2.9 Looking forward to meeting Jonathan Kear today to talk about the work with children and young people. Yesterday we went to Cwmbran and had lunch in the Chinese restaurant near the Christian bookshop. I reckon that chinese has been there since they opened the shopping centre but I think that's the first time I've been in there although Catherine said she used to go in there with Tracey.

Reading Michael Green's book on cell church at the moment. When I've finished it I'll send it to Chuck in Toulouse.

3.9 Had a phone call from Clive Knight's daughter Jill last night. She was quite emotional and was saying that they've had about 150 refugees from Louisiana turn up at Sam her brother's church in Orange County Texas and they're probably going to be staying. He's under a lot of stress what with being a Senior Counsellor. They're badly in need of money to help these people remake their lives.

Had a phone call from Karen Walker at the BBC coincidentally the day after Sian Baker phoned. She's interested in more work for Radio 2 as well as some more Celebration services from Raglan. The problem will be getting the van anywhere near the church this time now they've built all those houses next door. There is the possibility of a recording where they take all the equipment out of the van and set it up in the church. I'll need to get lots of ideas for talks.

Put up the photos of the jazzmen in the office - Mingus looking staid on a TV set. Monk looking conventional leaning on a grand piano and jotting something down on some manuscript paper. Billie Holiday in late youth - a shot from the later 40s I think. The young turk Clark Terry. Sonny Stitt in a dramatic spotlight obviously off on one of those top speed skittering passages.

Spent most of yesterday with Jonathan Kear. He had three pages of ideas for the children's and youth work and we has chips with Jamie before chatting things through with Catherine. Then we went to see Liz Blakemore. I'd have liked him to meet Liz Hepburn but of course she's off having been bitten by a snake Doug was saying the other night. Perhaps we'll put down there on Monday.

5.9 Finished 'Dance to the Music of Time'. I never got on with Proust but I think the first few novels have the same kind of feel in the prose. I didn't enjoy the wartime ones much particularly the army one - they reminded me of 'Sword of Honour' and I didn't enjoy those either. Highlights were of course the sugar incident and the paint incident, in fact practically anything with Widmerpool in. Then, I enjoyed the last but one novel about the conference in Venice. I thought Gwinnett was well drawn and the mystery behind his character well revealed. Pam Flitton came across more vividly here than in earlier books I thought and funnily enough X Trapnel did too even though he never appears but is only remembered.

Full house at church yesterday. We were thinking about the SWOT exercise and people reacted well to the message. Unfortunately I'm away next week - I could have done with getting a bit of momentum going. Funny thing, Sundays off! Still, I'm looking forward to preaching in Blaenau Gwent again. I can't remember the last time I preached there although we went there fairly recently when Paul Shumski was there.

David went off to school this morning. New uniform - very smart. Mikey called for him and I said to them, 'Welcome to the land of opportunity!'

Listening to Beth Nielsen Chapman. It's like I said to Karen Walker at the BBC - I think I finally get it.

6.9 We had our youth leaders' meeting last night for Axis and Footprints. What an exciting group - plenty of laughter and ideas but good prayer too. It struck me that if a few years ago we'd had to consider the numbers and complexity we have to deal with now, it would have blown us away. As it is, the growth has been gradual and natural and so the planning adapts accordingly. We decided to split the groups a lot more often and do the away evenings separately otherwise we would have been taking at least 40 kids out on a regular basis and that's a huge undertaking.

Went to see Doug and Liz Hepburn yesterday afternoon with Jon. She's still recovering from a snakebite of all things!

7.9 Watched 'No sex please we're teenagers' yesterday evening. I hadn't really grasped that it was about a Christian programme in Britain although I realised they went to America to see what the churches do there. I thought it was one of the best things I've seen recently. The image of the British church and above all the two Christian youth workers was very positive and not as distorted as it was for instance in that programme about the group working on the estate in Manchester. Very sympathetic images of the teenagers - very frank - showing that virtually all had become sexually active very casually and usually under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The American set-up was, unsurprisingly far more upfront than the British one but again unsurprisingly it turned out that they are even less effective than we are in dealing not with the rhetoric but with the practice of premarital sex.

9.9 Great insight in the article on theos in Kittel: the Greek gods were so powerful in that mythology because they only had one thing to bother with - war, peace, the sea . . . In other words, their integration was perfect.

