At the Occassion on the 8th we had a excellent version of the Labyrith and Road the two ideas were combined and set out in a Flower shape with stations and areas many of which a creation theme. It was Sarah’s first ever trial with this sort of thing and it was great.
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Thinking about slipping on banana skins the other day, got me wondering about all those other things we hear about third hand or see on a cartoon/TV. We turned the banana skins idea into a youth event and I am trying to resist the urge to turn all those things we hear about into a youthwork session, you have to admit though, the young people would never forget the day x got a saucepan stuck on their head, or y got his head stuck through the railings. A word to the wise don’t try any of these. From personal experience I have tried jumping off a roof with an umbrella and it kind of worked (patio umbrellas are best) but my mate who did with a normal one broke his arm. My mate also managed to get a tic tac stuck up his nose. (I caution against this version of chubby bunnies). Talking of chubby bunnies we tried it with cream eggs once, you don’t half dribble. I also managed to accidentally pull two of my mates (tic tac guy) teeth out with a comedy trip wire I had hidden in the barn but tied up too high so when he was running past and I pulled it, instead of reaching his ankle it caught his two front teeth. All these are ancient history, but even recently I managed to go head over heels when riding a shopping trolley. What have you tried, and has anyone ever taken someone to the hospital with a saucepan stuck on their head I would love to know?
Don’t you just love it when you find a quote to back up your thinking. Currently there is a debate in youth work circles about curriculum and the nature of teaching, Jeffs who is questioning of curriculum cites Stiener “to teach greatly is to awaken doubts in the pupil,…to train for disentâ€? (Youth and Policy Summer 2004) and argues this is a key to education particularly informal education, and curriculum by its very nature hinders this. I love the quote and tend to be in agreement with Jeffs.
I just wonder how much of this critical education goes on in churches or youth work circles. We prop up the status quo so much, when actually called to be a counter cultural movement. The rich young ruler (see eariler post Is the Church the rich young ruler?) had kept the commands but hadn’t been trained to disent and therefore process/critque his actions so was well away from inheriting the kingdom.
Self explanatory if anyone else has any suggestions feel free to let me know
If you visiting Sunday papers from the Dorchester session today, Welcome. You will find the discussion on belief here on the 11th March (click here) and the notes on the left hand side under Talks as soon as I can upload them. On Youthblog there is good discussion on random thoughts. I think randomness is very helpful and my random thoughts often turn into some of my best ideas for youth work activities. Once was I wondering if Bananas are really as slippery as on cartoons. We then did a youth night covering the wooden floor of the hall with Bananas to see how far we could slide SO if anyone has any random thoughts they would like to share you never know what ideas it may spark off, so feel free to add any of yours.
Richard
Off%20the%20Beaten%20Track%202.ppt To Live and Die in L.A. ipod
Hi, new contributor signing in. Look at my profile if you want to find out who the hell I am! Thought I’d dive straight in to the shallow end and comment on the worship thread. I also struggle with much of what’s described as ‘worship’ in church, for some of the same reasons Richard mentioned (narrow understanding of worship, few of the songs express my understanding of God/Jesus/Good News/Kingdom etc).
I attended an ‘alternative worship’ event last week, run by a bunch of people who have been doing this stuff in Cardiff for years and are really creative and interesting. The evening was engaging, reflective and made a lot of sense to me where I’m currently at, and involved no singing at all. However, the feel was very much each person, in their own space, with their own thoughts. Surely if there is any strength in singing a bunch of songs together in a group it’s that, for once, we are at least (literally) singing from the same song sheet. How do we retain and promote this sense of ‘corporateness’ and lose some of the trash that’s become attached? Historically singing songs together has been an important way in which people experience community and share their common stories and experiences. Is there still a place for music/communal singing in the church community? What is it?
To add to Richard’s excellent post on Worship:
Book Review: True Worship, by Vaughan Roberts
(this book review by Mark Porthouse and first published in Benchmark Magazine)
The path of faith takes each one of us on a journey from (attempted) self reliance into a relationship of trust in our perfect father. During that path we seek to put away our own ideas and give ourselves wholly to God and his (infinitely better) wisdom and knowledge.
