The Grove Is On Fire

John Owen at the City Rescue Mission

2010-03-03T13:44:19Z

An interview with someone doing mission and outreach in an inner city that mentions John Owen? If I didn't link to this, I'd probably have to tend my resignation.

Framing a Gospel Centered Youth Ministry

2010-02-25T23:31:26Z

And speaking of gospel-centred youth work and Google, here's a random church document explain their way of doing church youth ministry based on the Gospel (pdf). I'm not sure I agree with the definition of teenagers in the third point, but it doesn't detract from the rest of the stuff, which is fascinating. It's from Sojourn Community Church, who if I remember rightly are one of those new hip gospel American churches we get all excited about over here.

Bible Centred Youth Work

2010-02-25T23:01:23Z

In a hapstance of googling earlier I found this website is second in result when you search for Bible Centred Youth Worker in the world's least evil search engine. Which is peculiar, because lately I've come to realise I hate the phrase. Someone, somewhere else, said something¹ along the lines of "the reason we say gospel-centred not Christ-centred is because a Christ without the gospel will crush you" and I want that to be known about the phrase Bible Centred too. A youth ministry that runs off the Bible but skips over the gospel will just crush you and your young people. Obviously if you got the Bible properly you'd get that it teaches you the gospel, just as obviously you couldn't get Christ properly without the gospel, and so this isn't a slating of people who use those terms, but we're dumb as humans, and we find methods of teaching the Bible so we ignore the gospel and pander to our pride and arrogance, and find ourselves teaching of a mythical Christ who has not done quite enough to save us.

¹ Google failed me on this one.

Voodoo, Crack, and Haiti

2010-02-21T22:37:49Z

I love the BBC and all, and the BBC News website and it's sport sibling are probably my two most read websites, but I'm slightly worried for them lately, as they seemed to have starting smoking crack. Voodoo: What Haiti Needs More Of is not the title of this unhinged article, but it could well be. I'm as exciting by the idea of reading about a religion popularly associated with stabbing puppets and zombies as the next person¹ so I can see why it exists, but really? Skipping over the spirit prophecy introduction, the gist of the article seems to be that while Voodoo and its followers has done jack all after the earthquake and Christianity seems to have not only been the basis of a lot of foreign aid but also been the way a large number of Haitians themselves have chosen to respond, Haiti's emotional and spiritual need would be better met by turning to Voodoo. Obvious conclusion. It does leave you wondering why Voodoo hasn't stepped up to the plate. Don't worry though this is not Voodoo's fault, but rather prejudice from Christians —especially the evangelical— ones preventing them even going near the plate. They're probably insisting they play a real sport or something. I would rant on about the liberal catholic priest, the ineffectualness of trying to propitiate gods who don't care or exist, or about the state of the West where we patronise foreign countries for deciding to follow Christianity, but I've lost all fire to do so. If you want to read about the Christians' in Haiti response to the earthquake Marko has some good words.

¹ More so actually. Religion? Check. Zombies? Check. Puppets and stabbing? I'm a Christian youth worker living in London. That's a session plan.

Asborometer

2010-02-21T21:40:58Z

Some clever clogs has produced an iPhone (and other phones, but who cares about them) app which "measures levels of anti-social behaviour at your current location" called ASBORometer. It's worth mentioning for three reasons:

It demonstrates the ongoing public fascination with anti-social behaviour orders. Part of this is probably the perception that people are ruder and care less for their neighbour than years gone by, and we don't really know what to do about it. That anti-social behaviour is a crime and that there is an order to try and prevent this demonstrates these points.
It demonstrates how silly statistics are. So your area has a proportionally higher number of anti-social behaviour orders? So what. Maybe the police think ASBOs are a good deterrent in your area. Maybe the police think they aren't in other areas. Part of this application is a rating of how bad your area is based on people's perceptions. What does that even mean? If a retirement estate rises up and complains about the four or five houses in the area who are being too noisy is that worse than the estate in central London where no-one complains about anti-social behaviour because on that survey instead of ticking the box saying "I'm afraid of anti-social behaviour" they ticked the box saying "I'm afraid of being shanked".
This app can only exist because of data.gov.uk an exciting new-ish development in which the government takes public data and puts it online in a machine accessible format. If you've ever spoken to me in a pub I may have ranted about why the government should be doing this. They now are. It's good news for all sorts of reasons. Though the first application someone should design with it is an application that lets you helpfully browse the other applications.

Obama, the Democrats and Homosexuals...Oh my!

2010-02-17T00:41:56Z

Saved for when the general election rolls around.

How Not To Attack Christians Moronically Because You Think There Might Be A Trace Of Legalism In Their System

2010-02-12T14:33:58Z

Actually, the post is headlined How to Serve Christians Who Are Needlessly Restrictive but I find I do this sort of thing all the time not just to people who live lives of legalism but to people who are far more godly than I am. Probably worth reading even if you're not a jerk though.

