Currently trying to develop a policy for using Social networking as a youth work tool, thinking about issues of the balance between meeting young people where they are and endorsing the use of particular networks, how much time? Can you measure the impact? I tend to work to a personal policy of I don’t add young people, I let them know I am there and will accept friendship invites from them but I don’t invite them myself. Do you have a policy? If so can I see a copy please, if you don’t but are working on similar things can we share ideas? If you weren’t even thinking about it but you’ve suddenly thought “if I were to produce some sort of policy I would include this” please share your ideas.
Many thanks
Simo

written by Simo

Last week we had the APCM at church, I had been waiting for this before I felt I could say too much about my thinking on the blog, but now the info is out with that annual report it all become a little easer as it is out there in the public domain anyway.

When I first arrived in Faringdon I was on a three year contract which was then extended for a further two years, this takes my contract until end of July 2009 but for the last year or so I have started thinking about what is next for me. Come that date next year I will have been in full time Church based Youth Ministry for 10 years (all bar a month) and I feel that perhaps I should be heading in a slightly different direction. As many of you probably know I feel passionately about Youth Work in rural churches, I have been frustrated by the focus on Urban Priority areas, not because I begrudge a focus on them but because I have been aware of a need in rural areas that seams to have been overlooked. (There is also a slight sense of irony here as the rural population of Britain is growing faster that any other!)

So I have had this vision for several years to set up a charity (called Not Ashamed, based on Romans 1:16 (I love that verse!) hence my owning the domain notashamed.co.uk) to ‘encourage, enable and equip good quality Youth Work in and through rural Churches’.

At Soul Survivor last year I went to a seminar by Bishop Graham & Jackie Cray called Getting Collard, obviously about ordination, this is again an idea that has been with me for quite some time, and something that had been suggested when thinking and talking about my vision as well. This has started much thinking and praying and as a result I feel I am being called to ordained ministry and that somehow this fits with the Vision, I don’t know how it all fits together, but I truly believe this is where God is calling me at the moment. As a part of this process I have an appointment with the DDO (Diocesan Director of Ordinands) on the 23^rd May to help start the process of exploring this calling.

At the same time as all this I am also looking around at what other jobs are around, I don’t know about you but it seams to me there is no one place to look for jobs in youth ministry, there seam to be several and not one that has all

I thought it might be helpful to have a list of places to look for ministry jobs and so at the bottom of this post is what I have got so far and I am sure there are several I have missed, especially any outside of the Anglican church, if you know of others please let me know and I’ll add them.

In the mean time I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as I look to what the future holds for me and my family.

job search monitor

church of England newspaper

churchtimes

cross rhythms

written by Simo

This is a post comes out of some thoughts that have been going through my head for a while. The question is do we at the more evangelical end of the Anglican spectrum miss out on some of the spirituality of those at the higher end? I guess it really got me thinking about it a few weeks ago at Depth (see last post) we had an interesting brief discussion about saying the Grace together, some keep their eyes closed while others look around, but also those from the higher church make the sign of the cross as they say it, but what is the significance in the making the sign of the cross, why do those from a higher church background do it and why do we from a more evangelical background not? Is it outdated symbolism or is it a spiritual discipline that helps focus? I suppose this has also come up as I have been talking with my mentor, the other day he was talking about saying the ‘Daily Office’ a regular prayer pattern that exists in many branches of the church, there are several versions and each often has a Morning, Noon & