Last day in church

It was my last day at Dovedale Church this morning until the end of my sabbatical study leave in August. We had a tremendous time in church. The place was packed for our special celebration of marriage. All the work and preparation was worthwhile.

So now the sabbatical study leave begins. This is what I wrote for our church news sheet today:

“Thank you for allowing me this time for study and reflection. I am following two themes in my reading and writing:

1. I want to make good progress on writing the first biography of Hugh Stowell Brown, an influential Baptist preacher in Liverpool in the second half of the 19th century. Our roots at Dovedale are in Myrtle Street Church, which was led by Brown for 40 years. He was also a social reformer and President of the Baptist Union.

2. I will be doing some reading and writing on the nature of work and Christian ministry. My role, which combines ministry at Dovedale with a wider ministry at the BBC, is an unusual one in Baptist churches, but opens up all sorts of possibilities for ministry, and may be a pattern for other small Baptist churches to adopt.

During my three months of study leave I will still be working for the BBC as usual. My working pattern will be to spend all day Monday and Tuesday on my studies, then work at the BBC from Wednesday to Friday, with Saturday as a day off where possible. I plan to worship at other churches on Sundays, to learn from the ministry of others.

This coming week is different as I have taken the week off from my BBC work to spend a whole week on my sabbatical studies. From Thursday I’m going on a few days of retreat and reading at St Deiniol’s Library in Hawarden. This is a residential library set up by William Gladstone and offers just the facilities i need to get away for a while.

I’d appreciate it if you could remember me in prayer during my sabbatical, and please pray for Val who will be taking on extra responsibilities.

If you want to follow what I’m doing from week to week then I’ll be “blogging” my sabbatical at http://areadyman.blogspot.com . I’m also building a website about Hugh Stowell Brown’s life and works at http://www.aReadyMan.com .”

As it says, your prayers are appreciated.