From the Street and towards a new term

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For some time I have thinking we need a new term to describe what a particular set of christian practitioners called Relational Youth Work, and I have in part been exploring this in Still Meeting Them Where Theyre At. The current thread of conversation has reinforced this. Taff’s start point about the term being redundant and Allans comments made me think again about this. Nick desire to return “street theology” also bring us towards this.

Relational youth work began in a context of practitioners largely working with young people on the edge of society, and grew to become a way of engaging more generally with those outside of church as we know it, and perhaps now as Allan suggests it is recognised that it is an anathema to not see youth work as relational. However as the strands have converged, the context has become more post christian, and the language of church is shifting, some of the informing values have evolved and some have been lost.

I spent a lot my early days talking about Incarnational Youth Work, as a metaphor that was beyond both simple contextualisation and moving into a particular area. It encompassed for me something I couldn’t articulate about my wholeness being wrapped up in the shalom of the community, the ongoing journey, the restoring of creation, and the powerlessness I feel much of the time and need to be reminded of if I am going to see the kingdom to continue to emerge. However this term is particularly christian and potentially dualistic which is something I am keen to avoid as it could undervalue places where the kingdom is emerging with young people unintentionally.

Over the past few years, I have been building on ideas around Inculturation, Transitology of Sobornost as all of these have the sense that we ourselves and our emancipation is wrapped up with other. I particularly like the notion of reciprocal approaches to youth work and mission, that together we see something new emerge. So this leaves a conundrum of which term to use, Reciprocal Youth Work, Emerging Youth Work, but probably the term that encompasses most of where I am coming from (but might mean the least to those outside) is Sobornostic Youth Work, where we journey with young people towards wholeness for all of society, creation, ourselves and others, to unfold a new way of living and being. This bring us full circle to Nicks previous post as sobornost is what I learnt from the street.

Nick’s 150 words bring us back to the street

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I think you are both right and both miss the point!

I agree that when we reduce ‘relational youth work’ to the status of technique we do an injustice to both the philosophical and theological basis of ministry that seeks to occupy this space. The reliance on technique in youth work and ministry is concerning – you name some specific examples. It is concerning because as Taff suggests it implies that we approach ministry with a set of goals that we wish to achieve – and for which we have a series of techniques. In doing this we run the risk of leaving God out of the picture or bless what we want.

As such, relying on philosophy Taff to counter this isn’t enough, nor is it enough to locate our rationale for practice in a set of principles behind an approach to working with young people – however noble.

What we are talking about is a call to engage in what you Richard P once called ‘street theology’. Where is God with, coming to, and taking the young people we connect with. This requires practical wisdom and skill. Theology is an art! I’d like you to tell us what wisdom and skills you think are required…

Nick shepherd Is chief exec of CYM follow him on twitter @theonogrpaher

150 word response from Richard Davies

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I don’t want to disagree that there are better and worse ways of doing relational youth work, but with the way it is being conceptualised. Youth work or youth ministry are always concerned with the achievement of outcomes (goods) beyond themselves. They are technologies in that they are particular value-laden (ideological) mechanisms for bringing about a range of potential goods for young people. These goods could be church attendance, the development of a particular type of relationship with the worker, a commitment of Christ, etc. The use of the term ‘relational’ with youth work is either redundant (youth work is ideologically relational) or indicates a ‘technique’ a particular way of doing youth work.
I would prefer an articulation in terms of Aristotelian praxis, a concern with a moral pursuit in which the outcomes cannot be spelt out in detail ahead of time and our concern is developing youth people’s ability to pursue the good life (see my DPhil thesis). In this account we do not need the term ‘youth work’ relational or otherwise.

150 words on Relational Youth Work

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As Lori and I have been working on Still Meeting Them Where They’re At as follow up to my first book, I have been tweeting bits around Relational Youth Work. These have met with a bit of a response and exploration about a few relational youth work issues, that need a few more words than the 140 characters twitter allows. So to follow these conversations up I am going to start a conversation here with the first of a series of roughly a 150 word posts on the theme of Relational Youth Work, followed by Richard Davies (Taff) and Nick Shephard and then we will see how it goes.

