I love this site! Jon should be given his own exhibition at Greenbelt. Cartoons that make you laugh, make you think, make you say 'ouch' BUT more often than not celebrate the Kingdom of God.
(please do not lift this image as it's not mine, visit Jon's site for more info)
As part of my job I get asked to preach at various places at various times, everything from a homily as St Whatnots in Lower Snoozington to a full-on 'preach' at large youth events. This morning I preached at Stowe School. I hadn't thought too much about it until the start of the week when I checked the details and noticed that it was actually quite a significantly grand school. Even having realised this though I was utterly gob-smacked this morning when I drove up to the school, the driveway was impressive enough BUT check out the building!
I usually get a tad nervous before a preach BUT by the time I'd checked in with reception and then found the chapel I was feeling more than a little apprehensive. Preaching at a compulsory attendance formal morning chapel to 600 or so pupils and staff was quite an experience!
Actually had a great time and although I was a little weirded out that no-one laughs in chapel, I'm really glad I got to visit. It's a very cool school and the chaplaincy crew were fantastic, as were the pupils I got to talk to. It also turns out there is an informal (voluntary) service in the evenings that is driven by some of the pupils, one of whom is also planning to run a Youth Alpha, cool huh!
The suit is, very definitely, now back in wardrobe! Next preaching gig is a youth weekend in Chepstow.
Scott Adams has posted a really interesting reflection on "Cognitive Dissonance!" Wondering if most of us are pre-disposed to hearing the areas in which we disagree with the other person rather than areas in which there is common ground. A useful reflection of confusing arguments we may have had or (ouch) times where we've not really heard/listened.
Chatting to my daughter (who is not called Sarah) about the stuff she does at school as a peer counselor, I discovered that they have a great mnemonic framework for the approach they take, it's called 'SARAH!' Check this out:
STOP Talking and switch off your own need to be listened to. Check your body language shows that you are listening.
Actively listen to what your speaker is saying. Listen well and only ask questions if you are unclear about something, to find out how they are feeling or if they stop talking. Let them decide what they want to talk about.
Repeat a summary of what you heard them say. Be as accurate as possible. Make sure you reflect back to them how they said they were feeling. Your speaker should appreciate that they were listened to and their feelings understood.
Accept what they are saying even if you think they are wrong. Show your acceptance that they have a right to feel anyway they please. Remember: Feelings are facts. Act with Empathy
Help them to think of ways forward. Your listening to them will have helped them to be more positive. Make sure you don't give them advice, either directly or indirectly. Only they know what they need.
Escaping from the office yesterday (this is good for my sanity and that of the office, having already been told off once this week for bouncing a tennis ball while I was thinking) I visited a youth project in Buckinghamshire. I'm used to Church youth rooms being equipped with cast-out sofa's but thought this example was fab! The photo doesn't really do it justice but it has carved wooden framework, decorative legs and luxurious purple velour cushioning! If your youth room has anything that compete with this then let me know and send a photo! (Oh and come to think of it, if you are from the National Trust and discovered this piece was missing after a youth group visit, er ...... well it's just coincidence!
Some dates: October 13th, VERTIGO (I need volunteers for thee cafe' team please). This coming Saturday (29th) I'm training in the Sonning deanery on working with Tweenagers! (Should I mention the book?) This Autumn, Urban Saints (nee Crusaders) are putting on a series of one day training events for volunteers. These days are usually EXCELLENT and I highly recommend them. I'll probably be going to the Bristol day! Diocesan NETWORK days for employed Youth ministers: Nov 1st and also a 24 hour retreat next year, Feb 26th, 27th 2008. It's called 'DEPTH' ask for more info!
You read it here first: The newly named "Sophia Network" (an affiliation of female youth ministers) will be launched at Youthwork the Conference!
Preacher required: I have details of a 'Sail and Surf' camp that's running 9th-16th August next year in the lake district and they are looking for a speaker? (suggestions welcome).
And finally: Long term readers of this blog (on a slight tangent from youth ministry) followed the building of my workshop! Well the latest development is a built in hoover! I had an old vacuum so I partially disassembled it and built it into the cupboard below the workbench. I now just need to open the cupboard door and it is the work of moments for all the sawdust from a project to just disappear! How cool (sad) is that? Now all I need is a really comfy chair for the shed. (This may necessitate a visit to the national Trust or a Buckinghamshire Youth club!)