Talks and Seminars From The Bible-Centred Youthworker 2010

2010-02-12T10:24:39Z

Are now up online for download.

Everyday Justification

2010-02-10T13:06:10Z

On bringing home the realities of justification to our lives now:

Many of us are confident we'll be justified on the last day - acquitted before God through the death of Jesus. But what about justification today and tomorrow? Are you still trying to prove yourself?

Qualifications For Youth Workers

2010-02-08T20:59:57Z

As I look on at the various different means of training and accrediting Christian youth ministers in this country, I despair at how little there is to offer, and how little of that is of a high standard. And more than even that, I see how much work youth workers are already doing and how much experience they already have and yet how few formal qualifications they have gained, and I thought, here is a problem that needs fixing. And so I have. I'd like to introduce you to the new The Grove Is On Fire accreditation system. If you've done enough to reach the level of the badge you can claim that badge for yourself by printing it off and keeping it in the big pile of paper you have sitting on your desk that you're meant to sort out. You can even stick it on your wall to remind your boss how talented you are, or on your updated CV when he forgets. If you get enough badges of a certain sort you can unlock certain privileges such as free coffee from your local coffee shop, a replacement phone when a young person breaks yours, or a three month extension on your first aid certificate. Here is a sample badge:

Taken the Bus

Bronze

You've taken a bus journey with some young people
You've persuaded 1 young person to put his seatbelt on
You have counted the young people onto the bus
You haven't killed any of them by the end of it

Silver

You've unlocked the previous level of the award
You've taken 5 bus journeys with some young people
You've navigated at least 2 bus journeys with some young people
You've had to separate some young people to avoid conflict
You've had to authorise an emergency toilet stop
You've been in the bus while the heating OR air conditioning doesn't work

Gold

You've unlocked the previous level of the award
You've taken 20 bus journeys with some young people
You've driven at least 5 bus journeys with some young people
You've had to authorise the bus turning around and driving back for someone
You've had to deal with a breakdown of the bus for longer than twenty-five minutes
You've had to clear vomit out of the bus

Over the next few weeks, months, and whenever I remember tos, we'll be issuing new badges and announcing special achievements that'll be sure to prove your worth to your local funders.

Is There a Jihadist in Your Church Nursery?

2010-02-01T21:39:01Z

Of course, in this country we'd say; is there an Islamic terrorist in your church crèche?

Anti-Social Behaviour

2010-01-29T19:36:22Z

In this last month both Frank Dobson (MP, Labour, Right Honourable) and George Lee (Candidate, Conservative, Subject of Cringe-worthy Media Campaign) have sent pre-election letters to my house, both accompanied by surveys asking us to list what is wrong with our area. Both of them single out anti-social behaviour as an ill of society, George Lee going as far to list it as one of the options to choose when I pick my top five most feared crimes. I'm slightly worried by this trend, partly as a youth worker, considerably as a Christian, but mostly as a very anti-social person. If the next government –whoeverthatis– is going to criminalise anti-social behaviour even further then I need to start cutting out the following behaviours:

Checking Twitter on my phone over dinner.
Only speaking to people I already know at a party.
Avoiding making conversation with people in queues.
Not always having a shower in the morning.
Singing out of tune.
Flagging a bus down when you're the only person at the stop, getting on it, realising you've not topped up your Oyster card, and getting off it again.
Not following who's still in Britain's Got Talent and X-Factor.

Bible-Centred Youth Worker Conference 2010

2010-01-27T18:01:54Z

Should have mentioned this at the start of the week but I'm currently away at the Bible-Centred Youth Worker Conference. Hopefully lots of holy stuff to follow but so far the most telling moment on who's at this conference; when on the first night the leader said "and now we're going to turn to God" an even split of people lent forward to pray, picked up their bibles, or got themselves ready to stand and sing.

Teenage girl: Alpha has 'cult element'

2010-01-16T17:14:01Z

So a teenager from an unnamed school wrote in her school magazine on her concerns with the Alpha course in her school. Two thoughts; first, large parts of Britian find the idea of trying to persaude someone else that Christianity is true outrightly wrong. The second is that we still generally have freedom to disagree publically on these matters.

E-Mail Feedback

2010-01-15T14:00:35Z

It's been drawn to my attention that I'm a complete and utter moron. On an unrelated note, it's also been pointed out that untill recently any e-mail sent to me from the address given on the about page failed. Fairly poor there. So if you sent me an e-mail in the last few weeks via there, send it again, through the now all working, all singing, all standing in the corner of a room while everyone else dances, . Or don't. Whatever.