We have just launched our Cage Football project in Shrewsbury.
A couple of weeks back we had it in use at our half term fun day.
On Saturday we took it out to a local village where a couple from the Church run a youth club.
Next week the NOMAD team from YFC are coming to help us do a big launch; in 4 schools and 4 youth clubs (3 Church, one council) and then at Shrewsbury Town's stadium before the afternoon match.
All in all, it is a really exciting opportunity to go and be involved in our local community, by giving the local young people a fun, free activity, and dovetail in with the work already being done by a variety of community agencies.
Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Football. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Friday, 13 August 2010
A new football season...
Tomorrow is the first time I have been able to make a game this season, due to a wedding and our midweek small group.
That means I missed Shrewsbury come from 1-0 down to beat Bradford 3-1 and then come from 3-0 down to beat Charlton 4-3!
We're going up to Macclesfield in the hope that our run of form continues, as a decent result could see us topping the table by 5pm on Saturday.
I find it interesting how short a players stint at a given club is these days. The local paper recently did a table for the most appearances in the last 10 years and about 110, which would mean 3 seasons, got players onto the list.
Only 2 players from the last 5 years were on the list, as we seem to change almost everyone every summer now.
For the Bradford game our starting line up had 8 new signings in, hence the first team is barely recognisable from one season to the next.
If a player is poor, then fair enough they need to be shipped out, but it becomes difficult to have any kind of affinity with your players if you know how quickly it will change. Likewise you do wonder how a group of players can really gel with so many changes.
In the last 10 years we have had 6 managers: that makes it difficult to build for the future.
It is interesting how consistency and playing together reaps rewards beyond individual capability too: as Spain realised with so many Barcelona players who knew each other's game inside out.
Sometimes change can happen just too fast. Sometimes you have to stay to reach a higher level of performance that only comes through time. I remember reading a study that said the biggest growth in Churches came when they had been led by the same person for over 5 years. Maybe Churches and football clubs have a bit in common after all!
That means I missed Shrewsbury come from 1-0 down to beat Bradford 3-1 and then come from 3-0 down to beat Charlton 4-3!
We're going up to Macclesfield in the hope that our run of form continues, as a decent result could see us topping the table by 5pm on Saturday.
I find it interesting how short a players stint at a given club is these days. The local paper recently did a table for the most appearances in the last 10 years and about 110, which would mean 3 seasons, got players onto the list.
Only 2 players from the last 5 years were on the list, as we seem to change almost everyone every summer now.
For the Bradford game our starting line up had 8 new signings in, hence the first team is barely recognisable from one season to the next.
If a player is poor, then fair enough they need to be shipped out, but it becomes difficult to have any kind of affinity with your players if you know how quickly it will change. Likewise you do wonder how a group of players can really gel with so many changes.
In the last 10 years we have had 6 managers: that makes it difficult to build for the future.
It is interesting how consistency and playing together reaps rewards beyond individual capability too: as Spain realised with so many Barcelona players who knew each other's game inside out.
Sometimes change can happen just too fast. Sometimes you have to stay to reach a higher level of performance that only comes through time. I remember reading a study that said the biggest growth in Churches came when they had been led by the same person for over 5 years. Maybe Churches and football clubs have a bit in common after all!
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Back to blogging
I lost my blogging mojo for a few weeks but I think it is on its way back.
I think I got a bit depressed reading bits of the blogosphere and will try to focus on my journey a little bit more.
Our 5 a side football has gone a bit crazy and we get 7 or 8 per team at the moment which is chaotic!
On Sunday we played 11 a side against a local college and emerged 5-2 winners.
On Tuesday I was in a discussion about "reaching the 20s-30s". I couldn't help but think of our team photo.
Let's keep being who we are and doing what we do, and reach people when who we are and what we do touches their life.
I think I got a bit depressed reading bits of the blogosphere and will try to focus on my journey a little bit more.
Our 5 a side football has gone a bit crazy and we get 7 or 8 per team at the moment which is chaotic!
On Sunday we played 11 a side against a local college and emerged 5-2 winners.
On Tuesday I was in a discussion about "reaching the 20s-30s". I couldn't help but think of our team photo.
Let's keep being who we are and doing what we do, and reach people when who we are and what we do touches their life.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Off to Wem-ber-ley!
Shrewsbury won, with a goal two minutes from time, in our play off second leg against Bury, and then had a man sent off in extra time, but did not concede, so it went to penalties, and we won!
The play off final, against Gillingham is on May 23rd. The date of my friends wedding. Esther and I are doing the prayers.
Ah well.
Been a cracking 8 days to be a Salop fan: winning away at Dagenham to overtake them and qualify for the play offs.
The depths of despair to lose to Bury in the home leg to a disastrous own goal.
Rescuing the game with two minutes to spare in the away leg, man sent off, winning on penalties: just genius!
The play off final, against Gillingham is on May 23rd. The date of my friends wedding. Esther and I are doing the prayers.
