Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Chard Detached Win £5K

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Last night was Opportunity Chard

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when 32 projects came together to put their case for funding before the community. 30k was up for grabs and the total all the projects were asking for was 99K so competion was hot. Everyone had a display board and 3 mins to talk about their project. Then the community voted for the project they most wanted to support. People had 5 votes and could only vote once for each project. There were over 400 people there and we were on first. Kevin one of the older yp spoke brilliantly about the need for lights for the skate park and was followed by Sam who as an under 16 couldn’t vote, so he summed up asking the adults to vote for us as they couldn’t. 90 mins later everyone had done their presentations and votes were cast.

We came 4th with just shy of 100 votes and so got the whole 5k we were asking for. It was a nervous night, but the young people did brilliantly!Macross dvd

Spirituality and young people

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Glimpses is an exciting and ground-breaking resource for youth workers that explores the subject of spirituality in a contemporary and relevant way.

Written by Nigel Pimlott and Steve Bullock from the Diocese of Gloucester, Glimpses is published by the National Youth Agency (NYA) and comprises of a book and DVD. Glimpses offers a host of resource ideas for youth workers.

Spirituality is a subject high on the agenda of young people, youth workers and the NYA alike, Glimpses will enable youth workers to effectively integrate the spiritual dynamic of youth work into their everyday practice.

FYT president and Chair of the NYA Bishop Roger Sainsbury has also welcomed the emphasis on spirituality within the youth work agenda: ‘Young people today are very aware of global conflicts in the world and growing divisions in our own communities in the U.K. both often linked to religion – it has never been more important to clarify the place of spirituality and spiritual development in youth work.’

Glimpses comprises of five sections: Reflections provides a series of visual images to engage with. Atmospheres explores the power and importance of environments and Essences tries to get to the heart of what is meant by spirituality and spiritual development. Stations provides a range of some 30 practical tools to aid exploration and engagement, whilst Breaths is packed full of miscellaneous ideas and resources. All this and a DVD full of images, music and video clips to use with the resource.

One of the main features of Glimpses is that it can also double up as an effective tool for churches to use in their adult services, meetings, house and cell groups. Full of resources, discussion starters, images, videos and material it promotes reflection and stimulates thinking.

Glimpses is exclusively available from FYT for just £13 including p&p. (rrp £15 plus p&p). Please send your cheque (payable to ‘FYT’) name and address to the FYT office. Or visit the FYT web site resources section – http://www.fyt.org.uk/resource,print,1.htm

Open Sets as a way towards enlightenment

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I have been exploring the issue of bounded and open sets, one thing that is often talked about is about being committed at the core and open at the edges, yet I wonder if we are missing an opportunity for growth here. I am part of a network that describes itself as A network of mission practitioners and communities who are restlessly trying to follow Jesus in the midst of a changing contemporary culture. The Ugly Truth full I cannot underestimate the support I have found within group and how important the space to be open and vulnerable with like minded people is. In many ways this group is not fully open (nor should it??) but this is what I am questioning. At one level all open groups are self selecting and will attract people around the ethos of the group etc, but open set groups for people exploring spirituality will mean the members come into contact with those they disagree with, those they think are off the wall etc, all of which if processed worked through, dialogued about, motives, passions and actions searched and questioned help us on the path to enlightenment. You can hear a talk on patience a 100 times but try living with someone you think is a Muppet, what has the greater benefit for the soul?

Questions for the anyone in the Emerging Church scene

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Over the weekend I am facilitating a conversation on Church on the Edge with the subtitle Emerging church gets missional. So I will be introducing the concept and process via a handout and as part of the session asking the following questions, and would appreciate any comments.

1. Is the emerging church in missional mode?

2. Are EC’s still a bounded set model but just with better PR?

3. Is community development a core part of your mission approach?

4. How does the church on the edge model/process fit your situation?

5. Where should church on the edge go from here?

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Implications of being Missional

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Our front garden has been a veg plot for several seasons now. If I spend time there I meet the neighours, and passers by. This is part of a deliberate choice, to provide opportunities to connect with those around me. The garden, our parties, sunday lunches are all have personal implications of being missional or seeking to live a missional life. I use the word missional over mission here in a simular to Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk do in their introduction to The missional leader – equiping your church to reach a changed world.

“God is about a big purpose in and for the whole of creation. The church has been called into life to be both the means of this mission and a foretaste of where God is is inviting all creation to go. Just as its Lord is a mission-shaped God, so the community of God’s people exists, not for themselves but for the sake of the work. Mission is therefore not a program or project some people in the Church do from time to time (as in “mission trip”, “mission budget” and so on); the church’s very nature is to be God’s missionary people. We use the word missional to mark this big difference. Mission is not about a project or a budget or a one-off event somewhere; its not even about a sending missionaries. A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.”

