Christmas Thoughts.

I am back in the USA for a fortnight to visit family and friends before heading back home and it’s been interesting so far! As soon as I got off the aeroplane, we went to my Aunt’s house for Christmas Eve pizza and chicken wings. I forgot how it wouldn’t be Christmas without the dysfunctional family banter (prescriptions…politics…Italy…heath insurance….wine) but it was a good laugh to be honest and I’m sure most families are the same.

Today is Christmas Day, one of my favourite days of the year. I had the pleasure to take part in the school Christmas service and loved re-reading the Christmas story as told in Luke. Sometimes we pass by important details such as the shepherds being ordinary people and they were the ones that first saw Jesus in the manger. Mary was a poor teenager from a small town and the Saviour of the world as born in a daughty stable. The three gifts that the Magi bring are very symbolic…gold for a King, frankincense was used by priests as they prayed to God and myrrh was an expensive spice, commonly used in burial. It’s a fantastic story!

I think though, the first Christmas would have been difficult and not the nice sweet Victorian Christmas imagine we imagine. But the other bits of Christmas (gifts, parties, eggnog, food, songs) are good fun as well. Sometimes also, we forget that Jesus didn’t STAY a baby, he grew up and died for us on the cross.

Not to be super clich`e, but I thought I would end on a thought that for me, Christmas isn’t the birth of another world religion. Or the opportunity to get the new games console. It’s God demonstrating his love for mankind and whilst other gifts are great, the gift of Jesus is the best gift of all.

This past week I have really felt God’s love. A few days ago I was in a bit of a scary car accident when my car slid on black ice and went through two fences, a tree, and a ditch. I wasn’t hurt at ALL (I had a bit of a sore shoulder, but after people prayed the pain totally went away!) but when the car went into a skid, everything went into slow motion so I had time to think, pray, and brace myself. I was pretty sure it wasn’t my time to go just yet, there’s so much to do with the young people still and I did want to see my family for Christmas but the car is a write-off sadly. When the police came, they told me a guy a year younger than me had died earlier in the night on the same road and I was lucky to be alive. But I know God watches over me (Psalm 121) and protects me and I wasn’t hurt at all, just a bit shaken up and in need of a cup of tea. At the end of the day, a car is a car…and at Christmas a gift is a gift. Sometimes they don’t even last very long (if its rubbish!) but this Christmas, pause for a bit and just think of the miracle that we celebrate today.

I really would like to go out and celebrate Christmas, but in the USA it seems most churches are CLOSED on Christmas Day (!?!) and I find Christmas Eve services difficult to go to (also, I didn’t arrive til after 7pm). As most people just go at Christmas, surely we might be missing an outreach opportunity here? Isn’t this the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth? I know people want to spend time with their families, etc but to be honest would it hurt ONE church out of thousands to be open? I think I’m just bitter and miss the UK tradition of ‘watchnight’ services at 11pm Christmas Eve followed by a Christmas Day service, I do like a good ol’ fashioned Christmas tradition!

United…Part II

So a few weeks ago, I visited a church and walked out of the church with the elderly organist. We had an interesting conversation that went something like this:

Me: I really enjoyed your organ playing today, you have a real gift for it.

Old Lady: I’m far too old to be playing the organ. Is that your car there?

Me: Yeah.

Old Lady: Tsk, tsk. I see you’ve parked in Alan’s space. No-one parks in Alan’s space. Since he died six months ago, that space has been empty. No one has the heart to park in it. His wife is still living, you know. (gets into car, drives away)

Me: (thinking to myself) Um…doesn’t look like he has any use for it now!

Now I wasn’t really put off by that, but I did feel rather gutted for two minutes. Suppose I had been a random visitor to that particular church…how awful would that have been?! I had noticed as I was running late to the church, that the cars had parked all in a row and left the very first space free. What a silly idea though…it’s a PARKING SPACE.

I know a lot of people moan about how there’s no young people in ‘the church’, but if things like this where people are so set in their ways still happen, how is there any attraction in that? One of the most revolutionary people I’ve met is an elderly woman named Catherine who is a grandmother and helps out with the youth group. She understands young people very well, is an amazing volunteer, and really hopes and prays for the church to be a bit more cutting edge and inclusive and she’s a good friend of mine. I think we need more people like her around. She’s really encouraged me certainly.

