Rupert’s Blog

Apologies folks for the complete silence on this blog the last couple of weeks.

I read somewhere that it is impossible to blog, read other blogs, and have a job and a life as well. Well the last couple of weeks I have been concentrating on job and life, and blogging and blog reading has fallen completely by the wayside.

On holiday, my wife and I talked about some changes that we want to see in our lives. We don’t have any solutions yet, but do want to spend less time working and doing jobs. So I have been trying to work a little less late, and consequently blogging has gone out of the window.

We have had quite a busy family time too over the last month, with visits from both sets of parents, and in the last two weeks our 22 month son decided to emulate his 3 1/2 year old brother and climb out of the bath, landing on the tiled floor face first, knocking half a tooth out in the process. So a few visits to dentists later, he had the rest of the tooth removed last Friday.

I want to keep blogging, but do need to do less too, so not sure how that is going to work. I have a ridiculous number of people’s blogs I read, so that needs to get culled (I haven’t opened bloglines for over 10 days, so I hate to think how many blog posts there could be waiting for me there!). I think I will concentrate on reading blogs from people I know, or who comment on my blog. But does anyone else who blogs feel guilty for not reading other people’s blogs?

I also really want to spend more time praying! So nothing changes there then..

I have been tagged by a couple of people (Duncan and Heidi ) on the meme that is flying around the blogosphere on “8 things about me”. I have been pretty slow in responding, partly other things going on, partly I managed to spill a whole cup of coffee on a brand new laptop (I had it for less than 2 days) which required some pretty quick remedial action, and partly I feel a little ambivalent about these tags that fly around the net.

On reflection, I appreciate being tagged, but I don’t like tagging others … so I am going to participate, but not tag others. I you wish to participate then add a comment and I will amend the post with you name…

So here goes, 8 things that you might not know about me:

1. If I had been a girl I would have been called Victoria … as it was my cousin, who was born 2 weeks later than me, was a girl (and I wasn’t!) and was called Victoria.
2. I was nearly called Maxamillion … but my parents chose Rupert instead. Lucky excape - what do you think?
3. My middle names are my two grandfathers Christian names, but are VERY unusual… the initials are V. and G. … any guesses?
4. When I was younger I wanted to play cricket for England … I got as far as playing for Suffolk Under 17s…
5. I met Jesus, or probably better to say Jesus met me while I was living in Pakistan…
6. I originally started studying maths at university, but eventually changed to do theology … apparently a reasonalby common transition!
7. I dreamed to being a barrister when I was young. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would become a church leader!
8. My wife and I went to South Africa for honeymoon. It felt as though we were going home, despite never having been there before … we are wondering if God will ever take us back there?

So anyone else wish to go next?

I have posted at Jason Clark’s site this morning, on “New Earth or Renewed Earth“. I have blogged on this before, most recently here, but also an older post about “New Earth and Carbon Emissions“.

Go and check it out!

A review of the incarnate conference to follow next week.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy facebook birthday (or through other mediums … emails, texts, or even a few cards!). I had a great day, with many renditions of “happy birthday” from the boys. Toby (our 3 and half year old) was so pleased with himsef: he gave me a jigger … he knows how we love a gin n’ tonic!

It’s been a busy week. Good but busy. Been meeting people; a meeting of other church leaders in Edinburgh with CU leaders; preparing a brochure on our church building project for an offering we taking towards the costs in a couple of weeks time; further planning of a counselling service we are moving towards setting up; catching up on emails; responding to comments on the vision and community day we had last Saturday (keep them coming … I would love to hear your thoughts coming out of the day we had together).

So blogging has taken a bit of backseat this week. But here are a few random things at the end of the week:

1. I have joined facebook, partly at Paul’s initiation, but also at a student team meeting we were talking about facebook the other day. It is a social networking venture, but a great way of connecting with people. I feel a bit old, but good to see my mate Lynn Swart there too, so not the oldest! (sorry Lynn!). If you want me as your friend then you can invite me to be your friend by adding my email address (rupert dot ward AT blueyonder dot co dot uk) here … and hey presto we are connected (assuming of course that I agree to your invitation.

2. Paul also tagged me a few weeks ago for being a “thinking blogger” … very kind of him, but I think that was only because the usual suspects had already been tagged! But the rules, I should have mentioned some bloggers who get me thinking, but I would probably nominate the usual people too! Suffice to say that Paul himself, Alastair, Duncan, Paul Ede, Tony, Emergent Voyageurs, Jesus Creed would have pretty high up on my list. But now I am thinking that maybe I have just chosen my friends and one or two others, so what about: Be the Revolution, Swinging from the vine, Naked Pastor, SmuloSpace, Next Reformation, BobBlog … Now I remember why I didn’t respond to Paul at the time. Just too many to choose (and I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out) so just check my links …

3. And for a bit of light weekend relief, thanks to toggietales, I have discovered that a little favourite cartoon of mine is available free online: “God, the devil and Bob “. It is splendidly irreverent, but funny and perceptive at the same time. Check it out (if you aren’t easily offended!).

Tags: Thinking Bloggers, Lynn Swart, Facebook, Paul Mayers, God the devil and bob

Update: You are now reading this on the new site! I have transferred everything over, and we are good to go!

Original Post:

Last week has been a busy week, and I haven’t posted much, or responded to comments as quickly as I would like. Sorry about that folks.

Amongst other things I have been taking my blogging time in setting up a new blogging platform (Wordpress) which I will have up and running in a couple of weeks. I will transfer over all the posts and comments from this site at some point, so all our conversations won’t be lost. I hope it will be a better site for keeping track of all the different discussions going on. More info on that to follow, and I will let you know when I have fully set up and transferred to the new site.

The next two weeks I am not going to be online much, and at points I will not have internet access. So I might post another one or two posts during this time, but may not reply to comments as quick as I would normally like to. Full service will resume on 16th April!!!!

Thanks for making this an interesting place to learn together.