Shalom
"If you are not living on the edge
you are taking up to much space"
(Having said that, unicycling on the edge maybe taking things a little too far!)
I saw some films over the summer and having a spare moment, thought I'd give you the Youthblog cine-summary of what I thought:
SURF's UP: A great Mockumentry style story that follows surfing anti hero and slacker, Cody on a journey from his Antartic home to the world Penguin surfing championships. Surreal at times, touching, fun and a wonderful tribute to surfing. I loved this film! The CGI is awesome but more importantly the documentry style of interview and camera work is genius. Kinda predictable in it's story but at the same time, highly original in it's rendering. Go See!
The Bourne Ultimatum: Jason Bourne find the 'Blackbriar" piece of the jigsaw and goes on to completes the picture, surviving no-end of threats on the way with some very cool and highly intelligent strategic moves as well as his usual physical supremacy. The film was clever, witty at times and a highly paced thriller. It was the MOST exhausting film I have ever watched! The combination of the frenetic pace and rapidly moving hand-held camera work was quite tiring (although extremely engaging). If you liked the first two, you'll love this one!
Mr Bean's Holiday: For once Mr Bean comes up trumps and wins both a camcorder and a trip to the South of France. Not surprisingly though the journey does not got to plan and he battles to master a culture, a language and transport problems armed only with a compass and absurd Bean like initiative. I expected to hate this film but actually loved it. It's upbeat, positive and witty with a really great life affirming ending. The film could have been awful but by having a genuine story wedded to Mr Bean's visual comedy that played with hope as well as the inevitable bad luck was good fun and at times quite touching. Not going to be everyone's cup of tea BUT as a comedic family film, Nice!
The CYWT site is up and running as a central site for Christian youth work training. It does, exactly what is says on the tin! I'll also include a link to it on my training pages.
I'm not sure what's changed but the 'add-on' Video-downloader in Firefox doesn't seem to function anymore? This being how I originally borrowed Youtube clips for use in a presentation. But there's more than one way to skin a cat? (British expression, not actually something we tend to do!)
You can open the web page, www.vixy.net and paste in the URL of the video and use the site to convert the video to an avi file. You can use that file or if you want to embed it in a Powerpoint then use Media convert to make it an MPEG1.
Talking of films. I'm putting together a youth weekend around the MATRIX film, anyone got anything useful? (Oh and has anyone got my copy of The Gospel reloaded?)
Captain's LOG Supplemental: The skinny has a post here that details another way(s) of appropriating the appropriate clip.
6 So Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite said:
"I am young in years,
and you are old;
that is why I was fearful,
not daring to tell you what I know.
7 I thought, 'Age should speak;
advanced years should teach wisdom.'
8 But it is the spirit in a person,
the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.
9 It is not only the old who are wise,
not only the aged who understand what is right.
10 "Therefore I say: Listen to me;
I too will tell you what I know.
I'm not sure how many people have picked up on the 11 million takeover day BUT it's genius! In a nutshell, November 23rd is a day when as many adults as possible are encouraged to let young people take over some or all of their role.
Being a school day some of the events we'll be promoting will be over the weekend BUT all our Bishops (and we've got loads of them) are on board and my colleague Yvonne has really been driving it. Check it out!
Hopefully the blog post(s) here on the 23rd will be by young people!
The next VERTIGO is on October 13th so scribble it in your diary or squiggle it into your PDA please. The Cafe will be running and I'm searching for some crew. I'll sort out all the stock, money etc and be part of serving hot chocolate et al, but I need some willing cheerful bods to help too. Is it you?
Shalom
PS For your diaries, the one after is February 9th
Certainly controversial, Kid Nation has it's first airing today. I'm very concerned about the whole thing but waiting for a fuller picture (and an episode) to emerge? I can't work out how they got away with the making of this, especially with some very young kids involved.
Wandering around Dartmouth this summer, I was amused to note that the window display in Boots the Chemist consisted almost entirely of Safety recall notices for various items. It's amazing how fascinating they are (as well as being remarkably re-assuring that you do not own, for instance, the microwave 'hot water bottle' that may remove your skin rather than merely warming it).