“To reduce relational youth work to a tool to get YP into church is to miss the heartbeat of the incarnation”. I’ve become increasingly frustrated as people seem to reduce relational youth work to a tool to get young people into ‘church’, an alternative to Alpha, or the latest programme. This is compounded by the growth for outcomes based youthwork in local authorities. Both approaches can too easily undermine the intrinsic value of people, the orientation of the work becomes predicted rather than stemming from the relationship, devaluing both. Valuing humanity naturally leads to a relational approach, which was demonstrated so well by the incarnation, which in turn enables a youth work approach rooted in, emancipatory education, a discovery of equality, joint participation, and empowering of the other towards humanity, that when practiced with integrity takes us beyond the old dichotomies of kingdom and church, youth work and youth ministry etc.

Don’t try to Graft new shoots

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A lot of our approach has been about how do you grow church from scratch with young people. This is not to say we do this in a vacuum and we seek to reimagine drawing on Bible, Culture, and Tradition (more here). New seeds are planted in fresh soil and tender new shoots/groups emerge. To nurture these saplings one thing we have learnt is that using the word ‘church’ WITH the young people to describe/question what is emerging is helpful, both as a reference point and resource. It helps create the space to dialogue about what is emerging, connecting it tradition, and with care can be used to help co-create and shape the new community. As many of these groups start from scratch without preconceived ideas of faith, as the new community emerges young people begin to connect with others within the christian tradition attending more mainstream expressions of church. At one level this is a really helpful part of the journey as it brings a sense of other, and resource (drawing on the tradition part of the triangle) as the emerging community begins to find it’s feet. A problem is that the more traditional expressions may fail to understand and value the emerging church and so seek to graft on the new sapling to what is already happening. At its heart this attempted graft is generally well meaning but inevitably a top down approach, that undervalues the journey taken so far with the emerging community and the bottom up approach to leadership, truth, that initially enabled the co-creation of the new community.
How can we encourage a generosity of spirit in the more mainstream churches, that will enable emerging expressions to emerge in the way they need to?

Jesus is coming look busy – ness in the eye

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Advent makes us aware of the coming Christ, and perhaps we need to to look the busy-ness of Christmas in the eye. I am always amazed at how unprepared Mary was for the birth, there was no cot, and a distinct lack of forward planning. Maybe there was something in the timing so she and Joseph were caught slightly unaware, busy with other things, worried about how others might be viewing the timing of the event?
We prepare for Christmas, we prepare for birth, we busy ourselves with these preparations. What is it in us that drives us to prepare for this season? Advent helps us focus towards the coming light but what is it on our shadow sides that drives the busy-ness of the preparations?

Advent in the dark

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We wait in the darkness, expectantly, longingly, anxiously, thoughtfully.

The darkness is our friend.

In the darkness of the womb, we have all been nurtured and protected.

In the darkness of the womb the Christ-child was made ready for the journey into light.

It is only in the darkness that we can see the splendour of the universe – blankets of stars, the solitary glowings of the planets.

It was the darkness that allowed the Magi to find the star that guided them to where the Christ-child lay.

In the darkness of the night, desert people find relief from the cruel relentless heat of the sun.

In the blessed desert darkness Mary and Joseph were able to flee with the infant Jesus to safety in Egypt.

In the darkness of sleep, we are soothed and restored,healed and renewed.

In the darkness of sleep, dreams rise up. God spoke to Joseph and the wise men through dreams. God is speaking still. Sometimes in the solitude of the darkness our fears and concerns, our hopes and visions rise to the surface.We come face to face with ourselves and with the road that lies ahead of us. And in that same darkness we find companionship for the journey. In that same darkness we sometimes allow ourselves to wonder and worry whether the human race is going to survive. And then, in the darkness we know that you are with us, O God, yet still we await your coming. In the darkness that contains both our hopelessness and our hope, we watch for a sign of God’s hope. For you are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand (abridged)

Finding New

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How do we live in the new and stay in the new, and reflect without being pulled back?
One of our first problems is that of language, in that we have to use it to reflect and talk through what is happening, but this language is always laden with assumptions and meaning that may not reflect the newness, or express well what we mean.
A second is ourselves. Even the most radical people I know need to pin some things down and have a sense that in doing so it prepares the ground to move forward.
perhaps it is only in loosing ourselves and our language in serving others and following the missio dei can we hope find the safety of continual renewal

Incarnation and Disruptive experiences

Love the Absolute

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I have had a good twitter exchange with Becca and Jo around Empowerment and Theology and Sarah added some interesting thoughts. However I remain unsure of their approach to absolutes. Sarah has some good thoughts around Aristotle but I think Plontius may be more helpful who introduced the idea of virtues as the only absolute.

