A crowd of us from our church went away some years ago to a conference. It is often the case that good things happen at conferences, although I remember this one specifically because of a tragedy. A couple of us decided to skip the Saturday evening session (conferences can be exhausting) and stay in our hotel rooms instead, and it was the sad night when Josh the ambulance man off of Casualty got his house and family blown up in an explosion and got the shout to his own address. I can remember staggering out into the hotel corridor in a state of shock, only to meet my friend who had also emerged from her room, and standing there sobbing in each other arms. (Don’t worry, that was some years ago and I have since figured out that Casualty, like quite a lot of stuff on the telly, isn’t actually real. They’re only actors.)

Anyway, we decided to console ourselves with a meal out. In those days the town where we were staying boasted one of the then rare Thai restaurants, so we thought we’d give it a go. Somewhat nervously we ordered a load of strange-sounding dishes, and set about this new culinary experience. As you might imagine there was quite a bit of sharing (we were Christians after all, and Christians are known for their times of sharing). One of our number, being a bit of a vegetarian, had ordered a dish of little bits of spicy fish, called Pla Nueng something or other. (It is a well known fact that fish are really vegetables, and therefore OK for veggies to eat them.) These were duly shared around too.

The meal was lovely, and we all became Thai fans from that night on, but the post-mortem the next day demonstrated that not everyone had enjoyed all the dishes. ‘Personally’, said one member of the group, ‘I found David’s cod-piece a bit chewy’.

Steve’s Random Icebreakers

I was thrilled to hear this week of one cell group in Sheffield who had a great evening warmed up by one of my son’s offerings. So, lest things get stale and predictable, here’s another discussion question from his collection:

‘If you owned a ferry company, would you let me redesign the logo?’