flash gordon online I got a call last night from a local guy I have taken fishing a few times. He is going out on a deep sea charter next Thursday and asked if I wanted to come…
What are the chances of my diary being free for a whole week day?…
I went and checked and funnily enough it was – nothing on Thursday next week so what could I say but count me in!
Steve was out wth this crew a few weeks back and caught a huge stash, so maybe… maybe… maybe…
This was what I caught on Monday…
This might interest you.
Before I go to bed tonight I am planning to skim read the policies of all the major parties in the race for next Saturday’s election.
Bolders has links to them all if you are interested.
I find it interesting that it has taken 22 years of particpation in Australian society to actually get to the point of taking some responsibility for this. I also find it quite humbling that at 40 years old I am still need to learn the importance of such simply stuff as being a responsible member of society.
It was quite a revelation last week when I sensed God saying ‘you really haven’t even tried to get on top of this have you?..’
Nope…
Waddya reckon about that?
free harry potter and the goblet of fire movie download As a pastor I always had a day off mid week. I guess it was in lieue of Sunday when we really did work our butts off.
I was going to take Thursday this year, but as I was mapping things out in the diary it just seemed foolish to sacrifice one perfectly good day of the working week when I can kick back on the weekend much easier.
I decided I’d go Saturday like every other man and his dog, but I don’t have one free Saturday in the next 4 weeks – or a Sunday for that matter. Maybe its just about being flexible?…
But then its good to have a rhythm that you slot into.
I think I may need to play some catch up in March to make up for it.
Your comment has not been posted because we think it might be comment spam. If you believe you have received this message in error, please contact the author of this weblog.
How can a bloke not comment on his own blog?!
Matthew 13:47-14:12
"Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good."
Of course we are the good fish… aren’t we?…
I was sitting at the Whitford train station today waiting for my connecting train to arrive and take me home.
Two seats up from me were a young guy and girl probably late teens or 20 at the most. He was kissing her and she didn’t seem that interested – actually it seemed like she was angry with him.
I was writing an email on my laptop while I waited for the train to come.
She began to yell at him – it wasn’t easily intelligible – but I could tell she was unimpressed.
By their body language and her tone I was aware that things could be getting ugly… And I am starting to wonder what if?… What if he hits her? What if a fight starts?
Do I get involved? Do I keep finishing my email?
She got up to leave and he went after her. As she walked away he grabbed her bag and pulled her back. It wasn’t looking good.
It was at this point I made a decision. If he gets violent I will help her… I will do what I can to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I have never done this before. I have looked away before. It was a conscious choice, a choice that has been informed by previous experience (where I have felt lousy at ‘looking away’) and by my understanding of the gospel.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t like fights. I don’t enjoy hurting people or getting hurt, but in similar situations I have found myself paralysed by not knowing what to do. Its ‘not my issue’, but is it ok to stand by and write an email while someone gets the crap beaten out of them? Is it better to get involved and finish up being someone’s punching bag? Would my actions even make a scrap of difference?
I’m not particularly brave in these situations – I haven’t been in a fight since primary school so I’d probably get clobbered. But I wonder if Jesus would keep typing an email while a woman was getting beaten up?
I wonder if Jesus would see it as not his business?
As he pulled on her bag she yelled at him and drew away. My heart started pumping and I began to wonder if I should pack up my laptop and get ready. I began to wonder if someone might steal my laptop while I was helping…
They both walked back to the seat where they argued for a while. I kept typing… apparently oblivious… The situation defused somehow. Next I knew he was mauling her again and she looked like a willing party. I kept typing…
I felt glad, because this time I had made the decision to help but didn’t have to. I began to wonder though… what if he had been a 6 ft 9 bikie? What if there were half a dozen 6 ft 9 bikies?…
What then?
Its not a common situation and in that lies the dilemma. I don’t think every situation calls for the same response either, but the principle of helping someone who is powerless to defend themselves would seem to remain.
When I read the Bible it seems that often those who trusted God in wild situations were taken care of. Think Shadrach and his mates, think David. But I also know of well meaning people who have finished up in hospital because they sought to help someone.
Not my business?…
What do you think?
I was reading Alan Jamieson’s ‘Churchless faith’ thesis today and came across this great turn of phrase from David Bosch. With all the talk of missional churches etc Bosch was sharp enough to make the following observation:
“The inverse of the thesis ‘the church is essentially missionary’ is ‘mission is essentially ecclesial’.” (1993) Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.
So maybe rather than missional churches we need ecclesial missions
. A recognition of the primacy of mission as the activity of the church, but also an appreciation that effective mission requires some level of gathering.
In a couple of weeks I will be sitting on a panel with a small group of other ministers from various backgrounds discussing the future of ‘youth ministry’. I will be wearing my Forge and ’emerging church’ planting is the hat, as well as having a bit of a clue as I spent 18 years in youth ministry of various sorts.
(Be warned” This is a long post and is my way of thinking out loud on this subject before I need to speak about it… I May disagree with myself tomorrow)
Some of the big questions around at present include:
• Is youth ministry working?
• What does an ‘incarnational’ youth ministry look like?
• Is youth ministry a valid ministry in itself or is it ultimately self defeating in that we create separate sub groups with the body and segregate families?
• Should we have youth pastors?
• What is the fruit of youth led youth ministries?
It seems there has been a significant shift in recent years amongst thinking youth pastors away from the good old stock standard youth ministry practices of running school programs, youth groups, small groups and Sunday (usually evening) services to a more intentional and relational approach.
