Life is a journey, so come for a ride OnMeBus. We will be stopping off at thoughts, reflections, distractions etc. about youthwork, God, bus driving (or perhaps more to the point running a bus based youth project.) and anything else that grabs my attention. Next stop?
Not me, well not exactly although I have been listening to Riding with the King quite a lot recently, but I’m actually talking about Simon Faulks, not me the other me. A few years ago due to a mix up with changing email addresses around the same time I discovered another Simon Faulks, although we have never met we have contacted each other a few times, like me the other SF is also a Christian, he is also a very talented Blues musician, I recently found his page on Myspace which has some examples of his music, if you like blues that go and have a listen.
For those of you that are using wordpress then have you discovered wp-pda? This is a great new plugin that checks the software that is browsing you site, if it is a pda then it will adjust alter the style to a pda friendly format thus making you blog readable on handheld devices, it works really well and I would highly recommend it.
I was preaching yesterday on John 14, I thought seeing as I rarely have anything particularly spiritual on here and I would share with you the key point I was getting at.
Looking at verse 7 Jesus says “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well” Philip hasn’t quite got the grasp of things and asks (Verse 8 ) “Lord, show us the Father”. In answering Philip Jesus says to the disciples (Verse 10) “I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” The point here is that those who follow Jesus will know the Father because of the likeness between them, in the same way that you can spot that some people are related because of the likeness, although that is often a physical likeness here it is talking more about a personal likeness, the thing Jesus does and the way he does them are like his Father.
Going on then to look at Verse 20 “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” If we would recognise the Father because of the likeness of him we see in Jesus because Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him. Then we read about us being in Jesus and him being in us then surely our lives should lead people to know something of the person of Christ. In other words the way we live our lives, the way we treat others, the way we talk to others we should be reflecting Christ, it should be Jesus working through us that speaks the words, we should be doing what, we see Christ doing, we should be concerned about the things Christ is concerned about. So the conclusion then is that when people look at us and our lives who do they see? Yes they see us for who we are but if they saw Jesus would they recognise that likeness between us and what we do and what he does?
(all quotes taken from the NIV via the BibleGateway.com)
Very sorry about that, if you’ve tried to look at the blog recently I have just found out that I had broken it, it is however now fixed again, as an apology please enjoy the video below.
This week myself and my colleague from the Baptist Church are taking assemblies in the local secondary school, Monday was cancelled due to exams, so yesterday was our first one. The theme we have is peer pressure, we start the assembly with me being hand cuffed and talking about how pear pressure can trap us and that whilst sometimes it can be good quite often peer pressure is a negative influence as I talk about this Stephen (my Colleague) pokes me with a stick while suggesting several things I might like to do, all good fun (for him). The idea is that I then talk about the need to break free from peer pressure, however yesterday I failed to get out of the cuffs, I don’t know why I just could not get out and in the end had to get the keys out of my pocket (not easy with hands cuffed behind back and keys in front pocket) and then get Stephen to let me out. This morning I practiced a couple of times before the assembly to make sure it didn’t happen again. WE arrived at the school and went through to the hall to wait as usual but no-one turned up, we got up to leave and discovered that the hall we had walked through to get to the gym where we do our assemblies was being used for a different year group assembly so we couldn’t get out that way. The only trouble is that was the only way through to the gym block without going out of the building, but because no one had come into the block yet the other exits from the block were still locked Trapped again! We eventually got rescued when a PE teacher turned up.
This week, the theme of the week for my sons class is clowns, so yesterday afternoon I went in to talk to them a little bit about the history of Clowning and do some clowning for them. I personally am more of a Jester than a clown, although to be awkward I refer to myself as a fool (yes I know thank you for that!) But like a Jester I tend not to paint my face (this is for 2 reasons,1. I am lazy 2. a painted face can be quite scary for little children). However my performances tie in a bit of clowning, a bit of illusion maybe some balloons etc. So yesterday I talked with them a little bit about the history of clowning and the different types of clowns. I showed them some of the props I use, including stilt trousers and several of my hats + wigs etc, did some juggling a couple of little magic tricks and then got a couple of them to come up and have a go at making balloon dogs. It all went very well, I had a great time and I think they did too, I finished up by making about 30 balloon dogs in around 20 mins so they all had one to take home while they tided up ready for story time and did some work sheets I had prepared getting them to think up their own clown names and design their own clown faces.
