This is my annual prayer letter which I e-mailed earlier today (after Midnight Communion at Ballyholme). If you'd like a copy with my contact details, leave a comment!

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Well, 2006 has been an interesting year to say the least.

Highlights of the year included the ever-present Summer Madness, where I spent the main event running what will probably be the last year of the cinema (you heard it here first!) and doing a bit of security.

I also did a pile of photography for Streetreach, especially on the special Monday afternoon at the City Cemetery – what felt like dozens of photographs from the City Cemetery made it onto the Streetreach 2006 DVD, which is more than a little scary.

This wasn’t my first photographic commitment of the year. I also spent the Global Day of Prayer 2006 doing photography – alas, due to ongoing problems with my computer burning CD-ROMs I wasn’t able to pass them on, which was very disappointing. Still, there’s always 2007.

To help that, I bought a new Digital SLR last week. My old camera has served me very well, but I’d got as much use out of it as I was ever going to, and I needed a better camera to get better shots. Several times during Streetreach, I found myself taking blurry pictures because I couldn’t get the shutter speed fast enough – not a problem with the new camera!

In the autumn I took on the coordination of the band for evening worship at the Church of the Resurrection. A fairly easy job, I led once a month and played bass the other weeks, inbetween generating weekly powerpoint presentations – otherwise I made sure that whichever of my three fellow worship leaders was happy, leaving them to agree the order of service with Paddy and arrange a band. It looks like we’ll have other bassists in the spring, which is as well as I’ll not have somewhere to stay every Sunday night after my grandma moves to Bangor. I’ve therefore handed coordination on to one of the other worship leaders – Luke will do an excellent job, he has the necessary humility and heart for worship.

I’ve really enjoyed evening services, working with a band that doesn’t change that much from week to week, but getting chances to play my main instrument (piano) when I can, encouraging other band members, teaching new songs, introducing new chunks of liturgy, praying through the whole shape of services, and so on. Sunday mornings have been more frustrating, as there are so many fewer opportunities, one of my long term frustrations – chances to play piano are almost non-existent, and I’m not really able to contribute effectively as a result. The frustration will increase in the Spring when I am less involved in the evenings.

I also played bass on Sunday mornings, including the autumn highlight of our Radio Ulster broadcast service on 26th November. I arranged three of the songs for piano, flute, violin and horn, and had the pleasure of listening to them work, both live and in the CD recording made live – although I have to confess that I probably overdid Blessing and Honour. Still… it was incredible. I also had the loan of compression and distortion pedals for the service, and listening back, they worked perfectly.

As a spin-off from the service, the Church is selling CDs as a fundraiser towards the refurbishment we had carried out in 2005. If you’d like to buy one, let me know… they’re £2 if I can hand-deliver them or you can collect them from the Church of Ireland Centre, or £2.50 if I have to post them (£3 via Paypal to cover their fees!). At least £1 will go to the church.

Spring Harvest 2006 had its own challenges. I was leading a team for the first time, and promptly messed up. One member of my team had to be sent home due to illness, and I had a severe personality clash with the other member of my team. In the end, I asked to give up being a Team Leader, and spent the rest of the weekend as a one-man team under the authority of whichever other te