He Shoots, He Scores!

BUZZING!!!! Today, the 5th of October 2009, Andrew Allen (that's me) received a call to say he had been offered his first ever proper job. I will be working in a residential setting for ex-offenders for an organisation that works right across the UK. I am eager to gain more experience in the criminal justice system as that is my particular area of interest.

Whats funny is that I'm feeling more apprehensive about actually starting the job then I was about the interview. In fact, I hardly felt nervous about the interview at all. I came out feeling fairly pleased with how I did but had no idea about the other candidates who went for the job. When I received the call later in the day, it felt a bit like when the X-factor judges on Sunday night told their six artist who was gonna go through to the final. The guy who called me started saying

"You have done well but... it's been a very hard decision... competition was very high... etc etc"

I was trying to work out which way he was about to turn and I could tell he was loving messing with me, before he told me I had the job. I was proper chuffed!! He gave me great feedback and for the rest of today my ears have been connected by my mouth stretching from one end of my face to the other. They are looking to get me started as soon as possible and I wouldn't be surprised if I was working by the end of the week.

This is such an answer to prayer, and TRUST ME we have been praying. When you start a church plant, everything is so vital. School places, jobs, houses, committed people all suddenly become so much more important then when you are a part of an established church as it can all make the difference between whether the church flies or fails. We have already seen so many answers to prayer, yet there are so many other things we are still waiting on God for in these early days. Watch this space.

Uninspired Thoughts

I realised its been a while since I've last updated my blog and I didn't want to let my fans down by leaving it any longer. However, I don't really feel overly inspired to write on a specific topic or theme so below I've just listed a load of random thoughts. Some are to do with Cheltenham others are obviously not.

• People from Cheltenham have funny accents! FACT. If a group of lads approached me and threatened to mug me but did so with a Cheltenham accent, I would struggle to take them seriously. They have a obvious west country twang, the sort of accent you think only belongs to a farmer or a hobbit. It's not that I don't like the accent, I just find it amusing.

• If Jesus supported a football team, who would He support? Well I think the answer is in the bible. It would obviously be Arsenal as they are the only team mentioned in the bible. Read it for yourself in Jeremiah 50:25 (NIV).

• The church plant is gathering pace. We now have 6 adults who are involved in the plant and are already living in Cheltenham. We have another 6 adults who live elsewhere but are looking to move into the area as soon as they can. On top of that there are another handful of people who have expressed interest and are looking into the possibility of moving to Cheltenham to join us. I think the plan is to have a group of 25-30 committed people for our launch team. By the term 'launch' I mean the public Sunday meeting. Although we have already started meeting together, its not in the same way that we would be meeting after the launch. Once that happens, we will look more like a 'normal' church. For those familiar with church, you might understand what I just said. For those not so familiar with church, does that make sense?

• Need to shout out to all my Nigerian friends who are celebrating 49 years today of Independence from the UK. Love you guys, but I love your cooking even more!

• On a not so positive note, its World Vegetarian Day. Lets go out and celebrate by eating some meat. Even better, we could go and have a joint celebration with the Nigerians and they could cook us some goat.

• Cheltenham does have poor and working class people!! Although I was told this even before I left Manchester, I didn't really believe it. There I was thinking that Cheltenham is just made up of rich and middle class folk. When I arrived I got given the tour of the town and was shown the 'poorer' neighbourhoods but still thought they didn't look that bad. Today as I walked round one of these areas, I was pleased to see that some of these streets and houses weren't that dissimilar to Salford or Croydon.

• I have a job interview on Monday with an organisation that works with ex-offenders in a residential setting, supporting them in rehabilitation in to the 'real world'. I'll blog about it after the interview but for those of you who pray, can you give the big man a shout for me. I don't want this job if its not the one He has for me and am open to do something else if He's got something better up His sleeve later on.

• If you ain't done already, check the Godfirst Church website (www.godfirst.org.uk). Howard's blogging on there so you can read some of his thoughts as well.