I’m not a Children’s worker: it’s not my particular gifting. But I’m being increasingly challenged about the importance of work (particularly evangelism) with children. More on that later…but for now my mantra will be:
Aim Lower
Think Smaller
Give Up
Go and have a cup of coffee *
And here’s why:
* to be fair, this has always been part of my personal mantra ;o)
Recently I attended a seminar entitled ‘Big Society, Big Mission’, organised by the Central Baptist Association and presented by Geoff Colmer & Helen Wordsworth. On reflection, it was very light on Big Society info (as is the government!) and so focussed on Big Mission. Nothing ground breaking, but a useful challenge and some Holy prompts along the way for me and my context.
What follows are my sketchy notes of the content as presented, and thoughts which arose during the session.
The Big Society is a Conservative idea with its roots in, among others, the Centre for Social Justice & and the thinking of Benjamin Disraeli. Many of the people involved in the continued efforts to shape and develop the concept & practice are Christians of many persuasions.
Details are very difficult to come by, but the working definition shared was of: social action, public service reform and community empowerment.
The government have identified four areas in which to trial the Big Society implementation: & Tendring. Liverpool was originally one of the areas but has recently pulled out stating the incompatibility of the budget cuts and the Big Society agenda – Tendring have taken their place. Each trial area is to appoint a Community Organiser who will be assisted by a Civil Servant. Their tasks will include devolving budgets to ‘street level’, open source planning & delivering (presumably commissioning) broadband services.
Part of the Big Society plan is to develop a new Community Bank to which communities & groups will be able to apply for funding for their initiatives & services. However, it has been pointed out that due to the budget cuts, the new bank will already have less on the books than is currently given to third sector organisations.
How do Churches fit in?
Currently it can be difficult for Churches & faith groups to gain access to funding due to their faith connections – many funders are reluctant to support them. It was suggested that under the Big Society ‘model’ the ‘door is ajar’ for faith groups to seek funding: ‘faith will not be a bar to community involvement’ – Eric Pickles, MP [1, 2]
Malcolm Duncan, formerly of FaithWorks, has said that the Big Society represents a once in a generation moment for Churches, and that we must grab it with both hands; he suggested that if we did not, future generations will look back and wonder what on earth we were thinking (no source provided for this quote).
At this point we were asked to share some of the activities/projects our Churches are currently involved in which are practical expressions of the Big Society and its community involvement aspiration. These included dyslexia support groups, debt & budgeting groups, credit unions, conversational English classes and many more.
It was playfully suggested that getting involved in the Big Society means that we’re bailing out the government, and therefore why should we get involved? Wouldn’t it be a distraction to our core mission? This led onto discussions around the relationship of faith & social action: can you get involved in these opportunities & preach the Gospel?
Mention was made of the book ‘Saving Souls, Serving Society’, which provides 15 studies of US churches and discusses the idea of building both social & spiritual capital.
There followed some discussion about mission generally, and the theological imperative; being both evangelistic & serving society, and the connection between the two: [here my notes get even more sketchy]
Williams Carey – ‘using means for the conversion of heathens’
References: Matt 28:19-20, Genesis 12:1-3, Psalm 24:1,
The Mission of God – Christopher Wright (Langham Partnership)
- mission is God’s grand narrative
- a God of mission chooses a people of mission
- Abraham to Jesus – then through the disciples
- the mission of God: not ‘where does God fit into our world?’ but ‘where does our life fit?’
- God’s big story combines both social action & evangelism
Using the metaphor of a river with Christians on one bank and non-Christians on the other, we considered how we could seek & create opportunities for engagement, and looked at a few different methods of ‘crossing the river’. [This time included some questions for reflection, and time for discussion in small groups offering the chance to apply the principles to our own contexts – I didn’t capture all of this detail...]
Firstly, building a bridge, which takes time and a lot of effort & resources, and is usually built from both sides.
- So what could we do to build bridges with those outside the church?
- What bridges of communication with people on the other bank already exist and how could they be better used?