At the end of the day the bottom line question for me is always going to be the same:
Are we producing disciples of Jesus Christ?
Are we actually seeing young people transformed into the image of Christ as they are involved in our ministries or are we keeping them entertained and wowed until they feel like they want to move on to the next show in town?
Are we disciple makers or baby sitters?
Having led a so called whiz bang youth ministry that grew rapidly, saw a heap of conversions and was flavour of the month for a while I think 5 years on I’m able to look back and see some of the good and the bad of it.
Using the traditional methods we did:
– put ourselves in contact with many young people
– manage to attract a fair number of them to our programs (at least for a time)
– see them explore faith to some degree
– see some grow in faith and become disciples
We also:
– invested huge time and people resources in making events happen that would hopefully attract young people
– created an alternative sub-culture that we set against the mainstream to some degree. We definitely called people ‘out of the world’ and into the ‘youth scene’
– saw young people become increasingly demanding when it came to ‘quality’ of church services and eventually saw those same young people tire of what we had to offer and move on.
– burnt out a lot of leaders as we sought to keep the ministry growing
– used people as leaders who were probably quite suspect in regard to their own discipleship because of their relative immaturity.
I spent most of my youth ministry time working off the YM Strategy model and while we did see some people become disciples probably 70% would not be connected in any faith community today and I’m sure plenty of them would see their Christian faith as a ‘stage they went thru’.
That would seem to be normal for many youth ministries and has to concern us! Getting them there is probably 1% of the battle. Making disciples is a hell of a lot harder.
In my time at Lesmurdie I was all for growing a ‘youth church’ where young people did everything with minimal adult involvement and it did generate some serious enthusiasm sometimes simply because we thought we could do it ‘better’ than the adults. (‘It’ being music and performance stuff)
People would sometimes ask me where it was all headed. Where did these young people go when they got too old for youth church? Would they come to Sunday morning services? As if!”
To some degree we had created a monster and didn’t know what to with it. It was an upwards spiral and destined to explode at some point.
That was then – 7 years ago.
The question being explored now is what are the alternatives to mainstream approaches to youth ministry? And” who will have the balls to implement them? (Because it will bring some serious pain!)
The only youth pastor I have seen who courageously attempted a radically different approach to youth min with an incarnational emphasis ran seriously foul of powerful parents who wanted safe spaces for their kids and were concerned that the lack of programs would see their children either leave that particular church or the church in general. There was also concern that encouraging young people to hang out with their non-christian friends might see them lose their way with faith, start drinking, taking drugs sleeping around etc.
This pastor was and still is a good mate and a great bloke, however I think it would be fair to say these significant conceptual shifts and structural changes in approach to youth ministry weren’t communicated or implemented in the most effective ways, so while the ideas / practices may have had merit they finished up causing a huge bunfight and actually set the cause on its heels to some degree.
Bummer because it was a well reasoned appraoch both theologically and sociologically.
The serious tension in all of this is that youth pastors are not paid to equip young people to become missionaries in their local contexts. This is not a high priority of most local church parents. Even if they verbalise it as a priority much higher on the agenda is the task of keeping my kid safe and preventing them from losing their way spiritually as they move thru adolescence. With missionary engagement involving risk and movement into what may be seen as dangerous territory there are going to be more than a few sparks for any youth pastor who tries to re-shape the system.
No parent wants to see their child placed at risk and to some degree that is a fair thing. Let me develop that idea a little.
Let’s use the pub as a ‘risky’ venue. (‘How lame’ I hear you say – but to evangelical parents the pub is the nemesis) A youth pastor may suggest that rather than running an all in jelly and vegemite games night the young people in his care head down to the local hang out in a group and spend some time with other local young people. They incarnate into that cultural space. I think Jesus would be ok with this 🙂
However, upon hearing this the protective parental instincts of the said young people instantly surface, fed by lurid images of Johnny coming home drunk and 3 months later annoucning that some unknown girl is pregnant and he is the father.
There is a risk that Johnny will get drunk. There is a risk that while drunk Johnny will sleep with a girl who he doesn’t know. There is a risk that Johnny will become an alcoholic, a porn star, a drug dealer, a politician”
There is also a risk that by not going Johnny learns that the core of the gospel is about ‘clean moral living’, about not going to places where you could be contaminated and not doing things that might put you on the slippery slope to losing your salvation. There is a risk that Johnny will turn out to be unable to integrate his faith with life – that he will live a safe, uncomplicated life as a ‘nice boy’ and that eventually he will grow up and wonder what the hell its has all been for.
Why has he embraced such an anaemic expression of faith where the core values are centred on what you and don’t do? What happened to the ‘radical gospel’ he heard communicated as a teenager? At one point he was prepared to die for Jesus – now he was in a depressing rut of wowserism. (Ok this is getting too autobiographical!)
Maybe then Johnny will reproduce another little Johnny who will do the same… or maybe he will reject the faith of his family and begin to discover his own faith… or maybe Johnny will just think church is for losers and give it up altogether.
I have seen all these things happen.
As I wear my Forge hat I find myself asking quite simply if we apply missionary principles to a group of young people what shape might a youth ministry take?…
If we see ourselves as devloping ecclesial missions then how might we approach that?
I guess the short term answer is that we can’t know. We can’t predict what form we will need to shape up until we understand the specific youth sub-culture/s we are engaging with.
But if I can be a tad cynical, the major stumbling blocks to experimentation in youth ministry will be the expectations of tithing, salary paying parents and the inability of the young people themselves to give up their entertainment paradigm.
Tough times ahead for youth pastors I reckon…