The church has never been spectacular at being inclusive. I know the ‘onekirk.org’ website is a good source-page from the CoS and details how the Church of Scotland is seeking to be progressive, affirming, and inclusive and I really support that. Whilst you can’t affirm everything (I don’t think so anyway), progression and inclusiveness is the way forward. Going off my previous blog, Jesus prayed that we would be ONE. We need to BE the CHANGE and make this happen…it’s one of my prayers for the New Year, to see and dream about how in my role, I can play a small part in helping something like this come together.

Ideally, I’d like to see churches that believe they are made up of imperfect people realising that through grace, God’s unmerited favour, we can be reconciled and made blameless in His eyes and have the BEST news ever to share with other folk, rather than a place where parking in a dead guy’s space will get you told off. I’d also like to see churches liase and work with other churches, like they do up here in the highlands, rather than churches that compete against each other. It would be amazing to recognise that the Church is alive and out there…and we are all one, united in Christ.

End of my rant on disunity

United.

After an 8-month hiatus I am back in the blogosphere after being encoraged to do so. I think at this more calmer part of the year I might have more time to devote to the blog and get some thoughts across. Life got hectic after April…I finished my course and graduated, travelled the USA/Canada/the Bahamas, mum and dad were over for a while…I moved out of Glasgow and now have a new job up in the rural highlands working with young people and so far I love it!

The project I work for is truly ecumenical…we’re supported by the Church of Scotland, the Episcopal (or ‘English Church’ as the locals call it) Church, the Roman-Catholic Church, the community, Salvation Army, etc all of whom have a heart to reach out to young people and provide them safe places to go to foster holistic development. It’s a fab job, I’m really blessed though rural villages are a change from the city centre and suburbs of Glasgow but everyone is very nice!

Being supported by so many different churches has been encouraging, and it sends out a good message to the young people I think, and this working together across deonominational boundries is something I sadly have not come across in such an extend before and I wish it was UK-wide…world-wide…instead of confined to a cluster of villages in the highlands of Scotland.

At the Bible study I go to on Monday nights, I was reminded that not all of Jesus’ prayers were answered. One huge prayer that he prayed that hasn’t been answered is this, after praying for his disciples, Jesus said: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17.20-23)

The scope of what could happen if people…if Christians…were united together is immense, heck we’d be unstoppable. But divisions have always existed in the Church. As we read through Corinthians, we realised that the Church in Corinth had serious issues…just five or so years after it came into being. So we’re not the first people to mess everything up, but maybe we can try to sort it out.

I went into a church of a particular denomination for the first time a few weeks ago and whilst I had a difficult time with the liturgy because I am not used to worshipping in that way, I was invited to take the Eucharist with everyone else (though I had to look right and left to see how it’s done! It was a bit nervewracking!) but I sensed that perhaps some people weren’t so keen on me taking part at one of the churches I was at…but it could have just been a feeling. One of the churches I found particularly interesting – the church had seven people in it that all sat in seperate pews and didn’t really speak afterwards and adhered strictly to their wee book…and chanted a few lines in the cold building (it was SO cold we could see our breath!) and that was it…I was at a second service in another building which was a bit more interactive and that was encouraging. All in all it was a very eye opening experience and I could see how young people wouldn’t fit in to that sort of church culture…heck I didn’t really fit in but I gave it a go. I couldn’t help but think…isn’t the church meant to be a bit more cutting-edge?

I think that’s what young people desire, while some embrace the mystic sense of the traditional worship patterns in some denominations, many seek a fresh experience without the jargon (as Paul also mentioned in 1 Corinthians). I have had a lot of criticism for this view…especially the ‘we can’t always cater to the young people’ view. I’m not saying we should! I don’t like the idea of youth church, people with more ‘life experience’ have so much to offer other generations. But we need to find a balance…obviously we won’t find a perfect church…if I found one I’d have to leave ‘cuz then it wouldn’t be perfect anymore…but if we unite together, reach out to the community not using jargon (or at least explain it), that would speak volumes. As Francis of Assisi is often quoted saying ‘ preach the gospel at all times and when nessesary, use words’ . If we stood together as the nine or so highland churches are doing…I really believe it could change the world. What do you think?

.::Ignatius::.

This week has brought lots of stuff including my final Annual Review & Assessment (which I passed!). Two girls from Arizona stayed here over the last weekend and it was fun travelling around Scotland a bit, especially to places I hadn’t been in a while like Loch Lomond. Spring is here and Easter is less than a week away! This week I am journeying to Belfast in Northen Ireland as well as Dublin in Eire for a few days and it should be good banter (or I think the Irish word would be ‘craic!’ I’m probably wrong though lol0.

