Risk

When I was about 17 I worked with a group that organised a yourh weekend. We called it "Risc" because it was one: no-one had done it before. That's the way I wanted to be: risking things for God, doing new stuff.

I still want that, in my better moments. When “Xpresso” started, I tried to make sure it wouldn't be doing the same old thing all the time, a “fill in the gaps, stand here, do this” sort of thing. I wanted something that oozed fun and vitality and adventure, and kept changing.

The problem is I’m not an adventurous person. I actually like routine a lot of the time and I don’t do risk very well: after all, it may go wrong. And for a perfectionist, that's the worst thing that could happen. But we are called to pioneer, not make a programme, so things like this will keep happening, and I'm learning to get used to them.

For example, we’ve decided that “One way Traffik”, the piece I wrote on slavery, is probably too much to translate, rehearse and get ready in three weeks, so we are just touring with “Golf and the Prophet Jeremiah” this time. And I wasn't too dissapointed.

I’ve learned that I can always write another drama, and I can still publish the piece (I need to keep building up the collection if I’m going to have enough for a book at the end of the year) It’s disappointing the tour hasn’t gone according to plan, but in a way that’s the price for working the way we do. A tour that we know will work is no risk, no stretch, nothing. A programme. And we didn’t want that…