‘True Worship’ tackles one area in which much of man’s ‘wisdom’, tradition and habit have taken root in modern Christianity – worship. Vaughan quotes a friend of his, who says ‘To say, “I’m going to church to worship”, is about as silly as saying, “I’m off to bed to breathe for a while”.’ Balance surprising statements like that with his chapter ‘The Purpose of Christian Meetings’ and you have a truly rounded book. Throughout the book Vaughan Roberts confronts us with a series of questions and answers which we cannot fail to take note of.
If you are thinking ‘this book isn’t for me, we have great praise and worship at our church’ then you are definitely the person that Vaughan wrote this book for. If your church has ‘worship leaders’ then I would suggest that you need to get this book in front of your church leaders ASAP (but try and sneak a read of it first!).
I recommend this book (ever so) highly to anyone who, as an individual or a church leader, is looking to move forward in their walk with Christ (I hope that might be everyone who reads this!). The book covers the topic of worship very broadly, not just focussing on the obvious issues . Speaking personally, the key part of the book was the message about what should happen when we (the Church) meet. To implement what Vaughan is suggesting in your own life or in the life of your church won’t be easy as we have accumulated quite a number of odd traditions over the last two thousand years, but once read you will find it hard to live with anything less than ‘True Worship’.
You can get hold of the book here:
http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/Christian-Life/Vaughan-Roberts/
and no doubt loads of other places!
I have just seen an advert during Coronation Street for the triple CD Album “More best worship songs ever”. I JUST DON’T GET IT. And I don’t get it from so many angles. I don’t get many worship songs, in fact I turned to my son in a church service today and asked him if he knew what the chorus was on about. “Nope” he replied with a shrug. He may only be 9 but my response as a 34 yr old was “me neither“. I don’t get them at the best of time, let alone advertising a CD of them. I recognise that many people value and find a help from chorus’ but I don’t get the context, rarely understand the point of singing those words in the context they are being used in. I don’t get how they are “worship” songs or a time of worship. I don’t get coming into the presence of God. I don’t get the lack of resonance with current music culture. I don’t get the all too often acoustic guitar thing, that feels like I should don a cowboy hat. I guess my sister who is a country and western freak might line dance to some, but she wouldn’t get them either. I don’t get the consumerism of many songs. I don’t get the lack of community, I don’t get the individualism or the triumphalism. I JUST DON’T GET IT.
Check out the 23rd Psalm Bush is my ShepherdjusttherevThis Is Spinal Tap
I have added another parable in the Youth work tacks.
My mind is still all over the place around the issue of belief. (see the snowed in by God post) As I grapple with the concept and context, the more I think calling young people to “believe in God” is unhelpful. As said before the believe notion means that God may or may not exist. Thinking about the context of when belief is used biblically often the root can be traced back to couple of Greek words (verbs) around agree, make friends or yield. This further connects with the Jewish tradition of making space for God which could well have been the context of the time.
Some may say I am arguing about semantics but if we are asking young people to believe in a modern context are we doing them and us a disservice and setting ourselves up for problems in the long term. If belief implies only the possible existence of God then aren’t we leaving too much space or opening the way for the individualistic gospel and the non wholehearted believer. By changing the language would we change the nature of what we are calling young people towards.
It reminds me of a time we had two young people interested in God. When we explained the elements of the gospel they understood each part, but when we put it altogether and called it becoming a Christian we lost them. They got the concrete parts, God made the world, man screwed up, Jesus was Gods son, and He died in our place. But together that abstract concept of becoming a Christian lost them. In the ended we pointed them to a maze and said once they got to the centre tell God they wanted to follow him a 100%. Through their journey with us they had already realized God was real, but asking them to believe and become a Christian made no sense to them.
Any thoughts about ways to replace notions of believing in God or comments gratefully received as my brain hurts, but I think it is an important issue for us.
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