Fresh off the plane, feet behind the desk

Several people have asked me about a prayer letter, and I thought that given my previous success in putting these sort of things together, this might be a more preferable option. My good friends Craig and Amanda have set a sterling example at their blog of updating every week - I guess I'm not likely to be that reliable. The general idea is to give semi-regular updates on what is happening here both in terms of my personal life and also what I'm teaching.

I landed on Tuesday around lunchtime, and was still a little out of sync - the first two days I woke up at 4AM, but I'm doing better now and have thoroughly adjusted. The church family is great - they've been really kind to me and I arrived to an apartment already filled with food! They've been really hospitable so far, and today we had a church family lunch to welcome me (which was a little strange). I'm getting settled in and used to both American culture and the church as a whole. The other thing I've done is get cracking on the teaching material for this year.

We have a 20s-30s small group, which studies books of the Bible in turn. I'm the overall leader for this, and this term we'll be studying Ephesians up to Christmas. We start studies on September 8th, and the evening has a short introduction, 30-40 minutes of study then a 10-15 minute talk summarising the main points (which I'll give each week). At the moment the hard work is going in on producing a prep book for the whole term. This is based on Dig Deeper as each week we'll introduce a different bible study tool to use that'll help us to understand the passage better. If you've never read the book, I'd recommend it as the single best book I've read on understanding the Bible and studying it for yourself. The hope here is to further train the guys in Real Food to read their own Bibles. Putting the prep book together is proving to be a lot of work - I'm doing a good bit of exegesis on each passage and reading a couple of commentaries (FF Bruce and P.T O'Brien) as I don't want to have prep notes already produced and then completely change my mind on the main point of the passage later in the term. This is not the full work I'll do on each passage as I'll do fresh exegesis and a lot more work week by week, but I guess it's taking around 3-4 hours of work for each passage for the prep book.

The second bit of work is going to be the monthly Men's Breakfast which starts on September 11th. I've decided we're going to tackle Acts. I've read through most of Acts with a City worker in London, and it's a book I'd love to teach in more detail. I've got to get started on this - I'm planning to do this this week and I'll start out by reading through the book a few times and then listening to a couple of Proclamation Trust talks on teaching Acts by David Cook.

It'd be good to hear from you. I'm looking to get hold of a new digital camera - when I have one I'll send through pictures of my apartment and also my car. I can't (legally) drive yet and need to pass a US test, but I've had a bit of fun getting used to it and driving it around the parking lot at the back of the Women's Club. I'd particularly value your prayer.

Praise:

• That I'm here safely! As you might well know it was a little touch and go with the visa application, so it's great to finally be here.
• The church has been really friendly - I've enjoyed the first week and looking forward to getting cracking with the teaching.

Prayer:

• Pray for the preparation work this week - I have a lot of work to do on Ephesians in particular. Please pray that I'll get it done, but also that God will be teaching and encouraging my heart through the study of his Word.
• There is lots of 'life admin' still to be done - I still need to get a social security number, bank account, driving license etc...
• Pray as I get to know the church better that I'll make friends. I'm also concious that I'm going to be prone to making cultural faux pas so please pray that I don't unintentionally create barriers for ministry by doing this.