Anyway the topic of this post is…youth workers! I’ve talked to a few over the past few years that maybe feel a bit out of place with young people or ‘not cool enough’ as a friend put it. I mean, I’m sure that thought has drifted through my head before but at the end of the day, I know I’m doing what God’s called me to do and it’s been a good experience overall, in fact quite the adventure!

I stumbled across this video however, about ‘Ignatius’, a fictional youth pastor. Well, maybe he’s not so fictional after all, after watching the video, I was reminded of a few people a bit like him, and some of the stuff that came up in the video, I’ve heard in real life. It’s really really good and well worth ten minutes to watch it (it goes by fast and is quite encouraging). We don’t need nice haircuts (ok, maybe I do sometimes haha, I don’t spent more than £15 ever – I promise), amazing technology, a Bible college degree, or cool clothes to be a ‘cool’ effective youth minister. We need a love and passion for young people, a desire to see them grow and develop into all that they can be and reach their full potential which includes discovering their identity in Christ. I think that there is a foundation for a great youth minister. There’s probably more to it, but I’m a bit tired right now, so I’ll leave you to watch the video, it’s really well done, and quite satirical. It reminded me slightly of ‘the office’.

So is this really off the mark? I found it quite hilarious – but a bit freaky as there are those type of people out there. Someone I know from Arizona recently remarked online that a pastor friend of his met with a highly influential youth minister / development guy to ask him a few questions over lunch and the fee for the consultation was to be nearly $8000 (approx £6500). I found that appalling (and I’m sure the pastor did too! I liked Ryan G’s comment about the minister putting a ‘Saddle’ on his ‘Back’ to ride him out into the ‘Fields’ if you get the joke…ICC people should anyway lol). Anyway, let’s be the change. As we are. As an ordinary messy person, the Ignatius video makes me feel much better! Hope you were encouraged too.

Lent & The Big Ten

This week I have had many thoughts. Some of the young people have been participating in Lent, but recently the idea of Lent has got on my nerves. A Catholic friend told me the point of lent is to give something up to focus on meditation and prayer, which I thought sounded like a good idea. But the young people in question had given up sweets/junk food, etc and really didn’t know why, and when they had a sweet by accident, remarked that God was displeased with them and they’d have to add two weeks onto lent. Also, apparently mints and fruit juice don’t count as sweets even though they have as much sugar as a chocolate bar or can of fizzy juice…

Earlier on, the topic of swearing came up. A young person claimed that there were only 3 Christians in his school and I challenged him on that, as I know of more than that. But he said “they’re not real Chrsitians because the swear”. That s**^3&£”&!!!! Fair enough swearing probably isn’t the best witness or whatever, but I know heaps of Christians who swear (though I’ve been better about it lol).

So I decided to tie some grace into Sunday’s message. I asked what rules Christians need to follow. Some of the top answers were:

-Follow the 10 commandments
-Read your Bible every day
- Pray and do a ‘devotional’ every day (or more)
- Go to church every week
-Don’t swear

This sounded like a set of rules to me. So many Christians harp on the “it’s not a religion, its about a relationship” but these things certainly sound like a set of rules to me. Throughout my Christian life (6 years) I have heard so many sermons on following the 10 commandments. When people are struggling with sin, more law seems to be preached in the organised church, not grace and the fact that we are forgiven. In my talk, I stressed the importance of motivation behind what we do. Like do we need to do good deeds and address sin in our life? I would say yes, but not to ‘please God’ but because we ‘love God’, there’s a huge difference there! I was reading through a book at our grace book study tonight and we had a great discussion, I felt really challenged on this thing about the 10 Commandments and the Law.

Do we need to follow the Ten Commandments? Are they relevant?

I would say they are definately relevant – but perhaps not in the way that the organised church preaches them. The Law (including the 10 Commandments) shows us how we can’t reach God’s standards, it’s what the Bible calls the ‘ministry of death’ in 2 Corinthians 3.7 and while that Law is glorious in sentencing people, the finished work of Christ is more glorious and liberating. Jesus fulfilled the Law. There’s a NEW covenant. So why are we still living under the old (unless we’ve become Jewish? If that’s the case we should start celebrating passover, wearing hats, circumcising, etc…).? When the Law was given, 3000 people died at Mt Sinai. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, 3000 people were saved. I think we need to filter the 10 Commandments through the Cross and Jesus gave us two ‘new commandments’, being Love God, and love our neighbour as ourself.

So the ten commandments show us our need for a saviour then…so do we need to preach that we must ‘obey the big ten?’. I think they are great rules, but impossible to follow, Jesus set the bar higher on three of them.

