Another early morning start today as I was presenting, together with Richard, at this morning's Men's Breakfast Group held at Roger and Marti's in Gunville Road. It was grey and overcast with some light rain so I drove up instead of walking or cycling - I also needed to take my CD player too. We had a pleasant breakfast of sausages, scrambled egg and tomatoes with toast and tea - two excellent cooked breakfasts on two consecutive days now. Richard and I played a tape from Spring Harvest of a seminar we had attended with Carl Beech called "Godly Men". This led to a really good discussion about how we can get more men into the church. An astounding statistic which has now been burned into my brain is that children going to church will bring 3.5% of families following, women 17% but men but 93%. Men's ministry, therefore, is really important but extremely difficult too. We all agreed that the best way is to go to where men are - we cannot expect them, suddenly, to decide to walk into our churches. Indeed, quite a number of the men at our breakfast group readily admitted that they are poor church attenders. I wrote up yesterday's blog this morning and then Tom and I went to Southampton to watch Saints' last game of the season against Southend United. Southend are already relegated and Saints failed to make the playoffs so it was very much a friendly match type of atmosphere with several Southend supporters dressed as bananas (yellow and blue being the Shrimpers' away kit). Southend scored first but following a penalty successfully taken by Ricky Lambert and further goals from Lambert and Lallana, the final score was 3-1. A nice end to the season. Unfortunately, whilst this relaxed game was being played a greater drama was being played out Burton-on-Trent where Grimsby Town needed to win (and also hope that Barnet lost) in order to stay in league football. Unfortunately, Grimsby lost 3-0 and Barnet managed a 1-0 win against promoted Rochdale sending Grimsby out of league football for the first time in 99-years! An incredibly sad day for the team and even sadder for the town of Grimsby. I really don't see them coming back very quickly. Sara took a group of brownies, including Mary and her friend Lucy, to Paulton's Park for the day. From her accounts it was cold and miserable but they all enjoyed themselves. After the match, Tom and I went to TGI Friday's again. Although we had to wait for about 30 minutes for our table, the service was pretty good after that and the food excellent - succulent chicken, ribs and prawns and nice crunchy vegetables. Back home, I had a short time of quiet prayer before writing the Intercessions for tomorrow's service. I went to be before Sara tonight leaving her to struggle with her laptop trying to order a Tesco delivery on line.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
A Sad Day for Grimsby
Another early morning start today as I was presenting, together with Richard, at this morning's Men's Breakfast Group held at Roger and Marti's in Gunville Road. It was grey and overcast with some light rain so I drove up instead of walking or cycling - I also needed to take my CD player too. We had a pleasant breakfast of sausages, scrambled egg and tomatoes with toast and tea - two excellent cooked breakfasts on two consecutive days now. Richard and I played a tape from Spring Harvest of a seminar we had attended with Carl Beech called "Godly Men". This led to a really good discussion about how we can get more men into the church. An astounding statistic which has now been burned into my brain is that children going to church will bring 3.5% of families following, women 17% but men but 93%. Men's ministry, therefore, is really important but extremely difficult too. We all agreed that the best way is to go to where men are - we cannot expect them, suddenly, to decide to walk into our churches. Indeed, quite a number of the men at our breakfast group readily admitted that they are poor church attenders. I wrote up yesterday's blog this morning and then Tom and I went to Southampton to watch Saints' last game of the season against Southend United. Southend are already relegated and Saints failed to make the playoffs so it was very much a friendly match type of atmosphere with several Southend supporters dressed as bananas (yellow and blue being the Shrimpers' away kit). Southend scored first but following a penalty successfully taken by Ricky Lambert and further goals from Lambert and Lallana, the final score was 3-1. A nice end to the season. Unfortunately, whilst this relaxed game was being played a greater drama was being played out Burton-on-Trent where Grimsby Town needed to win (and also hope that Barnet lost) in order to stay in league football. Unfortunately, Grimsby lost 3-0 and Barnet managed a 1-0 win against promoted Rochdale sending Grimsby out of league football for the first time in 99-years! An incredibly sad day for the team and even sadder for the town of Grimsby. I really don't see them coming back very quickly. Sara took a group of brownies, including Mary and her friend Lucy, to Paulton's Park for the day. From her accounts it was cold and miserable but they all enjoyed themselves. After the match, Tom and I went to TGI Friday's again. Although we had to wait for about 30 minutes for our table, the service was pretty good after that and the food excellent - succulent chicken, ribs and prawns and nice crunchy vegetables. Back home, I had a short time of quiet prayer before writing the Intercessions for tomorrow's service. I went to be before Sara tonight leaving her to struggle with her laptop trying to order a Tesco delivery on line.
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