Not sure how many of you have come across the Grove booklets before. Recently they have started a new youth series and I came across this which was a fantastic approach to the subject and creative way of both addressing the issue of dialogue and presenting the material in a way that matched the content.
Sadly Dennis Birch died on Thurs 8th June. Among other charities, Dennis was the founder of Worth Unlimited and something of a father in the faith to me. Faithful to the whole gospel, for many years he carried the demonstration agenda in YFC and helped me survive. The funeral is on Monday at 2pm at St Georges Church Wembdon in Somerset. He was a man full of grace and a true agent of the kingdom and I am honoured to be able to attend on Monday in the celebration of Dennis’ life.
Further to AJ’s comment and my reply I came across this from Herni Nouwen society which kind of sums up what I meant
The Source of All Love
Without the love of our parents, sisters, brothers, spouses, lovers, and friends, we cannot live. Without love we die. Still, for many people this love comes in a very broken and limited way. It can be tainted by power plays, jealousy, resentment, vindictiveness, and even abuse. No human love is the perfect love our hearts desire, and sometimes human love is so imperfect that we can hardly recognise it as love.
In order not to be destroyed by the wounds inflicted by that imperfect human love, we must trust that the source of all love is God’s unlimited, unconditional, perfect love, and that this love is not far away from us but is the gift of God’s Spirit dwelling within us.
I was meeting with some friends about a month or so ago and one of them commented that he didn’t believe in the infallibility of the Bible. Then just the other day I met a chap who complained that he’d met a minister that believed in evolution.
These two statements made me think about what is implied by a belief in the infallibility of the Bible.
The big problem, it seems to me is that everyone will inevitably have a different interpretation of the Bible and that everyone’s interpretation of the Bible (and I’m using interpretation to also mean perception of what it means) must have errors – let’s face it, we are only human!
So what does it mean to say that the Bible is the infallible word of God? Is a statement that cannot make be of any use? I’m going to assume that the Bible is infallible (in fact I tend to believe that it is), however, we now have a huge problem in that nobody has an infallible interpretation of the Bible. So therefore is it meaningless to say that the Bible is the infallible word of God?
If the Bible is the infallible word of God then it doesn’t it make absolutely no difference to anyone because we all make mistakes in interpreting it. What is more important is that ‘the faith we have is infallible’ – which must be true be because faith is from God. What we believe to be faith can only be fallible if it isn’t faith at all.
We know God through faith, through his Spirit communicating to us. This is through all sorts of things, not simply the Bible. It is surely more important to know God than to know what the Bible says about God? (and no, I’m not saying that it isn’t important to know what the Bible says about God!)
What makes for an ideal christian community? If there were one thing I would value it would be around autheniticity. Not the notion of being authenitic to a particular tradition but to yourself balanced with authenticity to how you understand the tradition that you have absorbed and connects with who you are in the image of God. Yet there is more than this because if our relevation of God is of the balanced Trinity and one who makes the first move towards us then this too must be part of our understanding of who we are and HOW we can begin to be authenitic.
I was asked to speak at a ladies group last week by a fantastic older lady (maybe just in her eightys). Mary had been running the group for about 40 years. It started because after she had been running a crusaders group on the local estate, she wanted to reach out to the parents of the girls she was working with. Forty years later I turned up at her flat (having moved several years ago) and the ladies (70-80yrs old now) from the estate were bussed in, with some of the orginal members of the crusaders group (in their 50’s) and some of Marys new neighbours to hear about FYT.
Several times I have come across a few older ladies like Mary, whose faithfullness is humbling, and whose passion is as real as it always was. When we speak glibly about servanthood, long term work, incarnation and relationships, we need to remember the Marys of the world. I am SURE I met a saint last week.