I have to say it was such good fun I think it is something o could offer more widely if I had the time to do it!
Thought it was about time to write something about Matrix.
A great time, really good to catch up with friends like agent K (will she keep up the promise to start blogging again?), the Good doctor, the newly renamed hobnob, Holy Phil & Little Alice, along with so many other friends old and new, on which point I should also include Pete as another blogger who was there!
We had some great keynote speakers on The youthworker as… Theologian, Leader, Missionary & Prophet all fantastic. Then there were the workshops, I attended one on extended schools which was very helpful being involved in the local response to this government initiative. Another one on Career or Calling with some great discussion and the last one I did was Creative Technology or ‘Can blogging serve youth ministry’ looking at blogging and social networking and run by Mr Youthblog himself.
Matrix is great, if you’ve not been, go next time, if you are involved in Christian youth work no other conference (that I have been to at least) can match it in terms of quality of content and networking.
Thank you to all those involved in organising the event and to all those who come and make it such a great few days. I was hoping some of those linked to above would have published some great notes from some of the talks but this hasn’t happened so far but there are of course other reflections on the last few days, I guess you’ve missed out by not being there, there is some stuff on the Amaze site though so you could check that out.
For now though see you later!
A few weeks ago I mentioned that it was two years since my first ever blog post. OnMeBus started while at a conference called Matrix, a professional youth work conference held biannually at High Leigh Conference Centre in Hoddesdon. So it is good to be able to post again from that same conference. Now just over half way through it has been a couple of great days so far. Some good teaching and discussions going on which has been great, but so has the networking, spending time with friends, catching up with old friends not seen for some time, making new friends and sharing thoughts and ideas, fantastic. If you want to get an overview of some of the stuff going on then take a look at Youthblog, there is no point in me trying to repeat stuff here. Just to finish though I will leave with this image, the view from my room that greats me when I open my curtain.
Just been reading through a drama script one of my volunteers has written for our pathfinder led service on Sunday, we are doing the story of Lazarus and retelling the story through 4 short dramas. The dramas have been written in a modern context and it just struck me and made me laugh when I got to the bit that read
Do you have any spades? Let’s dig him up.
But I suppose that is the equivalent of what Jesus was saying when he asked them to ‘roll the stone away’. I don’t know why but I had never thought of it like that before, it never seamed that bad Jesus asking them to roll the stone away but how would we react if we had just buried a relative a few days ago and then Jesus comes along and says “get the spades lets dig them up? Would we have the faith to do it?
I actually recorded the video below yesterday, so the yesterday I refer to in the video was in fact Tuesday not Wednesday but hey. You will find two relevant links below the video.
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This week myself and my colleague from the Baptist Church are taking assemblies in the local secondary school, Monday was cancelled due to exams, so yesterday was our first one. The theme we have is peer pressure, we start the assembly with me being hand cuffed and talking about how pear pressure can trap us and that whilst sometimes it can be good quite often peer pressure is a negative influence as I talk about this Stephen (my Colleague) pokes me with a stick while suggesting several things I might like to do, all good fun (for him). The idea is that I then talk about the need to break free from peer pressure, however yesterday I failed to get out of the cuffs, I don’t know why I just could not get out and in the end had to get the keys out of my pocket (not easy with hands cuffed behind back and keys in front pocket) and then get Stephen to let me out. This morning I practiced a couple of times before the assembly to make sure it didn’t happen again. WE arrived at the school and went through to the hall to wait as usual but no-one turned up, we got up to leave and discovered that the hall we had walked through to get to the gym where we do our assemblies was being used for a different year group assembly so we couldn’t get out that way. The only trouble is that was the only way through to the gym block without going out of the building, but because no one had come into the block yet the other exits from the block were still locked Trapped again! We eventually got rescued when a PE teacher turned up.
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