As if all of a sudden, the church bells across the little village began to ring out in the cold, dark night. They were heralding in the new year and at the same time marking the passing of the year gone by.
2012 was a year of completion and of new beginnings for me. From an initial nudge towards Oxford in February of 2011 opportunities have blossomed. Here are some of the things I got up to last year:
- I graduated from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics
- Completed a successful evangelistic missions and training trip to Sweden
- Taught a week on Worldviews and Apologetics in a YWAM Discipleship Training School in Herrnhut, Germany
- Started writing a regular Big Questions column for Sorted Magazine
- Planted a new Missional Community, Latimers Oxford
- Started working for Azusa Pacific University as a chaplain to their students studying abroad in Oxford
- Created a brand new apologetics division of Christian Vision for Men called the Demolition Squad, with Andy Kind
- Spoke at a variety of church and university events across the country, including Make A Difference
Additionally I found myself enjoying periods of travel, which even brought me back to Maui where I was able to share with the School of Biblical Foundations and Missions. That trip was one of those coming-full-circle moments. It was in 2004 when I first studied Apologetics and Worldviews at this little Pacific island base, thousands of miles away from England.
All of this stemming from a coffee with a friend in an ice cream parlour in Oxford.
Some times life can seem confusing, the future unknown and unmapped. In these times it can be of benefit to pause, reflect, and look at the track that your life has been moving down. God’s hand of providence and guidance is more easily observed retrospectively.
Observing all that 2012 and before brought me, I have every confidence moving in to 2013 in the plans that God has for me, whatever they may be!