Ah well.
Been a cracking 8 days to be a Salop fan: winning away at Dagenham to overtake them and qualify for the play offs.
The depths of despair to lose to Bury in the home leg to a disastrous own goal.
Rescuing the game with two minutes to spare in the away leg, man sent off, winning on penalties: just genius!
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Joy in my heart!
Yes, Shrewsbury have just qualified for the play offs!
Over 1300 salopians went down to Dagenham to watch a game where Shrewsbury had to beat them, in order to overtake them and grab the final play off berth.
Shrewsbury scored two good goals and then hung on for an hour (which felt more like 8 hours) to finally win 2-1 and clinch 7th place in league two.
Now we play Bury home and away for a trip to Wembley against either Rochdale or Gillingham.
We sold over 4000 tickets for our home game on the first day of sales, and have sold 1500 of the 2200 for the away leg in just a day and a half.
The prostar will be rocking on Thursday night, but I won't be there. I have already arranged to go and see the comedian Dave Spikey at Theatre Severn. I will however being going to the away match on Sunday.
Should we progress that far I will miss the final because of a friend's wedding.
How weird is that? I make the two away games but not the final or the home leg? Thank goodness Sky TV will fill in the blanks for me!
Over 1300 salopians went down to Dagenham to watch a game where Shrewsbury had to beat them, in order to overtake them and grab the final play off berth.
Shrewsbury scored two good goals and then hung on for an hour (which felt more like 8 hours) to finally win 2-1 and clinch 7th place in league two.
Now we play Bury home and away for a trip to Wembley against either Rochdale or Gillingham.
We sold over 4000 tickets for our home game on the first day of sales, and have sold 1500 of the 2200 for the away leg in just a day and a half.
The prostar will be rocking on Thursday night, but I won't be there. I have already arranged to go and see the comedian Dave Spikey at Theatre Severn. I will however being going to the away match on Sunday.
Should we progress that far I will miss the final because of a friend's wedding.
How weird is that? I make the two away games but not the final or the home leg? Thank goodness Sky TV will fill in the blanks for me!
Monday, 22 September 2008
Goals, goals, goals...
Last Saturday, I went to watch Shrewsbury Town play Gillingham.
The game finished a whopping 7-0 to Shrewsbury.
Yesterday I went to watch Manchester City play Portsmouth.
The game finished a whopping 6-0 to Manchester City.
Two games, two thrashings, 13 goals in 8 days.
How is your team doing? Are they struggling for goals? If so, my services as a "Freescoring talisman" can be hired for the price of a free ticket, a pie and a bus fare home.
Or is there a team you dislike and want to scupper their chances? In which case send me to the home end of their next opponents and I will sort out a good thrashing for them.
I cannot quite believe it. I had a week's holiday in between, and need another week now just to recover from the shock of yesterday!
Robinho, Wright Philips and Jo as a front three - that is something like £60 million spent on just 3 footballers this summer.
It is a bit like setting up a conference with Driscoll, Hybels and Keller headlining it. Portsmouth didn't have a chance.
The game finished a whopping 7-0 to Shrewsbury.
Yesterday I went to watch Manchester City play Portsmouth.
The game finished a whopping 6-0 to Manchester City.
Two games, two thrashings, 13 goals in 8 days.
How is your team doing? Are they struggling for goals? If so, my services as a "Freescoring talisman" can be hired for the price of a free ticket, a pie and a bus fare home.
Or is there a team you dislike and want to scupper their chances? In which case send me to the home end of their next opponents and I will sort out a good thrashing for them.
I cannot quite believe it. I had a week's holiday in between, and need another week now just to recover from the shock of yesterday!
Robinho, Wright Philips and Jo as a front three - that is something like £60 million spent on just 3 footballers this summer.
It is a bit like setting up a conference with Driscoll, Hybels and Keller headlining it. Portsmouth didn't have a chance.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Top of the League?
I don't want to sound like I am lacking in faith, but I also wanted to record this moment for posterity should results not go our way tomorrow.
Shrewsbury Town are top of the league!
I wonder how it would work if Churches had league tables? How would we score points? It seems odd that we still use bums on seats as the key indicator of "success".
That means Churches take short cuts to attract more Christians and the Church loses it's focus on the long term mission - to bring new people into relationship with Jesus. Then it becomes about the programme not the mission. Then our people become consumers not witnesses.
The discipleship and teaching of the great commission comes in the context of being witnesses to Jesus, not in how many Christians we can gather on Sundays.
By 5pm tomorrow Notts County could have put a dent in our promotion push. Let's never view other Churches with that sort of competitiveness.
Shrewsbury Town are top of the league!
I wonder how it would work if Churches had league tables? How would we score points? It seems odd that we still use bums on seats as the key indicator of "success".
That means Churches take short cuts to attract more Christians and the Church loses it's focus on the long term mission - to bring new people into relationship with Jesus. Then it becomes about the programme not the mission. Then our people become consumers not witnesses.