- Who might walk across the bridges which already exist?
- Who are the best Church people to be on those bridges and how can we release them to be there?
Secondly, find a ferry, an existing crossing (opportunity) which you can use to reach the other side. It was suggested that Chaplaincy services (to schools, shops, workplaces, geographical areas) might be existing opportunities. If you have health professionals or language/music teacher in your church, you might find ways to use them. Perhaps we could even deliberately using public transport more often in order to intentionally engage with people in the community.
Thirdly, place some stepping stones. Recognising that the gap between the Church and those outside it is too big to cross in one leap, what stepping stones can we intentionally place between the two sides to assist them? We need to make sure the stepping stones are aligned appropriately for each group/opportunity.
Fourthly, build a raft. Create a new opportunity using the resources available – so working in partnership with other groups & organisations, what service could we provide which will meet the needs of our community? Are there people on the other bank who we can engage as helpers in the new project?
Links which may be helpful (or not!):
You may remember some months ago I started a series entitled ‘worshipping together‘. I was reviewing the inclusion & engagement of children & young people in our services at Spurgeon Baptist Church, and the posts were a chance for me to air my thoughts and discuss them before proceeding. Here’s a quick précis of each of the posts:
- Including Children & Young People In Worship: introduction, proposed areas to be covered and links to other posts as they appeared
- The Children’s Talk – Critiquing Current Practice: setting original out the remit of my review and highlighting some of the problems I had identified
- Segregated for Worship: highlighting our current approach to worship, and considering the strengths/weaknesses of splitting into age groups for worship
- Encouraging Children to Worship: a theological reflection on the merits of worshipping together with children & young people, and suggesting a change in our current practice
- Options for Worship: setting out three different approaches to the challenges faced at Spurgeons, analysing each, before my personal conclusion
Well, that was all before life got incredibly busy, and the posts stopped, but rest assured that the review and implementation didn’t. So here is a quick update of how the Church responded to my review & suggestions, before I share some of the progress we’ve made and include some details & practicalities in the hope that they may be helpful to others.
Using the posts above, and some of the helpful discussions had along the way, I set out a brief overview of the background, issues and possible options to our Church members’ meeting (‘cos that’s how it works in the Baptist Church). Although I outlined ‘option 3′ (that children and young people worship separately from adults), I immediately discounted it due to practical issues with our church building (although I also had a big theological concern). So the members had the choice of:
- option 1: tweaking what we do now in the present slot, some other minor changes
- option 2: change the start of the service all-age worship: new songs, activities, engaging all senses
- other: of course the meeting had the right to go for neither option
There was a lot of discussion around the issues I’d presented, clarifying some areas which weren’t clear and correcting some misconceptions, but on the whole it was a very positive time. The meeting recognised some of the issues, but admitted that their eyes had been opened to others which they’d not detected. The conclusion was that the meeting agreed to implement option 1 (tweaking the status quo) with immediate effect, but then working towards the implementation of option 2 (recognising that it would take a significant amount of time, planning & preparation).
We called a meeting of the people who were involved in the ‘children’s talk’ slot, and invited any others with an interest, and we set about agreeing the necessary tweaks and what would be required to make them. From October 2010 the newly renamed ‘YourSpace’ slot came into being.
In the next post I’ll share some of the findings from our initial meeting and how we’ve been getting on so far.
Just seen this version of the 10 Commandments, rewritten for kids:
- Put God First: God is number one, everything else comes second.
- Nothing else is more important than God
- Don’t say ‘God’ when you don’t mean it
- Have a restful day – chillaxing every week
- Respect. Treat adults how you would like to be treated.
- Don’t hurt anybody
- Stick together/look after your friends
- Don’t take from anyone without permission
- Always tell the truth. Don’t lie
- Don’t want something others have got.
There’s another version posted there too.
