Glad you're here... Great you're leaving!

This summer so far has been pretty amazing! Lots of the different things going on have been with mixed emotions. Mainly this has been having my sister Gillian home, which is great to have her here but I know that it has been a frustrating few months for her as the work in New Zealand she is involved in is so amazing. Visa issues are never fun and I am so thankful that they are now resolved but now Gillian is leaving soon for distant shores again. There has been something huge though that having Gillian home has taught me about Christian life.

One of the things listed in the wee description line is Montpelier Manuscripts. This has had one week of running and I was amazed at how much of a response people had to it. Eight of us sat in the new flat I have just moved into with another friend and I was completely blown away at how involved people were in the real gritty stuff of the bible. Asking questions of the passage and finding the answers right there too. AMAZING! The manuscript style of study is very simple; Observation, Interpretation, Application. These three sections are very important to keep separate and in doing this forces people who have been reading the bible for years to rethink how a passage is approached. This system is also great to see people who have never read the bible before to any great depth asking questions of the messages in the bible. It has been really great having Gillian back in Caledonia for a while but I know the work set out for her in NZ is amazing and it excites me to hear what is going on.

This brings me onto thinking about Christian Union at Napier and how we study together and share our love for Jesus with others. The format that was decided upon for the coming term at Christian Union was to have a speaker one week and then a manuscript style study the week after. So in 2 week blocks we are studying a section of Colossians. Having a talk on the passage and then the week after doing really in depth study of the passage hopefully will get people really immersed in the messages of the book. It is so easy to set out a term for Christian Union tackling major issues about being a student but I think people get so much more out of studying right though a book and really wrestling with the messages of it.

So summer is going great although I look out my window now and it is tipping it down. Ah well, I still love Scotland. I am off to do one of the most manly things ever... tree surgery! I get to stand at the bottom of a tree and throw logs and branches over a wall for a few hours. This is the time where I flex and make some kind of manly noise... grrrrrrrr

In Christ

Goose