This bothered me, because this changes everything I’ve been told and taught. We sang a song at camp last year called ‘10 Rules, 1 God’. I memorised the ten commandments, I’ve spoken about them.

This grace stuff seems too easy, it could give people a licence to sin. But have they really experienced all the forgiveness entails if they use that as a licence to sin? Maybe not, but these people don’t need more Law, they need more forgiveness preached. Jesus’s work is finished. Why are we still acting and instructing people on what to do to please God? He loves us and has accepted us. Sure I think he could get disappointed in us, but it doesn’t change the fact he loves us.

Maybe this is why so many in the church are sad/depressed a lot? That’s what Joseph Prince writes anyway. This New Covenant is LIBERATING, it sets us free, Jesus has fulfilled the law. The church in the United Kingdom (and the USA and the world) needs this message, I’m sure it would attarct thousands because its what people need, what Jesus died for, to set people free, not bind them to the Ten Commandments and Mosaic Law!

Eating sweets or a piece of junk food during Lent isn’t going to piss God off.

I mean, I could be a heretic (get the stake ready lol), what do you guys think? Is this a new way of thinking all together? I think if I go back to the US I’ll be labelled as a liberal for thinking outside the box in some circles Anyway, give 2 Corinthains, Chapt. 3 a read.

I’ve been challenged, and changed.

I feel liberated.

How about you?

…Thinking…

Today I had the pleasure of leading the youth work seminar group at college. The topic I chose to discuss centred around the implications of teaching young people to think critically about theological issues. I feel that God’s given us a brain, why don’t we use it? So often in church, I see people who listen to a sermon, nod their head, and leave…forgetting the sermon and not thinking or interacting with it. I don’t approach a sermon from a stance of attack, but I do interact with it and think through the issues raised and how the minister came to the conclusion.

Using an example: The Bible doesn’t specifically state “don’t do cocaine” or “don’t have sex before marriage”, in those terms, though many people claim that it does. When people find out it doesn’t, it rocks the boat a wee bit. We know these things are not desirable for God’s people because of what the Bible has to say in other areas and the conclusion is the same but the process of getting to that conclusion is different.

When I do lessons at church, I strive to have the young people think about the issues for themselves. Often I will give them my opinion on grey-area issues, and verses from the Bible and let them make up their own minds. But some may respond better to being told something. What do you think?

A tragic example occured on a programme BBC3 aired last week entitled ‘Deborah 13: Servant of God’. This television programme was about a 13 year old girl named Deborah who lived with her family in a rural part of England. The family were close knit, she had little interaction with the community around her, but she was clearly zealous about her faith. The tragedy was, she never thought through things theologically and came across as being indoctrinated by her parents. She did not know anything about culture and was so starkly different it seemed she was from another planet. The family’s idea of summer holiday was going to a caravan park near the beach and doing puppet shows for the children on holiday there…about Judgement Day! They encouraged 4-year olds to “think about all the bad stuff they did” during the night. Deborah went to Buxton to visit her brother at university and ended up at a party, but couldn’t communicate the Gospel in a culturally relevant way, instead sticking to her main point that a white lie would condemn people to Hell. In a postmodern British context, people are fine with others having faith or no faith, but to put it across in a way Deborah did may have worked a century ago, but will no longer thankfully.

At the party, the way she came across w was really offputting for most, though two girls wanted to discuss things further. My problem with Deborah is that though she was a sweet girl, she was speaking a language people didn’t understand and accepted everything that was said to her by her parents without thinking about the issues. She was socially incapable of having a normal conversation without trying to make people realise they were Hell-bound for lying and didn’t respect where they came from. While Deborah is not a mainstream Christian (her parents belonged to a sect where they ‘bless the womb’ and have loads of kids and she borders on fundamentalist) and she was homeschooled, the documentary was facinating, and she was British, not American as people presume when they hear her story. Check it out on BBCi Player: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j6l77/Deborah_13_Servant_of_God/

So can we communicate the Gospel in a culturally relevant way allowing people to think for themselves without diluting its message and urgecncy? What are some ways we can do that? And…is it important to teach young people to think theologically? Discuss!

Hello world!

Hello World!

So…I’m back in the blogosphere and I am really excited about this new venture. I couldn’t really think of a reason to blog (just like I can’t think of a good reason to use my Twitter account) but this blog will focus on my random life and all things youthwork, so please feel free to interact and comment on my musings, I want the blog to be informal and participatory!