In the beginning... Genetik Week 1

10/09/2011 – The day I moved in to my new house in Greater Manchester/Salford. I arrived around 1.30pm after a nice lie in at Carolyn and Jonathan’s house. I met my housemates, and was given a tour of the house. I’m living above a youth centre/café, so can use those facilities when the youth are not there, which is handy for inviting people around. My bedroom is having work done to it and so I haven’t been able to move in yet, and so I’m currently sharing a room with Rebecca, and our room is a tip, since wecant really unpack properly till I move into my own room.

We spent out first night together cleaning the whiteboard in our kitchen/lounge, which was quite a task, as it was covered in sticky tape, and was generally filthy. We also gained a pictoral pet cat, Gordon or Gordonerta depending on the gender. We also had dinner with our Eden mentors Abby and Lewis.

My Housemate Kane Flaherty was present in my life from this day on.

11/09/2011 – We had our first service at our new church, which starts at 12.30pm and gives out a free lunch, which is nice :) and then we probably watched a movie, it was either Eli or Annie… can't remember.

12/09/2011 – This was the first day at The Message HQ, where all the teaching and stuff happens, and so therefore was the first day I met people who aren’t my housemates. I tried driving to the HQ using lots of back roads to avoid traffic, however I ended up getting a bit lost a couple of times, and so we decided to rethink the route from then on. When we arrived we joined in with the morning office prayers which last 30mins. We then went off with just the other Genetik students and we played a few ‘getting to know each other’ games.

In the afternoon we were sorting out and filling in housing benefit forms, and getting them ready to send off. And then, even though we had only known each other for 7 or so hours, we all decided to gather in the largest house and have a social, which then turned into a cool worship session with the entire Genetik crew. It was defiantly a good start to the course.

13/09/2011 – Our first Tuesday consisted of having a ‘VIP Brunch’ and a team challenge. The VIP brunch was a chance to meet some of the other people that work at The Message, and are usually behind a desk or out doing other interesting work, like prison programmes, designing magazines, or writing a new play etc. It was also a good opportunity to eat free food :) We then had a team challenge in which we had tofind a way to drop an egg from a first floor window without it breaking. The catch was we were only allowed to use things that we found lying around the building or in the rubbish (trash if you are American :P). My team ended up using a sandwich bag filled with water with a cup inside to hold the egg. It sort of worked but not really :P

14/09/2011 – On Wednesday we had a controversial ‘What Do You Believe?’ session. We were asked questions such as ‘Do you think capital punishment is ok?’ ‘Is it ok for women to lead in church?” etc. However the topic that started to cause the most heat was whether or not people believed in Guardian Angels. Go Figure. However the more EXCITING part of the day was meeting the one and only Matt Redman. Yes you read that right. I will admit I was a bit star stricken for the first 30 mins or so lol. Especially when he was like ‘tell me your story, why you doing worship, what do you like about worship, what do you play, what’s your favourite music etc’. But I think I mangaged to get over it eventually lol. I had however decided that day to wear something quite quirky, and not my usual ‘I cant be bothered’ look. Interesting first impressions I imagine. The goal this year is to write an album with the other worship students under the guidance and tutoring of Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, and Andy Smith (the resident Message worship leader). Exciting stuff!

15/09/2011 – Prayer Day number 1. You can probably guess what this involved. In a nutshell we had some time of worship, led by Matt while he was up in Manchester, we then had people from The Message sharing what is happening in various areas of the organization and then we were praying into those areas. We then had a talk/sermon from Beth Redman, and then she talked to us about a charity she is involved in which is fighting human trafficking (www.thea21campaign.org) check it out.

16/09/2011 – Prayer Day number 2. Similar to day 1, Andy Smith was leading worship, Andy Hawthorne talked to us about the new Enterprise Centre that The Message are preparing to open in a years time, and everyone prayed for all the Genetik students. Andy Hawthorne then treated us all to a meal at Gustos, which was pretty cool. We basically took over the whole restaurant. My house then invited everyone to ours, as we have a youth centre below us, which can convert into a small cinema and café. All was going well until my housemate Rebecca fell down a few stairs and had to be taken to A and E for her wrist. Another student on our course who was a first aid-er was pretty sure Rebs had broken her wrist. On first appearances (based on the bruising etc) the hospital peeps thought it actually had multiple fractures. However when you pray things happen. Especially when you have 20 people back at your house all worshiping and praying for healing. And low and behold, no breaks were found on the x-ray! Not even any hairline fractures. The x-ray nurse person was pretty shocked. I wasn’t lol. Thanks God :)