Monday, September 21, 2009

Events of this past week and expectations for this week.

So this last week the LMC had a little issue with some water. Basically the gist of it is that some construction workers who worked on the other part of the LMC (part owned by someone else) did some work on the roof and left some roof caps of some sort up there. One of the caps got stuck over a drain when it rained last week and poof we had three rooms in the LMC that had rain coming through the ceiling. Fortunately no damage was major and the plaster seemed to hold well enough for us to not worry about needing to replace it.

I went running later that evening in the pouring rain...so nice to run again. I had a cold the previous week so it was nice to feel good enough to exercise again. I also found a running group that I might join. They are called Heathside running. Basically it's a group that runs out of locations around the Hampstead Heath, training for anything from 10k road races up to Marathons. So it seems like a nice fit...local, lots of runners (over 300 members), wide variety of ages, lots of different levels. My starting pace right now (slightly sub 8 min/mile for around 7-8 miles) is around the middle of the group's ability. So far I've been near the "lead" of the group or in the middle. Either is fine with me. I just wanted to find others to run with a couple days a week. I am starting by running Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 11 am (don't worry church is at 3 pm), and might pick up Wednesdays at 7 pm if I feel like it later on.

This week I'm a "participant" in the Consulting Church Groups course run by Bridge Builders. I put participant in quotes because I literally am one, but I also get to debrief with Alastair and Colin (Colin is the assistant director of Bridge Builders and is normally up in Durham) before and after the day. So it makes for a slightly longer day, not too bad though. It'll mean next week I'll have some day that will be shorter.

The Consulting Church Groups course is for people who have already taken their standard Transforming Church Conflict course and who want more tools on how to deal with conflict within their churches. Much of what we will be doing this week will be learning systems for explaining how conflict may work and then role playing. Today focused on our own work profiles (from the Gilmore-Fraleigh work style profiles), how the profile relates to how we deal with conflict, family systems theory, and general systems theory. There's a lot of information to take in and process, but it is nice to see many other church leaders excited about learning new techniques for transforming how conflict is managed in their congregations. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll try to either respond to the post or post a new post. I'm just trying to summarize for my sake at the moment.

...and I got a visit from Sue Schlabach who happened to be passing through London on business. Kudos to Sue for being my first official visitor from the US. She took me out for Thai food, so there's already a standard set. Let's see who can match it :-)

3 comments:

  1. Oh, perhaps the training and "longer day" is all week long? Hmm.

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  2. Hey Sam....next time I come I'll raise the bar even higher! It was great to see you in Londontown and I'm happy to keep up with your doings on the blog. Be well.

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