Great weekend with family at Nephews wedding, one of the funniest best mans speech I have ever heard. Chatting to another nephew about purpose in work. As a dedicated teacher he was enthusing about the buzz and sense of purpose it gave him. As a throw away he mentioned how we all need that sense of purpose even those coming from agnostic/ atheist position. I understand that sense of purpose when i hear him discussing his vocation, but for me when we use the word purpose in this context I have an automatic value judgement on the word. Does simply making money equate to a sense of purpose?
So far the slugs have eaten 4 courgette plants, 2 tomato plants and quite a bit of broccoli. We managed to harvest some spinach yesterday which unfortunately we burned when cooking in the pan. Hope England do better in the footie
At a meeting called by the Federation of detached workers today. Very good and for any detached workers in the voluntary sector well worth checking out.
If you visiting sunday papers looking for the strategy stuff you will find the Meet them where they’re slides under talks and presentations on the right.
If you dont want to wade through the slides here is an abridged version
1. SURVELLENCE -Working out which geographical areas or groups of young people to engage
2 COLD CONTACT. Visual stage where we acknowledge the groups
3 COLD CONTACT. Introductions where we introduce ourselves and the project
4. AREA BASED WORK This is when starting in an area or patch and a wide variety of contacts are being made.
5. PEER GROUP WORK This happens as the work becomes more defined and consists of natural groupings of young people. This stage is often where larger groups are identified usually around a shared interest. e.g. football or hanging out and may be too many work with or inconsistant attendance.
6. BASIC SMALL GROUP WORK As key young people are identified the work should be forward to this stage. This group is made up from the groups that exist within the larger peer group.
7. RISKY SMALL GROUP WORK This is about taking calculated risks to move the work and relationships forward such as 1-1 work, a relaxing , perhaps having a meal with the young people etc. However this is not about putting yourself or the young people at risk.
8. EXPOSURE AND EXPLORATION OF SPIRITUALITY AND ISSUES Young people should be introduced to aspects of spirituality in practical supportive ways. It can range from events to raise their consciousness of Bigger things, e.g. watching the sunrise, exploring creation, to going to an event. The worker should explain some of the things that may happen at events and translate what is happening at the event and use the opportunity to explore spiritual issues in a supportive way.
9. PEER EDUCATION WORK AND/OR RELATIONAL BASED EXPRESSION OF CHURCH This refers to supporting the young people in local churches or relevant groups, and developing new groups based around the young people developing their own expression of a discipleship group with the worker. For young people not interested in this it is vital that as part of good professional practice contact is continued and developed and often this can take the form Peer education work or responding with the young people on local issues.
Between each stage there are tools or mechanisms that enables work to progress from stage to stage. These are varied and depend on the interests of the young people you are working with it could be kite flying, sports, hobbies, issues explored, trips etc Anything you do as group together that helps the relationships deepen.
It is possible to identify the groups you are working with and guestimate where you are on the development plan. From there decide where you wish the group to be in six months time and how you propose to get there, e.g. explore doing a residential. This enables you to gauge your progress in some way.Taken from Meet them where They’re at
I have been discussing with a student, issues around Mission and Inclusion. On further reflection the issues for inclusion when we have a Kingdom based approach are vast. Impacting practice and theology around church, language and choice(see last post), mission etc. It can be hard to remember when at the coalface of trying to get involved with God in building the kingdom, that it is already here. This dual paradigm, and living as an in-between people has all sorts of issues. For a long time I have been trying to grapple with the issues of inclusion and kingdom, and it is still so easy to forget the God given image that young people maintain in their DNA. How far this may be a key to working in this kingdom which is now and not yet. I am wondering if we might borrow from education theory which has two basic approaches; banking knowledge or drawing out learning. Much of our history of mission sees banking as the way, inputting the gospel story (or evangelical theological takes on it) and then seeing young people respond. How much can we draw out the image of God within? Some traditional evangelical language talks about people having “a God shaped hole in their life”. Maybe we can turn this on its head, and see young people as having a small God shaped light already in their life and our role is to encourage that to shine into the rest of their life. A helpful metaphor???
