Sunday, 29 November 2009
The Sun says the government has banned the internal use of the word youth. I blame the young people workers.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
A great interview about the difference between living by law or living by grace.
The gospel isn't "Follow Jesus' example" or "Transform your life" or "How to raise good children." The gospel is: Jesus Christ came to save sinners--even bad parents, even lousy followers of Jesus, which we all are on our best days. All of the emphasis falls on "What would Jesus do?" rather than "What has Jesus done?"
Also worth reading for the Luther quote halfway down.
Monday, 23 November 2009
John Piper's on some aspects of how to do Muslim and Christian interfaith dialogue.
we Christians can look with love and good will, and even tender-hearted compassion, into the eyes of a Muslim and say: I do not believe you know God or honor God or love God. I hope through our conversation that you will see the truth and beauty of Christ-crucified and risen for the sins of everyone who trusts him.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
If you're looking for what's happening at youthwork the conference by reading about on Twitter then you're going to be thoroughly disappointed. That said Chris Johnson is doing the best job with the medium, or you can follow the sometimes used #ywc2009 hashtag.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
All recipes should be as simple as this one for cheating at puff pastry or they're wrong. (Youth work suggestion, young people like pies, maybe you could make pie as an ice breaker? Maybe you could ask everyone what there favourite sort of pie is? Maybe you could play Chubby Bunny's with pies?)
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Mate,
I'm not quite sure how it's happened, but I've been asked to pray at Steve and Melinda's wedding on Saturday, don't think they know I'm not a Christian and it's too late to tell them. You're a Christian though so maybe could you give me a good idea on how to fake it?
Dave.
Dave,
Well, I'm not sure how good an idea faking a prayer is but if you're determined to, here's some basic advice:
- When Christians pray, they pray to God as a loving Father. So try to imagine God as a loving Father.
- God has promised to listen and answer prayers, however that may be.
- Jesus secures us God's favour, so he always wants the best for us and works things out for our good. He's very generous.
- It's not the length of your prayers that matter.
Hope that helps,
Frank
Frank,
Alright, here's my best effort (don't mock!).
Father, you know how you love me and Steve and Christine? Well, because you love them so much and can do anything, can you give them a happy marriage? I know you're listening and I know you want to. Thanks Dad.
Dave
Dave,
Okay, that's a good start I guess, but I probably should have been clearer. When I say, pray to God as Father I didn't quite mean like he was your actual Dad. I mean, He is still God after all, so some distance is appropriate. Also, people generally avoid asking God for things directly in prayer, I know I said He answers all prayers, but just in case he doesn't it's good to indirectly ask, so say things like "I ask that you'll give me..." or "we pray that you'll" instead of "give me...". Obviously God does answers all prayers, but it's not quite that simple, and you don't want to seem rude when you ask God for stuff. And you might want to try making it longer... Again, I probably should have been clearer, it's not that longer is better, but you can get more in that way. Sorry, should have been clearer the first time around, hope that helps.
Frank
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Which is when my friend proclaimed, "What am I supposed to do swivel? In that moment, as they lean in for a hug, should I just turn, lightning fast and offer them a side hug? 'Go ahead, let it out fella, go ahead and cry on my hip.'"
Oh so this is such an American list but it is very funny.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Mark Oestreicher is blogging again. Mostly because he thought of a great name for his new website I reckon.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
From 2011 parents will lose the right to pull their children out of school taught sex education lessons. And that's news to panic over according to the tabloids. I'm no schools work expert, or even practitioner, so I don't quite know how significant these changes are. What's important to recognise though, is that just because it's on the curriculum doesn't mean it's actually taught, especially when it comes to things like PSHE which is often relegated because no teacher really wants to do it. The BBC article does have a helpful breakdown of what should be taught at what ages.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
I've just created a UK youth ministry Twitter list and apart from the joy of now curating the most niche Twitter list on the planet (until I create the UK people in youth ministry who don't like Dr Who Twitter list) it's quite useful for seeing what (if anything) is going on in the world of youth ministry and youth minister's heads. Its scope is deliberately quite tight to make it useful, it's limited to people spending a large proportion of their time in explicitly Christian youth work in the United Kingdom, or organisations who are solely doing explicitly Christian youth work. It doesn't matter what you write about, because as said its purpose is as much to see what's going on with youth ministers as it is their ministry. Any suggestions let me know via @sparticus twitter
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
If you want to know what youth ministers across the world hold dear as aims for their young people here are some cold hard facts about the seven most popular aims. All encouraging stuff.
