Am away on a quiet day today, so no laptop & no blogging, just prayer, quiet, reading and reflection.
Shalom
Catch up with you on Thursday
March 2010 Archives
I have been listening to Rowan Williams and Chris Russell's talks at the Fresh Expressions gathering. Both WELL worth a listen from a FX and Youth Ministry point of view.
You'll find the sound files and videos here!
There has been a mixture of delight and concern at my intended purchase of a shiny new Chainsaw to add to my shed construction kit.
Sadly however I have blown all the money on timber and concrete (leaving the toy one above as the only one in my price range) BUT I have now instead settled for this retro pre modern chainsaw, a one stroke fully manual version.
It's fab .... but my family seem to be more concerned about this than my original plan.
Recently visited a really sassy and fun youth group that was part of a church in Buckinghamshire. I noticed that the following week they were to be discussing the 10 commandments and also planned to come up with '10' from their perspective. I asked if they'd send me what they came up with, and they did ......
1) Don't give into peer pressure
2) Take Risk's - don't not do things just because you fear them.
3) Be proud of being a Christian
4) Parents should financially support their children if they leave to have another family etc
5) Tell as many people about God, don't hold back when they are ready to hear it.
6) Respect yourself
7) Live for the moment not in the past
8) You should socialise - don't be a loner
9) Be honest if it would be good for them
10) Love God with all your heart, soul mind and strength.
I love the list they came up with and there is both wisdom and useful cultural insight here, enjoy! I also note that a number 11 crept in ........ not very theological, but quite practical
11) If you do something bad don't get caught
Watched a few films over my week off. Finally caught up with "Up" with was a perfect family film, managing to combine odd and surreal characters (especially the animals) and a GREAT story to produce a visually spectacular and touching film.
Also saw Michael Clayton which proved to be an intelligent and gripping thriller. Great performances by George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson.
My household though are looking forward to a couple of sequel offerings, Nanny McPhee and OF COURSE Toy Story 3.
I was amused by this Trilogy Meter and look forward to Toy Story 3 taking its place in the rankings shortly.
Apologies for the lack of Youth Adviser cover* during my week off and for the blog being bereft of either intelligent commentary or my usual scribblings. But I'm back and the 'Bat desk'** is now manned (as I work through a zillion e-mails).
The week off was awesome and I spent a goodly amount of time landscaping the garden, I now have a nine square metre patch of level grass and a set of steps up to the 'national shed museum!' I also spent quality time in the Chainsaw shop but so far have failed to commit to exactly which make/bar-length/engine-size is required.
The pond I built last year was a marsh*** of activity as a variety of of local amphibia turned it into a churning batrachian love nest. I'm pleased to announce the safe arrival of much spawn.
In a kind of 'most boring blog in the world' stylee here's a Show and Tell picture of the new improved section of garden above the decking. I decided a photo of the goings on in the pond were a bit too racy for this blog.
* To the Diocese I'm the 67th emergency service
** If you need me project an image of the Diocesan logo onto the clouds and I can shout, "Quick, to the Bat Estate-Car"
*** I know that the expression is normally 'hive of activity' but this somehow didn't fit within the narrative
I was part of a great chat yesterday with a bunch of Youth Ministers and Brother Paolo of Taize. We were talking about sustaining our calling and spiritual life and musing thereon.
I was thinking about this again today when some scribblings unexpectedly emerged from the lower mesozoic strata layers of my 'In' tray. It was a series of questions we'd arrive at on the Depth Retreat as a kind of sustaining ministry personal Offsted questionnaire
They are:
It wasn't a complete of comprehensive piece of work but it was interesting. Feel free to add or subtract from the list.
ISA full guidance now available, all 76 pages here. Enjoy!
It's been quite a year with my dads illness, death and funeral, co-running the department on top of my 'normal job,' doing my 'normal' job and the additional demands of promoting the Youth Evangelism Fund. Even with the frequent drives to and from Birmingham I am very much in credit with leave and TOIL (and quite tired) so, *drum roll* ..... I am taking a week off. Following on from a Youth group tonight I am moving into a time of being on leave for a week. Yay!
