learning by mistakes

This was a hit-the-new-week-running sort of day.

An early start and then straight into production of the magazine.

We changed the whole format of our congregational magazine a couple of years ago. We recognised that coming out only a few times a year the role it best fulfilled was that of giving a colourful snapshot of our congregation's life.

A little glimpse of what we're about for those who maybe are pretty much peripheral.

It's a full colour, brightly produced, easy to read magazine.

And by leasing a marginally smarter printer we're able to produce the thing ourselves. And save ourselves thousands of pounds in the process.

It's a pretty straightforward process. Essentially a number of buttons to press. And a good deal of patience, since the machine produces the magazine at the rate of maybe one every two minutes.

And we need about 600 of the magazines.

Mind you, when I say the machine is smart, I mean it's really smart. It produces the thing completely. Printed, folded, stapled. The lot.

It's smart. So we don't begrudge it the time it takes to produce these complete magazines.

Every so often you have to go and remove the pile of magazines that it's produced. And every so often - less frequently - you have to refill the paper tray.

But other than that you just sit back and watch it happen. Or get on with some other work.

One of the men came down about midday to take over the sort of 'maintenance' tasks which freed me up a bit. And all went fine until one of the toner cartridges ran out.

We'd not been good 'Scouts' and were caught unprepared for that. So we had to stop mid-afternoon and wait for another cartiridge to arrive.

We'll know next time. This was the first full time we've done it all 'in-house'. We learn by our mistakes.

A lot of the time has been spent at my desk today. And a fair bit of that's had me corresponding.

Mainly by e-mail. There's masses of e-mail, of course. Most of it's easily dealt with (and I don't mean just by 'Delete'!).

But sometimes replying takes time. There have been a number of vexing and difficult pastoral needs which I've sought to address today.

There's an immediacy about e-mail which is great. It enables those who maybe are not able to be meeting me in person to be talking through their problems in the knowledge that they'll not be hanging on for half a month before receiving a reply.

And there's a degree of 'intimacy' too. Sometimes it's just that little bit easier to say the things that need to be expressed without being literally face to face.

So quite a bit of pastoral work is done by means of e-mail. And those sort of e-mails take time. A lot of time. And a lot of care. And a lot of prayer as well.

I was fixing up a wedding, too, at night. A young couple, who first got to know each other through SU camps - and have grown in their friendship down the years.

It's great when I know the folk I'm going to be marrying. But I also feel the responsibility always, too. I'm preparing a couple not just for a day but for a life they'll live together. So there's loads to work through in the coming months. I'll look forward to seeing them again.

I couldn't spend all that long with them both tonight. I was off out to join all the folk who now meet for a time of Bible study on a regular sort of basis.

An interesting time all right! We ended up thinking about how to handle tensions, conflict situations, which invariably arise. We didn't quite come to blows ourselves, but there was some lively discussion.

The issue's always a real one. Life lived in community is always fraught with tensions and disputes. So we have to learn to handle these aright.

The Scriptures have this amazing knack of hitting the nail on the head.

I found it helpful - even if none of the others did!

As with printing off the magazine, so with most things that we have to face in life. We generally learn by all the mistakes that we make.

Which, at least in part, is what I think is meant by grace.

You don't get scorned because you get things wrong. Which is just as well.