My First day of Placement

My mind is all over the place tonight because I had my first day of placement today. It started well with me missing the turning to go into the car park for the corps on my way there this morning, and then every subsequent journey had a wrong turn in it somewhere!

I had a really long first day starting at 8:45am and finishing at 8:30pm with 1 hour break in the middle, but I am, and always have been fully aware that this is what ministry can be like sometimes. Although, this was my fault because I offered to go to Hoxton Corps tonight to help with the youth group that happens there.

All in all the day has been good, with lots of things to take in, but I'm sure that this summer will be ok, and I am working with really positive people so I hope that this rubs off on me.

The End of my First Year of Training

Today has marked the end of my first year of training. In 1 year and 1 week I will be a commissioned Captain. I know almost all of my posts have spoken of how quick the time has gone, so I will not say any more on this subject.

Tomorrow I start my summer placement at Clapton Corps in Hackney. Hackney is, I think, one of the poorest boroughs in London, and I think is going to be similar to Tower Hamlets in this. It seems strange that I am on my summer placement because I have seen a lot of Cadets come to my corps on their summer placements, and now it's my turn. The good thing to come out of this is that I should have lots to blog about, because I am aware that I have rarely blogged since starting college.

Holiness

Today in College we were thinking about holiness. For Salvationists, this is a pretty important thing to think about. However, in my lifetime, I can only remember 1 sermon being preached on the subject of holiness. I wonder why this is? Is it because people have not felt confident enough in their knowledge of the subject to preach on it? Ok, so Officers have preached on aspects of holiness, but the actual word 'holiness' has rarely been said.

Vicky, a Cadet who was on meeting leadership placement with me preached an excellent sermon on the subject, and it seemed to be just what the corps needed on that particular Sunday.

Today's illustration was really good, even though it seemed a strange thing to do at the time. We were all asked to come to class today in smart/ casual dress. This meant no uniforms! Shock horror! Cadets in class but not in uniform! What is the college coming to??? We had no idea why we had been asked to wear our own clothes, and it seemed that it had got people speculating as to why we were not in uniform. This is what a life of holiness should be like. We are so different that people do not understand why we are like we are.

Am I Getting Old?

It's only 3 or 4 weeks until we go out on our summer placement, and I can't believe how quickly my 1st year of training has flown by. as Cadets, we have to do a personal revue of how we feel that we have progressed during training. My first one was quite difficult, because it was quite early on in training, but the second was a lot easier to do. I have learned a lot during my time in College, but more importantly God has done a lot in my life as well.

When I entered college, everyone seemed to be talking about the fact that we would leave different people to the people that we were when we went in. This reminded me of the joke that says, when you enter college they fill your mouths with marbles, and take them out one by one until they are all gone, and then they commission you. Ok, it was funnier when I was told it, but I'm not good at retelling jokes. Back to my point! I was a bit annoyed by the talk of leaving transformed people, because I felt that surely someone had faith in me to be an officer as the person I was, so why did I need to change? Now as a wiser person I realise that as a Christian, God needs to continually transform us inside, and this is what this change is all about.

Computer Literate?

I thought that I was quite good with computers until Saturday. How wrong could I be? Well, OK, I did literally blow up a computer a few years back, but now I know that the sliding switch at the back is actually to alter the power input and too much power makes the computer go bang!

On Saturday I took myself off to PC World, and after having wireless broadband in my house for about 1 year, I finally realised that you do not have to have a computer plugged into the main wireless box to get a wireless reception! I puzzled the poor bloke who was trying to help my predicament, but I am really grateful to him, because he saved us a lot of money. And here I was thinking that every shop only wants your money! My faith in PC World and shops in general has been restored.