I'm looking forward to doing quite a lot of not driving, some gardening and some cycling. On the Garden front I plan to fill and turf the next section of terrace I have made (on the left) and use the remaining railway sleepers to build some steps down from the gate. I also plan to spend time dissuading the Pigeons from eating the grass seed on the steep slope (even the wire netting there isn't reducing their intake at the moment).
Excitingly too I have both the permission and the wherewithall to purchase a Chain Saw, oh yes!*
* Eek, I should add that the chainsaw purchase and tackling the pigeon problem are entirely unrelated.
Amy Jacober and Leonard Kageler are doing some research in preparation for a paper on women in youth ministry. The following is their summary of the request ....
"The survey covers a wide range of topics. As you will see, we have focused some questions on issues relating to youth ministry and feminist ideologies and how these have intersected in your experience as a youth worker.
We know your time is valuable. We ask you to invest some of that precious time here. It will take about 10 minutes if you just answer the "click on the appropriate choice" questions. If you want to say more, however (and we hope you will) there is ample opportunity in the survey to narrate to your heart's content.
We hope you'll find the questions themselves interesting. Some questions may make you mad. If the later is the case, we want to hear about it.
If you want to see the research paper that will come out of this survey, you can indicate as such at the survey's end"
Interested? Then click HERE
A bunch of the teens at the church who are now involved in leading the younger group are running the activities on the Pathfinder weekend away. One of them wanted details of a wide game challenge that I'd run with them seven years previously when they were ten!!
They remembered that it involved finding people, nucleur decontamination and Lego .... and that it was FUN. It took me a while to locate the grey cells of my brain that even vaguely recollected this, BUT I had a trawl back through some old backed up files and managed to unearth it. I was so chuffed they'd remembered it (especially as I'd forgotten it).
I may even post it up here after there weekend away so I can find it again :-)
1. Network meeting for youth workers and Chaplains this Thursday lunchtime in Oxford with Brother Paolo of Taize as guest.
2. Evening gathering on Thursday to explore the Taize community and Diocesan Taize trip, it'll be at St Clements church 7:30 - 9pm
My son H took himself into HMV at the weekend to use a voucher he had had for Christmas.
He emerged with the Alexandra Burke album (much to my amusement) and was very excited to have the track "Bad Boys"
Returning home he put the CD on the computer so it could be transferred to his MP3 player. The bizarre thing is though it must be incorrectly tagged 'cos although the music is Alexandra Burke, the album cover, description and tracks on the computer are all "Girls Aloud," as the album "Out of Control"
So in order to listen to Bad Boys you need to click on "Promise"
and to listen to Hallelujah you have to click on "Track 13" (the Girls Aloud Album presumably only having 12 tracks!)
I've never had to return a CD before citing as the reason, the album having an identity crisis.
As both the long term readers of the blog know I am more of a witterer than a tweeter. However if 140 characters is your bag then Karen has asked me to link to her list of one hundred christian inspirational tweet feeds! I shall now do this, here!
My 20 year battle to become fluent in German is well documented within the blog, a battle that continues to both stretch me ... and create a lot of fun. However in a case of, in for a penny in for a Euro; myself and my family are having a bash at learning French.
This definitely has me on the back foot given that I was not allowed to continue with French at school, "not clever enough!" I was told, but to be fair even when I was doing it, my text book, "De Jour en Jour," remained literally and figuratively, very much a closed book. However working on Alex Dumas's assertion that English is basically French but wrongly pronounced, I'm having a bash, so ..... Regardez vous le espace*
Ok, any attempt to translate "watch this space" is going to be difficult, can anyone help?
I had a great day yesterday at Waverley Abbey on a one day conference entitled "Where have all the young people gone?"
As this is firmly within my exploration ahead of writing the Diocesan Strategy for youth engagement, I thought I'd go along! It was useful to spend a day with Church leaders and Youth Workers who were also exploring this, and to hear what Andy Peck and Martin Saunders were bringing to the discussion.
The day was basically a theological exploration, a cultural and statistical look at the present, then exploring responses, ideas and opportunities. All good stuff and especially helpful to be reflecting with people from a variety of denominations.
As per conversations with a couple of people, I said I'd upload my piece on 'How to recruit Volunteers' so here it is. I also said I'd link to the National Council for voluntary youth services through which you can find if you have a local County CVYS.