'All the time in the world' is a great song on 'Sand and Water'. That would be a great one to learn and a great message about living in the present.

Sun 11 Went to Cardiff yesterday to the South Wales Baptist Association assembly. Really, if this is the shop window of the denomination in South Wales we are in very deep trouble. I was talking to Roy over lunch and we agreed that the mornings messages had invited us really to nostalgia for the time of Moody and the activist church inviting the people in to fill the pews rather than announcing the word in a world where God is already active. This was underlined by something one of the speakers said to me. We were talking about Hurricane Katrina and he said, 'Well, there was going to be a Gay Pride march there the following day with 100,000 participants . . . ' I politely enquired if this was a joke but it wasn't. There was a great worship band from Penarth (where else?) but unfortunately they were practically and possibly literally the only people under let's say 40 in the place. There were never more than 100 people there and this is the assembly of a denomination including Newport, Cardiff, Swansea . . .

Mon 12 Preached at Blaenau Gwent yesterday morning and evening. The most interesting feature is that the evening service is still the best attended. And that's in spite of quite some time meeting at 4 o'clock in the afternoon in the comprehensive school. Quite a good number of young people in the evening too and several away we were told. The young people led the early part of the service - reading, three songs and a prayer. Susan Davies was playing the piano and sounded great. They were also saying farewell to Adam who is going to Exeter to do a radiography course. A very moving moment led beautifully by Jean Pow. Several new deacons too including now two men so things are moving there too. It really is beginning to appear to be a great ministry of rebuilding - one built on the power of love both ways between pastor and people.

Tue 13 Deacons meeting last night. It went on quite late and I had a few French moments after 10.30. That was always the cutoff point when we arrived in France - you'd be going quite happily in the foreign language up until about then . . . Not a bad meeting though - still moving forward, still building. We've got to decide when to have the first of the BWA evenings now. I think the second Sunday in October should give us enough time to get the word around.

Started the prayer triplet yesterday evening too - Paul was a bit tied up before this but it was a good moment.

The many and varied tasks of the working pastor take me today to Kingcoed to look at a Hammod organ someone is wanting to give away.

Wed 14 'No Sex please, we're teenagers' was on again last night. One funny thing is the way that when they took them to Florida to 'The Silver Ring' thing, they showed the commitment as almost completely separate from the Christian commitment they were also looking for. Either that or they made them equivalent - I thought I picked that up for a moment. Either, way, it's probably all in the editing. The American pastor earned my ire by telling us that in Britain churches were all about religion whereas in America they were all abot a personal relationship with God. Towards the end of the programme they showed the young people trying to get their friends into a similar exercise and really not doing that well - when they did come they were sullen and silent. I wondered how much of that was just a producer's stunt. In any case, it didn't seem to me that the orginal twelve could be solid enough in their commitment for that to work. Also, the link between the pledge and Christian commitment in the lives of the original twelve would need to be quite a bit more clear than this for it to work, I think. All in the editing once again.

Jon and I are going to see the Rove double decker youth work bus this afternoon and then in the evening the meeting with John James.

Al Casey, Fats Waller's guitarist, died at the age of 90 minus two days.

Fri 16 John James turned up for the SWOT analysis session and the first thing he wanted to know was whether we had a mission statement and when he saw it he pointed out that no one would be able to remember it. This proved to be the case at the meeting. There were about fourteen or fifteen of us there.

I introduced John James as first having come to my attention in 1995 (very late actually considering he was BU President that year) when I was in Cardiff Baptist College doing an MTh and noticed that loads of the students had a link with Penarth but that they were among the most individual and original of the students - no John James clones among them. Then I emphasised his strong commitment to preaching, Word and Spirit united.

John gave us three separate exercises. The first was based on making a mission statement. What would be in it if you were starting a church from scratch. What would you do if money were no object. The second was based on the book of Nehemiah - preparation in prayer for getting the vision; looking round the walls to get the vision; conveying the vision to others; dealing with opposition which is often from within and takes the form of resistance to change. Then there was another exercise which was I think a nine or ten part expansion of the four points from Nehemiah and based on a book called 'Transformation'. He also drew our attention to 'Purpose driven church' by Rick Warren. I've read it but unfortunately there aren't any copies of it on Amazon at less than five pounds.