Perhaps we should think of Love as the Absolute, rather than notions of God or about God as absolute, as surely these are always inadequate and fall short of G-d who is always beyond, and transcends our ideas. Instead when we think of Love as the absolute we are always uncovering and discovering G-d.

The Unfolding Missionary Apologetic – Sobornost

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Co-producing New Forms of Christian Community in contemporary culture
Alan Richardson suggests “All Christian doctrine arises from Christian experience”, in many ways this statement validates the praxis approach to mission and ecclesiology (church). It also gives space for developing doctrine and possibly theology in and out of the current context or experience. As people follow the Missio-Dei in today’s context, their mindset and theological paradigms are challenged. As people go deeper into the post modern, post christendom context they recognise the need to find fresh approaches, but often lack a theological framework to develop this. When presented with alternative frameworks that are both theologically rooted and practice (story) driven, new ways of interpreting their already dawning experiences can be developed. A conceptual framework emerging from the practice of StreetSpace and Church on the Edge and subsequent theological reflection, is the notion of seeing Church as both the being and doing, recognising that church and mission are synonymous, and as you engage in mission you are being church with the people around you (whether they believe or not).

As a cultural backdrop to this we will explore the philosopher Bourdieu who builds on earlier ideas of Habitus – cultures way of behaving and norms making society possible, which we are socialised into. Bourdieu suggests that habitus was more than this and that through our participation we contribute to the unfolding “habitus” i.e. it is a two way dialogical or iterative process. Taking Bourdieu’s concept with the findings from Reconnected we can draw two tentative points. Firstly, due to the power of the established paradigm of church, even in the light of the unfolding experiences of practitioners, little has changed in the dominance of established church paradigms. Secondly, that even though much has been said to people that church and mission should be more closely linked, the language and practices used in the mainstream reinforce a divide. What COTE managed to do by coupling the challenge to the established orthodoxy of what is church to it’s own unfolding story, was create a space for a participative habitus in the sense of Bourdieu. So whilst it is argued that “the task of rebuilding Christian theology in a more authentic fashion requires a critique of the points at which tradition has misrepresented the spirit of the gospel; and then a reconstruction of theology according to emancipatory principles”. It can equally be argued that when these emancipatory principles are told, or the traditions misrepresentation critiqued, that it must be accompanied by a liberatory story that enables people to imagine and root a new approach.

Emerging church practitioners rarely have difficulties in relating to people, but the overarching paradigm of church remains problematic. It is steeped in notions of power and will struggle to liberate itself from within, at the same time presenting a barrier to outsiders. However when we collapse the idea of mission as a way into church, realigning alongside the intentional idea of being and growing church, and approach church with the powerlessness of Christ where everyone can belong and the curtain has been torn, something genuinely new begins to emerge. As this missionary apologetic unfolds and is shaped by all present, something is co-produced to which everyone belongs and is not held by boundaries but by relationship and values. There is a christian tradition that encompasses this and it is the concept of ??????????: translated as Sobornost, meaning a spiritual community of many jointly living people. Originally a philosophical term, it was used by Nikolai Lossky and other 20th century Russian thinkers to refer to a middle way of co-operation between several opposing ideas.6 This was based on Hegel’s “dialetic triad”—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—and Lossky defined sobornost as “the combination of freedom and unity of many persons on the basis of their common love for the same absolute values.” Rowan Williams discusses the term a number of times in his study of Eastern Orthodox theologians. In relation to the the emerging church Sobornost offers a third way and a helpful theological backdrop to the notion of an unfolding habitus or a co-producing approach to ecclesiology and community.

A central part of the emerging church following the mission dei is that the journey at times be with non-believers (who may have opposing ideas, antithesis), but whose voice, culture and context help us emancipate the church from what is has become and unfold a new of being as we journey together towards a life in all its fullness, that sobornost affirms. As Williams expounds building on Bulgakov “the church is essentially the fellowship of the Spirit, held together by the ontological bond of God’s love,……. the rest is a matter of conditioned historical decisions and polices.” Whilst it is often the antitheistic/genuine reciprocal nature of having unbelievers influencing the dialogue about what church is that people often struggle with, Sobornost hints at a Christian tradition where genuine reciprocal mission is located and the emancipation can begin.