As outer personal impliations these parties, gardens lunches etc are fine, on another level there are other personal implications – for tuffty, clive and smiler my children (12, 10 and 1 yrs old and not their real names) – They don’t get to go to sunday school or learn about about Christ in traditional ways, which at times I think is great and at times causes a mild panic. They get used to various people in the house, going away for random chaotic weekends with random chaotic young people, they put up with us stopping to chat to people in the street, and they get used to living on a lower income than we could have as a family. They find themselves in conversations around the nature of church that may be beyond their understanding. Whilst there are some real benefits – at times they could see it as a pretty raw deal.

When we use the word missional in this way it also has to have organisational implications on how we do church or how we run the organistion and structural implications on what is church. Firstly how do we maintain a missional impetus and dna in our organisational structures? What started me thinking about this was the number of agencies that call themselves mission agencies but don’t employ people who aren’t christians or who when running mssion trips only allow people people of a certain level of faith to go along. How do we as a missional group use the whole of who we are and what we do in a missional way. By using volunteers who have no faith aligence or of other faiths, we create opportunities to connect, to learn, to dialogue. I am not saying we shouldn’t be discerning about who we work alongside, or that we should hide our faith afflilations from those who may be ale help us but don’t share our worldview but that we should value others in a way the doesn’t exclude and ask ourselves serious questions about what it is to be mssional in our organisational structures and the way we do things. This leads in turn to structural issues. Structually how do we position ourselves to be missional? Can we work inside systems and processes and what are the implications of change coming from the edge. How can emerging churches that use the word missional to describe themselves maintain bounded set approaches.

I wonder how many agencies that define themselves as missional or mission centred could meet the definition of being missional when applied to their organisational or structural make up.

Questions to hold through Lent

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I have been into this idea of a question to hold for a few weeks now since I posted this The Brood rip Napoleon Dynamite download

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short reflection. Being unconvinced of the set time for God approach and an in-disciplined person when it comes to the blog I wondered what I could do through lent, that didn’t mean a daily reflection, but was more in line with connecting with God through the concepts of living your life as a life of worship, and praying constantly. So I hope to post some questions to hold as way to help me focus, and I wonder if anyone out there also wants to offer any questions to hold. No answers just questions!

A question to hold, for me is a pathway of prayer, it connects with images of prayer that are about silent connection rather than rambling words. They are questions that cannot be answered by intellect or study or theology but by the practice of holding and living, and discovery. My favourite question to hold and one that sustained me and help me survive our the years has been “what does it mean to be still and still moving?”

As we move from Ash Wednesday deeper into Lent, I have been exploring Luke and one commentator sees in Luke’s gospel the God who is in the connections we cant make. I love this concept particularly challenging is the idea that God is in the connection or process when we are often conditioned in seeing God in the person (which is also true) So my first question to hold is

Who is the God who makes the connections we cant make?

Slipping through the net

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Through the detached youth work we have been in touch recently with a couple of young people who left school to work, as quite lively Afro Samurai: Resurrection move young people they held down the job for a while or were one of the first to loose their job when the factory made cutbacks. These were always the type of young people who are always going to pursue work rather than training, or college, and possibly the most likley to struggle in the workplace. The issue is – if they were in training or college and left there would be a natural process for connexions to pick them up but for those in work there is no system, and I would argue that it may be these young people that are more in need of tracking. It took me five people and two phone calls of 20 minutes to find the right connexions advisor to put them in touch with, but if the yp dont visit, they will not be picked up unless they start trying to claim a benefit, (which at least one is adament he wont do) Talking to the advisor to question how they would get supported or if connexions would know if they lost lost their job the simple matter was they wouldnt, for at least a year till the next check up point. Talk about a big gap in the net for young people.

A desert reflection

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I recently read a book by Simon Parke called Desert Depths, which is the story of a vicar visiting a desert monastery. Each of the brothers/sisters has a name that they have come to own and this is the theme I want to use

First – A question to hold – by this I mean it is not a question that you should seek to answer by logic or theology but simply to hold, in your heart.

How do you approach mission – a desert or oasis?

As we pray today spend time reflecting on the names given to the residents of the monastery in the book

Peter the fool is the abbott, “seeks enlightenment above grace, expertise above mercy, wisdom above love,”
Dalip the empty – who cared, gave advice, and felt he was put on the planet to help others, yet in the desert came to realise it masked an inner emptiness, and though he got to know his soul and changed he didn’t change his name because “instincts remain” and “the desert likes accurate names”
Santos the flighty the hermit called so as he searched from one idea to another for enlightenment never realising the depths any.
Bernadette the chisel – in her there is “a critic a judge, who judges her and others, it drives her to do but never says to her ENOUGH”

Lets pray for one another and the journeys we face, our defaults and the surfaces of our lives that this week God may show us new depths.

Finally when you reflected on the names was your instinct to identify yourself with their names or the reasoning for their names? As you hold the question we first set How do you approach mission – a desert or oasis? Remember the “the desert likes accurate names”

Blessings

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