Sat 17 Well, there were 45 kids at the Footsteps youth club last night so we need to be very creative in thinking of the way ahead. There were fifteen at the older Axis group so in all, 60 children at the Friday youth club. As we think of restarting a Sparklers type meeting for pre-youth club children it's obvious that we'll very soon be in contact with 100 plus children. I wrote something to that effect for the Beacon and the Free Press.

Reading 'Renegotiating the Church contract' by James Thwaites. I think one of the upshots of his type of thinking is that all of this youth work is not preparatory to their involvement in the church but is church outside the walls. I finished reading 'Church without walls' which is Michael Green's symposium on cell church but it doesn't do as much for me as Thwaites books have so far.

Sun 18 Went to the rural churches Songs of Praise and barbecue in Norton but we were back in plenty of time for the X Factor. The place was well filled - probably about 50 people but probably about 75 per cent elderly I suppose. It could do with some kind of draw for the kids - bouncy castle or something and then an evening event for teenagers.

Looking forward to a good day at Raglan today. We are receiving Steve and Rita into membership and I'm playing a bit of Cosi fan Tutte at the end of the sermon.

Very full service this morning with lots of activity, lots of announcements, learning a new song, two people coming into membership and communion. As a consequence I felt under a bit of pressure in the sermon and the worst casualty was my Geoff Boycott illustration. I was trying to illustrate what happens when the irresisible force of Paul's diamarturomai comes into collision with the immovable object of the Sprit's diamarturomai. Paul had to announce the Word and the Spirit has to take Paul through hardship to the goal. Well, Boycott had decreed Pietersen not to be up to snuff as an England batsman and so when he succeeded it was not admissible in Boycott's worldview. Immovable force of his world view, irresistable object of Pietersen's batting. As for Cosi fan Tutte, Paul and his friends are waiting for the boat and a painful parting, so are the lovers in Cosi. There are wolves in sheep's clothing among the Ephesian elders, so is there in this sublime (nothing more sublime) trio as the bass singer plots against the very love he is celebrating in song. Lots of people in the service, too. Full downstairs and about ten upstairs before the kids went out and then full downstairs when they'd all gone. Ten musicians including Jon on drums.

Mon 19 Talking to Huw this morning about the concert in November. He's up for organising a pleasant evenings social gathering which is exactly what we're trying to do.

Then went to Chepstow to meet Paul Griffiths for lunch at the Methodist Church café - they seemed to be busy cleaning or something but the café itself was very nice and the sandwiches fine. Paul reminded me of where all this current reading started with Martin Robinson's 'invading Secular Space' and more recently 'The faith of the unbeliever.' I'll have to look back and see what I thought of them at the time. Paul was saying that in his brethren background they already had this emphasis on serving God in everyday life. I wonder if that goes as far as what Thwaites says about the church actually being these activities rather than the church coming into existence as it worships etc.

Met with Jonathan Kear but the BBC kept on interrupting what we were talking about. It was James Hall and he hadn't been involved in this type of thought for the day type material having been the continuity announcer on telly for a long time so he was quite meticulous. It turned out he was working under supervision from Lisa this time! Many tweaks later we had a servicable thing for Wednesday morning.

Wow! An amazing development in the Thwaites book. As he begins to describe what happens to an individual moving into the new thing, his writing becomes like Watchman Nee in the commentary on Song of Songs or Oswald Chambers - very fine decriptions of failures that turn out to be defeats, opposition that moves us on, the Lord's hiding from us to make us seek more . . . One thing, though. When we are welcoming new members into membership, is this defeat because they are moving further into the centre of the church construct? Rick Warren certainly wouldn't think of this as a defeat! This is the aim in purpose driven church - to move people into the centre, or up the ladder.

Wed 21 Hilarious! I went on Roy Noble's programme today and the song before my slot was 'I've been a bad bad boy' by Paul Jones. I said that was an amazing coincidence because I'd had the idea of inviting Paul Jones who is a blues singer and a committed Christian to take part in the Raglan Festival. Roy put on his website that I'd already contacted Paul to open our Christmas fête! Roy had some nice sweets, though - clove, licorice and cinnamon (separately). he wisely wouldn't let me have one before we went on the air.