Mention was made during the day of the Methodist resources around volunteering, and I mentioned the Oxford Diocesan handbook. Martin mentioned the Jan/Feb edition of EA that has an article on "The Missing Generation!" Oh and if you want to explore a bit further the idea of working with a digital generation, this is an excellent article from Tim Davies.
If there is anything else people wanted, please shout.
This article by Helen McNutt acts as an excellent foil to the vitriolic lynch (media) mob that re-grouped to to preach hatred, judgment and demonisation, given that the Bulger case is back in the spotlight.
I'm grateful to Chris for the pointer to this article which also put me in contact with a film called The Fear Factory, a film which aims to raise the debate about crime and young people out of the realms of rabble-rousing ill informed soundbites.
"The self-fulfilling prophesy that's doubled our prison population,
demonised our young and costs us billions...
Welcome to the Fear Factory"
The coalition behind the film have a blog here.
More info when I have found an opportunity to watch the film
This cracked me up, the five key rules for Youth Pastors. I reckon I'm including this in the induction of any new Youth Ministers!!
Watch, laugh ..... and grimace where it's YOU :-)
Feel free to add any other 'fight the stereotype' rules for the UK context
ht to mgpcpastor's blog
I spotted this video on Cartoon Church and it made me laugh! A previous 'Ok Go' outing was a delight but this certainly ups the ante. I love the fact that the outfits don't make sense to the end and that there is a kind of homage to the old vid' in the middle of the piece.
Gloriously Chucklesome, enjoy!
"Do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, beautiful as that place may seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have been before"
Vincent Donavan, I think
Someone asked me a question about what the term 'short break' meant and how it differed from 'respite care!' I like questions I understand and can answer, even better I could talk from personal experience as the parent of a disabled child:
Under the old system, I explained, 'respite care' was the name of the support for carer families that we didn't get. There has now been a whole new initiative, funding set, priorities and importantly, a name change .... whereby instead, we now don't get any 'short breaks!'
Not moaning (and was written with a grin on my face) but I hope that services do grow and develop for so many families who (for whatever reasons) wouldn't cope without this vital support and help.
One of the networks I exist in has been having a bit of a cant about Easter Vigils, specifically gleaning wisdom and ideas for said event(s). Youth work guru and all round nice guy, Nic Shepherd posted this general overview which I thought contained great wisdom (and humour), he said it was ok if I used it on the blog as an opening gambit in asking YOU to share ideas, experience and wisdom. Thank you :-)
"The period between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. is by far the longest and requires
a pretty clever programme to retain attention.
Usually include a feature film so those that need to can dose.
Plenty of refreshment breaks and continual access to drinking water.
Insist that no-one leaves the building without prior permission.
Have a quiet room with sleeping bags available where participants can
choose to retreat, or even be sent if you consider they require sleep. Make it clear that you have this power at the start of the event.
The period between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. is easy in terms of young people
being completely compliant and agreeing to virtually anything you suggest -
handle with care.
Always recruit a fresh back-up team to arrive at 7a.m to sort out breakfast and tidy-up - because you'll be past caring.
Remember to keep the whole of the following day free in your diary as
you will be fit for nothing and certainly shouldn't be operating heavy machinery"
Cartoon by Asbo Jesus
This morning I managed to write a message on the wrong side of a 'post-it-note,' only discovering the error when attempting to stick it to the door and discovering it was happily adhering to my fingers. I then wondered around for a while attempting to find some 'Blue Tack' in order to affix the message in a position where the intended recipient wouldn't miss it. Having achieved this I discovered that part of the message was horribly smudged by nature of it having been written on the shiny sticky bit.
I have postulated before ... that Youth Workers are not, on the whole, gifted administrators!
I offer this an an illustrative example of my own non-giftedness.
Filed under: Doh!
Network lunch for youth workers, school chaplains and community workers. Brother Paolo will be there to talk about the work of Taize and their experience of working with young people.
Please come, it'd be great to see you. Taize lunch.pdf
I've been doing a bit of building!
I have (sadly) no immediate need for any more sheds so other projects beckon. Today I finished a set of steps made from some discarded railway sleepers that I lovingly restored to full health with lashings of creosote!!
Poignant moment though in that I would have loved my dad to have seen them, he would have approved.