My favourite though was this earnest concern relating to a Thomas the Tank Engine train set.
I don't know why this amused me, but it did! Maybe it's the fact it only comes with one figure but there's still an enlarged picture of the fat controller to differentiate him from the train? Maybe it's the phraseology, "In a very small number of cases there is a risk that the fat controller's head may come off?" You see I wondered, a) why they didn't just say the figure may come apart (instead of the horror genre type descriptor) and b) why they risk is only in a small number of cases? (Had most batches got thicker necks?, was there a delivery of less than satisfactory glue to the factory one day?).
Don't know why I've blogged this? (Might be that I was out at the theatre last night seeing "I'm sorry I haven't a Clue" and am now too tired to compose a decent blog entry? Who knows?).
Anyway (from last night), complete this phrase or saying:
"You can't teach an old dog new .............."
er? ............. "clear physics!"
When I was on the phone to my publisher today! *Laughing*
The Tweenagers book is out and as the Youthblog community helped shape some of it, I thought I'd flag it up. So, "Effective Ministry to Tweenagers" is available and I'm quite chuffed to see it in print (I'm not so sure I'm as happy with the title now I see it in Black and White but hey ho?). I'm getting lots of teasing here at the office about being an author but as I only wrote half* of it and it's only small, I can only really claim to be a demi-authorette of a booklet.
Anyway, if you fancy a read about Tweens' or need a slim book to stop the kitchen table wobbling then Then 'Grove Y7' may fit the bill :-)
* Half was written by the lovely Ruth Hassall of CPAS
We had a really good session with Bishop John yesterday and the afternoon was a great mix of the deep, the fun, the challenging and the absurd. It was a really good conversation between the bishop and the young people and vice versa. Fab!
Some of the young people were part of the group that contributed to the selection criteria for the new Bishop and so the first point of the gig were for the young people to get to know Bishop John and see how he fitted with their questions and vision. The rest of the time was developing that dialogue.
I used the 'Call my Bluff' (Download file) to illustrate the coming together of different understanding and experiences, then it was group work formulating or answering questions, as well as panel type sessions. Oh AND photo's and food. The Bishop prayed for the young people and the young people prayed for the Bishop!
Heading home with the posse from Newbury was SO much fun. A couple of them were taking it in turns to play their i-pods through the car stereo. We had a some SOUL before arriving at Bohemian Rhapsody (cue Waynes world type car party, sing along), then onto the equally crazy session with 'Don't stop me now!' By this point the car party was in full swing and everyone sang along to Ghostbusters (great 80's moment eh?) and the finale as we drove into Newbury was, Jump Around by House of Pain! Had a huge smile on my face (and a ringing in my ears) for some time after, Nice!
*My thanks to all who took part and/or contributed to Call my bluff
Is anyone else old enough to remember Call my Bluff? Actually don't answer that, stay with the description instead. Call my Bluff was a quiz game in which 3 panelists each read out a definition of the same word, two of them being fabricated and untrue, one being the actually meaning. The aim to work out which was the real definition of the word.
For example: MUSCARDINE
1. An exclusive French perfume by Lenthric. At the height of its fame in the 1970’s it was advertised as, The fragrance that captures the beauty and gaiety of Paris by nightâ€.
2. Queen Muscardine ruled Sweden through a period of unrest in the twelfth century. Thanks to the loyalty of her troops she was never overthrown and reigned until her death in 1169 AD.
3. A disease which is very destructive to silk worms. It is a fungal disease that can also affect other insects.
Anyways, I need your help and creativity. On Sunday I have an event where I am bringing together the Bishop and a bunch of young people. The aim of that afternoon is to promote dialogue and to be exploring Church and faith together. What I want to use as a fun intro is a game of 'Call my Bluff' with 6 'youth culture(s) words and 6 theological/ecclesiological words. The idea that this produces some fun and acts as a starting point for our conversation.
SO ............. If you have 5 minutes can you have a go at grabbing a word and making up two plausable (and possibly funny) sounding definitions to go alongside the correct one? (I'll post the whole thing up next week)
Or even just suggest some youth culture(s) words or ecclesiological ones?