One thing Paul Griffiths mentioned the other day was the possibility of doing some songs to illustrate his series on The Book of Ecclesiastes. I'm enthusiastic about that and already have one song about Ecclesiastes from way back. Also a song like 'Writ in Water' would be good for that. Also I wrote a song yesterday morning called, 'Nothing new under the sun' but that's about the easiest song on earth to write . . .

Did some recording yesterday with Jonny Quick on 'Writ in Water', the Irish version. Took the opportunity to invite him and a few others to hear Bryn Haworth in October.

Finished 'Renegotiating the Church Contract'. Like it. Must read it again.

Fri 23 All is revealed! People have been talking about a photo of Catherine and me in all the local papers. Now, I'd sent in stuff about tomorrow's BBQ where we're singing but I knew I hadn't sent any photos. Well, it turns out that on top of that, Charlie had sent in some info about Monday's AGM of the Music Festival and they'd chosen our photo to accompany it.

Looking forward to the Bryn Haworth evening in Gorseley on October 1st. I first noticed Bryn Haworth on the Old Grey Whistle Test it must have been in about 1973 or 1974. He was introduced by Anne Nightingale as a great slide guitarist. I was heavily into any Island recording artists at that time so that stayed with me. The next thing was he'd become a Christian and I've follwed his career off and on ever since.

Interesting to watch the television news as this latest hurricane approaches Texas. Barely suppressed excitement at a great story in prospect?

Sat 24 Getting ready for the BBQ - it's clouding over a bit but basically OK and the rain should hold off at least.

Josef Lossl of the Religion department at Cardiff University contacted me yesterday about doing two hours of seminars on the history of Christianity with first years to start straight away. I've got to go in on Monday morning to talk about it. It's not definite yet but there's a very good chance.

Sun 25 BBQ yesterday to welcome Jonathan Kear and family. It was a pretty good day even though the sunshine of the morning had gone - it wasn't cold at all. There was a good representation from the church and a few people from the village and a few of Emma's family. Geoff Tyson led the recognition part and I thought it was about right although some found it a bit solemn. We had a lot of music by Catherine and me, then John Tribe and Matthew and Jonny. A great, festive mood that shows us the way forward - bouncy castle etc . . . I have to keep telling myself that in the terms of Thwaites' books this is not preparatory to the church but church. As was the trip to go swimming last Friday with nearly 40 kids. There's a tale to tell about that another time.

Here's a headline from the Telegraph: "Hurricane Rita was downgraded and Gulf coast residents escaped unscathed as reporters waited in vain for a repeat of the New Orleans disaster." Love it!

Mon 26 A Great Sunday again. Full downstairs during the first part with ten musicians on the stage and a dozen people upstairs. Then in the evening we had Faith in the Community. It was about the best turn out we've had. I counted 120 but the vicar thought 150. The music group played well this time - we're much more consistent these days - and Dramatic were good. We also had I suppose 15 to 20 children from the school who sang and that was great. Tim of Farm Crisis Network spoke. He thought it was a but too heavy but I thought it was just right and in fact it was a very upbeat event.

Today I got up early and left before seven to make sure of getting to Cardiff University to find out about that teaching. It's definite now, so I got the textbooks from Amazon. One of them is Kung's book about the Catholic church and the other Gonzalez introduction to Church history. It should be quite straightforward, I think. The meeting was led by Christine Trevett and a guy called Stuart arrived who's just finished his MA and is learning Sanskrit. James Karran was there too and Ken Donovan. The other main people were James Hegarty and the Buddhist lady and Karen Smith. It was all a bit vague but I think as long as I turn up for the opening session on Tuesday next I should be OK. Jo Pearson the lecturer in pagan religion and new religious movements has moved to Liverpool.

Tue 27 Had our photos taken with some of the kids for the local history project. In the evening we had the meeting for the Raglan festival in the Fellowship Centre. Very promising. A pretty good turnout including Margaret Davies who agreed to be the Secretary. It looks as if it'll be a much broader affair with a wider range of music and organisers. Just about got back in time to see seven eighths of the Bob Dylan documentary although I think I'll have to miss a lot of part two tonight. Meticulously done with a superb mix of rarissime archive material and new interviews with the people in the archives! Maria Muldaur, Dave van Ronk, Liam Clancy, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez. This is a serious effort to make sure everyone in the far future knows the real status of Bob Dylan. They could have done with someone doing the same thing for Shakespeare.

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