Park Village / I Love This City

So, University "internet services" being an oxymoronic phrase, this is a bit later than I'd hoped, but whatever! It's all good in the hood. As it were.

Got here Saturday morning - managed to pack 2 guitars, my amp, along with everything else, it was fierce. My room is small, but about as small as my own at home, so that's fine. I'll update this in a bit with pics, fret not. Upon arrival, having unloaded everything quickly, me and parents went into the city, ate at Buddies, because tradition dictates thus. It's quite ironic: in terms of faith, my Dad claims to be very anti-tradition; I think in reality, he's only anti-weird-and-unjustified-tradition, whereas traditions involving things like food and guitars, he's quite comfortable in. Justifiably!

Got settled in, met people, bribed the girls upstairs for the nice kitchen (the one on the ground floor is remarkably skanky). It works like this: top floor kitchen, middle floor bathroom, bottom floor kitchen, with 12 of us altogether - the bathroom having 2 toilets, 1 shower, 1 bath. It'll be fun, for sure.



In short, I love this place. I went for a walk around on the foot of the downs surrounding campus, and it's so stunning. One of the prettiest places I've been. I watched the sunset and called some people, got sentimental, s'how I roll, s'fine. This is the view of Park Village (where I'm staying) from the very edge of the Downs:



As you can see, it's amazingly pretty...

And on campus too (this was the morning Sunday sunshine shining through the trees)

Fun times had in the evening, where I became know as "cake man", which was fine!! Got the guitar out, had fun & musical times, although now I have some kind of throat thing where I can barely speak, probably the beginnings of Fresher's Flu, which is sadly not the myth I thought it was.

Sunday was awesome; CCK feels like home. Met Annekke for the early morning bus service, which turned into early morning trip to Church in Chris's car (I think it was Chris, I'm still learning names). On the way, I heard The Legend of Tom, this dude who a year ago, joined in the morning, and was serving on Welcome Team by the evening. They jokingly asked if I was up for joining Welcome Team, I said yes. So, 10 minutes in, I donned a blue shirt, and served there. It was fun times. I welcomed Tom himself, and felt kinda bad,

Morning service was kinda surreal. It was like Newday but quiet - Brading leading, even doing This Is Life (new song done this year) - except, all kinda quieter. Also, with my voice out of action, it was surreal being in a worship setting and not being able to sing at all. But it was brilliant, God showed up and was lifted up, which equals "success" in my book. After morning service, me, Christian, Annekke, Andy, Matt and some other dudes went for Chinese. Met an Irish girl called Paula, who's from near where Irish Dave is from, so I got to use and learn some more NI phrases! The craic is ninety!! Then we headed to the beach, then hung out with Christian and Annekke, then helped setup and stuff for evening meeting, which was like being home/Newday, but LOUD. It was most excellent. Chatted to someone whose youth leader used to be Alf!!! Then pub with everyone. It was amazing.

After pub, Tom and Toby showed me where the bus stop was, we had some awesome chats. Toby is possibly the fiercest Christian I've met, he's so cool and hella inspiring to talk to. On the bus back to campus, got to chat with a Philosophy student about Jesus. That was awesome.

To save giving a blow by blow account of the last day or so, to sum up: my voice is dead, everyone asks you the same 5 or 6 basic questions (what's your name, where are you from, what are you studying, where are you staying, plus a couple more for Christians), I've met scores of people, some of them I hope I'll know for years to come, IR looks fun, but really, it's all about Jesus. I've been here 4 days, but I feel like I've already grown and been refined in that respect: a degree would be excellent, yeah, the banter will be mighty, but really, I wanna serve God here. He has called me here for this time, so I just want to let nothing stop me doing whatever he has for me to do. I wanna do great things for God.

54 hours...

So, I've been meaning to blog since... well, January. And then about March/April. And then at the start of this summer... you get the picture. Either way, there is no time like the present! And, given I begin my adventures in Sunny Sussex by the Sea (/the wonder that is/will be Brighton) in roughly 54 hours, it's not like time is something I have a lot of.




This is about 2/3 of what's coming. Yes, it includes roughly 2 guitars and circa. 40 mugs. Yes, it's going all in one car. Yes, it will be fun. I still need to tidy my room, and clear out all my mess. But it's weird thinking I have seen people for the last time in a while. I have led worship for the last time at GCC, after 2 years. Had my last proper cell night. I have 3 sleeps left in my own bed for about 10 weeks. THAT's upsetting. Blah blah blah. Enough of that. It's been good times, but I'm sure there will be plenty more to come. Although it'll be hard to top this moment...





Apparently, that wasn't meant to be in there. According to Sharon, & the rest of cell... I will choose to believe them. Regardless, Jonny (http://www.photoblog.com/jonny365) got a picture of it. Brilliant.


In all seriousness, I think as much as I'll miss this place and this house and people from Sixth Form and such, I will miss my extended church family the most. Getting prayed for on Sunday morning brought home that these guys are awesome - Jon, Tim, Alf, Alan, Alex, Chris H, Paul, Becky, Jan, my parents, Tom, Barry, Joey, Ben, Elizabeth, La & Dan, Jessica, Titch, etc, etc - it reminded me of that bit in Hebrews 12 about persevering "since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses". It put faces, and a weird mix of encouragement and challenge. A spurring on, a "come on!", and all the usual sporting metaphors.

On a smilar note, I am making my way through John Stott's "The Cross of Christ" at the moment. I'm going very slowly, which is odd for me. Books I love, I will race through and finish, usually in one sitting (I do this for sacred, profane, ancient, modern: Mark Driscoll's "Vintage Jesus"; Camus' "L'Etranger"; "Cur Deus Homo"; Plato's "Symposium", to give examples, all were done and dusted in 48 hours each). Stott takes his time. He doesn't feel the need to be soundbitey; he doesn't wax elegently for no reason, or waffle on. Rather, he makes his points systematically, precisely, referencing those from Augustine & Paul to H L A Hart & Rawls, illustrating succinctly and simply the awesomeness of the cross.

I have spent a week on the chapter of God's wrath. I've just reread it and reread it. It gives me strange comfort. C J Mahaney gave a sermon on it at Downs in the 80s (not that I was alive, but thankfully, bloggers were around to hear it and post it on! Now where were they circa 0-33 a.d??), and the more I read comes back to this point that it's easy to flinch from and forget. We like our God as loving to those He loves, and angry against those who abandon Him - we see His wrath against the latter category as His justice, but in reality, we need to be reminded that we are all in that place. God is the God of kittens and flowers, this is true. But we have violently, actively and evilly rebelled against the King. We are by all rights objects of and subject to His wrath, the wrath that killed Uzzah, the wrath that toasted Ananias and Zafira, that drowned a world of sin, that sent a chosen people into exile. We do not deserve this love, that drove to the self-substitution of God, that led to His wrath being poured out against His own Son. And it is in the context of the mental wrath of God that this is revealled most. Don't give me shallow pictures of God being lovely. God is wrath, and it is good!





(I did a Google Image Search for "wrath", and all I could find was some weird manga and some ironic kittens, so I searched for Uzzah instead. As a related note, this is what would've happened to me if I ever went above a top E when leading worship. It is indeed an "irreverent act").


Anyway, my room needs finishing...