My colleague Yvonne and I had the privilige of leading a consultation today that will feed into the writing of the new Youth and Children's strategy. Eleven practicioners got together (thanks everyone) and we were asked (I actually caught myself using the word 'tasked' today *shudder*) to look at the five marks of mission, namely:
To Proclaim, the good news of the kingdom
To Teach, baptise and nurture new believers
To Respond, to human need by loving service
To Seek, to transform the unjust structures of society
To Strive, to safeguard the integrity of creation & sustain & renew the life of the earth.
We then flagged up (on stick-it notes) examples of mission and young people that we had experienced or seen in each of these five arenas.
We then seperated them into three columns of 'To/for' or 'With' or 'By'
The group then added to these columns (on different coloured stick-its) other opportunities along the lines of, things we should be doing and things we could be doing.
Finally each participant was given 5 stickers* to indicate which examples or ideas were the priorities as they perceived them.
It was a good process and garnered some good discussion, as well as demonstrating that the group represented a range of theologies and practices. It was also the first outing for the "Throw and Tell Ball"
* Amusingly we only had stars that would require glue so we switched to Plan B and used the only available stickers we could find ..... which were animals. The Oxford consultation therefore is presenting it's priorities with slugs, cats, fish and Octopi! (made me laugh)
how did you go with the ball? :)