprised me was the detailed diagnosis and outline treatment plan that were given - a credible and realistic portrayal, but unusual.  Assuming they are sticking with a primary cancer story line, and assuming the script writer miracle cure doesn't arise, they are committing themsleves to a year long storyline - neoadjuvant chemo, mastectomy and radiotherapy.  I'm not suddenly going to become an Eastenders watcher, but if they manage a credible protrayal there is a lot of good that can be done.  In case anyone wonders, my diagnosis was different from that of 'Carol' but my treatment plan more or less the same; a credible portrayal won't be a copy of my experience, or anyone else's, but there should be moments that resonate.  Time will tell.

Looking forward to the rest of my week - plenty to occupy me one way and another.

The trip to New Zealand draws clsoer and looms larger, and I still have a lot of work to do on my conference paper - the first iteration is almost there but I feel a major rewrite might be a better idea, at least as an option once I can gauge the 'feel' of the event into which I am speaking.  The current version is a bit autoethnographic (so kind of reflective autobiography, with a fair few anecdote-type bits) and I think something a bit more structured/scientific might be a better contribution, at least from an academic viewpoint.  Not long now to get it done, but long enough, and each iteration helps clarify my thoughts.

Yesterday I booked a trip from Auckland to Rotarua - not exactly a cheap day out, but it sounds wonderful, and gives access to several 'must see' sites/sights.  I also advance booked the 'hop-on hop-off' tour bus which, whilst twice the price I've paid anywhere else, seems a good investment.  This morning I have order UEA and NZ currency - always makes me smile when you say to the bank (or whoever) I'd like 'this much' and they reply that they can offer you 'that much'.  Ah well, it will all come out in the wash, I'm sure.

Excitement and apprehenshion each beginning to develop, which, overall feels like a healthy balance.

So today we had the Baptism of Jesus a la Matthew, and the start of Isaiah 42, one of the 'servant songs'.

And I wanted it to be a fairly gentle service, not too much by way of challenges and something by way of encouragement, which the servant song does very nicely.

As part of our all age bit, we made origmai hearts with blessings drawn and written (drawn as some people can't read or wirte, some people have limited English; written as lots of people are words persons) inside them which we then gathered and redistributed.  It pretty much worked except one fewer blessing went into the basket than was taken out - so there wasn't one left for me.  That made me smile, and I think that in that I was blessed - blessed that people joined in, blessed that everyone else got  a herat to take home, blessed with the gift of a smile.

The servant song is rich in enouragement, in how it speaks of God and of the servant, understood by Christians to be Jesus. 

Two promises to treasure for the year ahead, I think, if we first dare to see ourselves as the servant(s) of God...

Firstly God loves us and delights in us.  The love we pretty much take as read, but delight God looks on us, and smiles, is thrilled, dances a happy dance, whatever it is that God does to demonstrate delight... wow!

Secondly, God takes us by the hand.  God is no mere bystander, no remote general barking orders.  God is there, in the thick of it, holding our hands.  The squeeze of friend, perhaps, or the firm, reassuring hand of a parent; the steadying of someone wiser, or the gentle tug of one drawing us into an adventure.  An old hand, a young hand, a familiar hand, a strange hand.  However we imagine it, God's hand is in ours - or ours is in God's. As the slightly annoying (pace Mr Redman) worship would express it:

"Never once did we ever walk alone

Never once did You leave us on our own

You are faithful, God, You are faithful""

From 'Never Once' by Matt Redman

Beloved, delighted in, held secure - with promises like these to return to and remember in the days and weeks ahead, 2014 is already blessed.