What a ride the last week and a bit has been - and the internship hasn't even begun! I'm beginning to get used to Bristol and its people and the idea of being here for the next twelve months.

I start at the office tomorrow. It'll be good to be busier, to have a routine and to begin (or continue) exploring what lies ahead.

This weekend has been great. It was Zoë's 20th birthday and we went out in Bristol on Sunday night to celebrate, along with some of the Cardiff gang (Mark, Rob, Sarah-Lou and Sharon). I realised once again what a great bunch of friends I have in Cardiff.

I'm here!
So I'm sat in the Bristol Vineyard office catching up on a web-free few days. Saturday was moving into the 'pink house' and getting unpacked, which was all done within 2 hours.

Emotionally things have been a little weird the last few days. I guess you realise how close you are to your family when you're living away from them (even if only 45 minutes away). Reading Zoë's blog is pretty hard to do without wanting to cry. It's her 20th Birthday on Sunday, so she and some of the guys are coming over and we're going out in Bristol, which should be fun.

Yesterday I went shopping on Park Street and managed to find How to Read the Bible Book by Book, which I've been looking for since Gordon Fee spoke at the Leader's Conference back in March.

This week is flying by. Seeing a variety of friends every night is great fun but the experience is tempered by the fact that we're saying our goodbyes. At least I'll be seeing most of them in the course of the year.

Next Saturday I move to Bristol. This week I'm getting rid of my old cardiffvineyard.org and ntlworld.com email addresses and getting a new address. If you haven't just received an email with my new contact details in and need them, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I'll email you with the details.

I won't be publishing my new address on this website because I'm determined to keep spam at bay!

Sing a new song to The Lord?
I just had a look on the CCLI website to find out the 25 most popular songs sung in churches in the UK this year. To be honest I was astonished at the results...

1 Shout To The Lord - Darlene Zschech
2 Be Still - David J. Evans
3 Lord I Lift Your Name On High - Rick Founds
4 Knowing You - Graham Kendrick
5 Come Now Is The Time To Worship - Brian Doerksen
6 Shine Jesus Shine - Graham Kendrick
7 How Deep The Father's Love For Us - Stuart Townend
8 The Servant King - Graham Kendrick
9 Once Again - Matt Redman
10 There Is A Redeemer - Melody Green-Sievright
11 We Want To See Jesus Lifted High - Doug Horley
12 I Will Offer Up My Life - Matt Redman
13 All Heaven Declares - Noel Richards\Tricia Richards
14 The Power Of Your Love - Geoff Bullock
15 Faithful One - Brian Doerksen
16 As The Deer - Martin Nystrom
17 I Will Sing Your Praises - Ian Smale
18 Give Thanks - Henry Smith
19 Jesus Is The Name We Honour - Philip Lawson Johnston
20 Refiner's Fire - Brian Doerksen
21 Majesty - Jack Hayford
22 Celebrate - Patricia Morgan\Dave Bankhead
23 Be The Centre - Michael Frye
24 To Be In Your Presence - Noel Richards
25 Only By Grace - Gerrit Gustafson

One of the things that really stood out to me last week was something Mike Breen said in the last evening talk I recorded. He was talking about how we communicate the message of Jesus to our present culture. The thing that really stood out was this...

"we live in a culture that is high tech and low touch, surrounded by people who long for low tech, high touch relationships."

As you can probably see, yesterday was spent decluttering the sidebar of my blog. For some reason I'm having issues at the moment with blogger, gmail and the settings on my computer.

This morning my New York Lock arrived, weighing in at a hefty 3.8kg. It's definately a beast of a lock and should keep bike theives away, but I'm not sure if the weight is a little excessive (it's about half a stone for those of you on different measurements). I might exchange it for the New York 3000 D-Lock (pictured right)...

Today Mark and I cycled up to Castell Coch, in Tongwynlais. As we rode up the hill, who should pull up but the Turrigianos on their first visit to the holy land. How surreal that we'd be in the same place at the same time.

Sharon is now blogging.

I'm back! I know I said I'd be gone 2 weeks, but I've discovered that when it comes to the conference/festival thing I'm really not all that hardcore. One week at New Wine was enough.