The discipleship and teaching of the great commission comes in the context of being witnesses to Jesus, not in how many Christians we can gather on Sundays.
By 5pm tomorrow Notts County could have put a dent in our promotion push. Let's never view other Churches with that sort of competitiveness.
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Running on empty...
I am tired.
Yesterday I was up in Manchester with a squad for the National Christian Football Festival - where we finished 9th out of 20 teams at our level.
Rather than stay overnight and play the games today I had to head back because I was preaching this morning on "The Parable of the Sower" as we continue a series through Mark.
One thing I am really going to need to learn is structuring my time properly. This week I had a Cell Leader's meeting on monday evening, Church Together (where all cells meet for an evening of worship and prayer) on Tuesday evening, spoke at Alpha on wednesday evening, went to visit my Grandad in hospital on Thursday evening then off to Manchester on Saturday. I have some time off next week to chill out which is great, but this morning was pretty tough. I have a cell section workshop tonight too - but have had a good sleep this afternoon!
This morning my legs hurt from physical exersion, my face hurt from sunburn, and my head hurt from a general tiredness. I put the finishing touches to my talk this morning and just went for it. Most of my material had been prepared last week while away at Brighton and the parable speaks for itself.
It was a humbling experience - really having to "let go" of the reins of the presentation and just allow God to speak through His word. The response was positive indeed - lots of challenge and provocation to both sow the word of God with our lives and not allow our own fruitfulness to be choked. Many people commented positively. The file will be up here sometime soon. If anyone wants to listen to it and give me feedback I would really appreciate it.
Yesterday I was up in Manchester with a squad for the National Christian Football Festival - where we finished 9th out of 20 teams at our level.
Rather than stay overnight and play the games today I had to head back because I was preaching this morning on "The Parable of the Sower" as we continue a series through Mark.
One thing I am really going to need to learn is structuring my time properly. This week I had a Cell Leader's meeting on monday evening, Church Together (where all cells meet for an evening of worship and prayer) on Tuesday evening, spoke at Alpha on wednesday evening, went to visit my Grandad in hospital on Thursday evening then off to Manchester on Saturday. I have some time off next week to chill out which is great, but this morning was pretty tough. I have a cell section workshop tonight too - but have had a good sleep this afternoon!
This morning my legs hurt from physical exersion, my face hurt from sunburn, and my head hurt from a general tiredness. I put the finishing touches to my talk this morning and just went for it. Most of my material had been prepared last week while away at Brighton and the parable speaks for itself.
It was a humbling experience - really having to "let go" of the reins of the presentation and just allow God to speak through His word. The response was positive indeed - lots of challenge and provocation to both sow the word of God with our lives and not allow our own fruitfulness to be choked. Many people commented positively. The file will be up here sometime soon. If anyone wants to listen to it and give me feedback I would really appreciate it.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
40 years time.
Today while scanning my favourite web forum Blue and Amber I came across this post on a thread about the past and the future.
"What do you think will happen in the next 40 years?
I think we will see futher decline of religion, christianity has been declining for generation, and the next generation of British muslims will become disinterested with there religion which has been assiociated with the extremists which make up a small percdentage of their faith.
The EU will get its constitution but its member states will still be inderpendent.
Computers and Televisions wil merge into one, and with the rise of On demand broadband services, T.V channels and schedualing as we know it wont exist.
More people will rent houses rather than buy
Shrewsbury will be a strong championship side."
There you go - Christianity is on its way out. Sadly, I don't think this is an isolated view.
Thankfully - I don't believe that this is God's view.
What will "stem the tide" as it were? Here are a few thoughts:
1) Clear, relevant presentation of the gospel. Repent and believe in Jesus. We don't need to alter our message for anyone - rather we need to prove its relevance by our lives.
2) Finding ways of taking our faith to people, not asking them to come to us
3) A return to clear new testament ecclesiology where nothing we have made for ourselves is sacred and everything bows to the pressure of scripture
"What do you think will happen in the next 40 years?
I think we will see futher decline of religion, christianity has been declining for generation, and the next generation of British muslims will become disinterested with there religion which has been assiociated with the extremists which make up a small percdentage of their faith.
The EU will get its constitution but its member states will still be inderpendent.
Computers and Televisions wil merge into one, and with the rise of On demand broadband services, T.V channels and schedualing as we know it wont exist.
More people will rent houses rather than buy
Shrewsbury will be a strong championship side."
There you go - Christianity is on its way out. Sadly, I don't think this is an isolated view.
Thankfully - I don't believe that this is God's view.
What will "stem the tide" as it were? Here are a few thoughts:
1) Clear, relevant presentation of the gospel. Repent and believe in Jesus. We don't need to alter our message for anyone - rather we need to prove its relevance by our lives.
2) Finding ways of taking our faith to people, not asking them to come to us
3) A return to clear new testament ecclesiology where nothing we have made for ourselves is sacred and everything bows to the pressure of scripture
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