* This was written as part of a quiz by my friend Cris
** The correct answer is that it is indeed very bad news if you are a silkwork
Milton Jones did some great stand up for us last night, which was utterly hilarious, we were laughing like drains! His quirky oddness and strange way of looking at the world is comedic genius IMHO :-)
One line that was very pertinent to the Churches we inhabit:
Trouble is, people view the church like a really big helicopter!
*Pause*
They don't want to get too close in case they get sucked into the rotors!
Spent some of the day today with Bishop Graham Cray, he's a star! Here's what he looks like with added bling :-)
I was in Church this morning when one of the leaders was retiring from the young people's programme, in accepting a thankyou gift, she said this great thing,
"Hey, if you want to see how you can grow in faith as you help the young people to grow in theirs, you should come along and see what's happening!"
Cool, huh!
The good Mr Peat continues to monitor issues around social networking, privacy vs access! Interesting stuff. BTW I am a fan of Social Networking but think it's key to understand their issues as well as the great interactivity they offer.
Greenbelt rocked. The title this year was 'Heaven in the Ordinary' and it really felt like that's what it was. Wondering around the site in the glorious sunshine enjoying the laughter, learning, art, music and community was an ordinary (and extra-ordinary) taste and experience of the Kingdom. The Sunday morning worship this year was really stripped down and the 'unplugged' feel was something I really enjoyed, I found the communion very moving.
The only major problem this year was getting onto the site. cars and Caravans were queuing for 2-3 hours. Experience is a great thing though and my cycle trailer meant that I was on the site 15 minutes after arriving, a real blessing in the heat (You see, it doesn't always rain in England).
The absolute highlight for me though was hearing Mark Yaconelli speak. He spoke with passion, clarity and conveyed his message brilliantly through story. I found it quite emotional as there were so many resonances of when his Dad used to speak at Greenbelt. One of the great resonances being the huge numbers (of ALL ages) who wanted to hear what he had to say.
I highly recommend popping over to Greenbelt's site and downloading the first two talks (third was doesn't seem to be available as an MP3 yet)
I keep meeting people who say, "every year I mean to go to Greenbelt but I never make it!' ..... well, you should. Book for 2008 now!
Apologies for lack of posting today but have been having a bit of a Sabbath. It's all been very busy and is on the cusp of bussierness (new made up word) so a Kayak expedition was definitely in order. Had a more than groovy time, paddling up the Thames with my wife, exploring the river from Buscott to Lechlade .... and have also discovered that one feels very small in a lock on the river Thames!
I thought about writing something intelligent at this point but thought this dynamic variation from the norm might be too much for both my readers, so apropos of nothing, a picture (reckoned to be worth a thousand words I'm told):
Love and Hate, a reflection
I was at a meeting this week in a cellar. It was not some dangerously covert emerging church meeting, it's just that the particular Youth Centre is below street level. I'd written a number of e-mails prior to the meeting and it would have been useful to send them, however the cellar had no available signal. No available signal that is until a bus stopped on the road just above our heads! One of the bus companies that shuttles to London and back has on-board wi-fi and a connection flashed up on my computer, yeah!
This would be a great story if I'd managed to send the e-mails, but I didn't. Ironically the problem lay with the VPN and the firewall back at Church house rather than the bus BUT it has presented a great future scenario to me.
If in Oxford. Write e-mails then change settings so the laptop doesn't switch off when the lid is closed. Put laptop in bag and pedal behind the bus for a while. Job done!*
*This would require patience on my part as I move faster than the bus when in town traffic
** Computer architecture pun deliberate (but not necessarily funny)
Thought provoking fun: The ongoing adventures of ASBO Jesus
My ten year old daughter normally fills the hard disk with pictures she's created on the computer, I have however just discovered that she's been turning her hand to Liturgy. I rather like this:
"When I am sad God gives me a big heavenly hug that fills me up with hope, joy and love.
When I am happy God is happy and he rejoices so all the angels can hear.
When I am guilty God reminds me his son died for me on the cross,
When I feel far from God, God is still near,
When I am ill God comforts me and helps me get better,
When I am tired God fills me up with sleepy thoughts and gives me a peaceful sleep,
When I am not believing in God, God still believes in me,
When I am rejoicing God rejoices too,
When I have given up God is still going…God is always with me"