I’m always one for jumping on a bandwagon, so here are the website updates on this site which received the most traffic during 2010:
- Youthwork Summit – Notes
- Including Children & Young People in Worship *
- Breakout at Oakhill STC
- The Children’s Talk: Critiquing Current Practice *
- Options for Worship *
- Issues with Tweetdeck for iPhone
- Segregated for Worship *
- Encouraging Children to Worship *
- “Christmas Adam”
- Giant Pigeon Unimpressed With St. Paul’s Cathedral
[ those with an asterisk are part of a series which I really must continue soon ]
And if you’ll indulge me for a moment, here are the posts I wish had received more traffic/response:
A special thank you to those of you who have clicked on the adverts, purchased goods via the Youth Ministry Bookshelf, or clicked on links from my Threadless page and then ordered t-shirts. You have helped to support this hack of a blogger limp through another year – keep up the good work ;o)
Feel free to check out my Amazon wishlist…
I put this short presentation together to assist & encourage the Amicus members to reflect on the last year. If you’ve not tried Prezi, give it a go. It’s a simple yet sophisticated new approach to presentations. Don’t take my word for it though, check out some of the popular presentations which have been created using the tool.
I loved playing Monopoly when I was younger, but I was often frustrated. Sometimes by how long the game would go on for, but usually by the amount of time some people used to take thinking about what they’d like to do when it was their turn. The game’s tagline of ‘the fast-dealing property trading game’ never really rang true for me. I was always keen for a speedier version of the game. We tried instigating a time limit for each person’s go, and an overall time limit for the game, but it didn’t quite cut it.
Clearly others shared my frustrations, as I noticed that a new edition of the game has been released with a ‘play faster’ feature for those who can’t wait. Not a new rule to limit the time of each player’s ruminations, but a special die which settles faster once rolled.
Imagine how much time would be saved if all board games were sold with the new faster die – what would mankind be able to achieve with all that extra time?
Over the last year my use of Twitter has developed from simply geek-chic & vanity, to it being a genuinely useful tool for my work/ministry & interests. I’ve connected with a huge number of people around the country (and some further afield) who have shared resources, experiences & conversations which have been of great value. As my Twitter use has developed, I’ve had to find appropriate tools to keep up with everything.
For a long time I used Twhirl on my desktop for multiple accounts, and it served me well, but was lacking in some areas. So I moved to Tweetdeck and have been very happy with it as a desktop client. Unfortunately it is let down by some hugely frustrating issues with its sister app for the iPhone.
The biggest issue is its instability: it crashes up to four times a day with very little pattern or consistency. The only consistent crash is when I try to ‘unfavourite’ a tweet – when it dies every time.
But there are areas of functionality which drive me crazy and make it almost unusable. When returning to the app (either via the Home screen or the Multitask bar) it re-starts the app rather than returning to its previous state:
- all previously unread tweets are marked as read
- the interface scrolls to top of tweets and so losing your place in the timeline
- if you open a tweet and follow a link then open it in Safari, returning to the app loses your place (as above)
- if you scroll down the tweet list, slide across to a different column, then back, and it’s scrolled back to the top
When introducing the multitasking functions of IOS4, the Apple website says ‘Apps can remember where you left off. So when you return to the app, you can jump right back into [...] whatever you were doing.‘ This seems to have completely passed by the developers of Tweetdeck.
Also, if you tap on a tweet, then the user’s profile, then the ‘recent tweets’ tab, you can’t interact with those tweets in the way you can with the main timeline (add favourites, etc)
There are a couple of areas of functionality which seriously lacking:
- there is no landscape mode when viewing tweets or webpages (pretty fundamental error)
- there is no option to schedule tweets (unlike the desktop interface)
Other than that, it’s a nice product ;o) but I’m afraid I’m no longer using the app – instead I’m trying Hootsuite for iPhone.
Do you have any Twitter app recommendations? Share them below…
These are the links I’ve bookmarked recently on Delicious [November 18th to November 19th]:
- Milton Keynes Schools Website -
- Facts and Figures on… 2005 English Church Census and Evangelicalism – General findings on church attendance in England from the 2005 English Church Census, including denominational figures, and statistics on evangelical growth and attendance.
- Adobe Kuler – application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.
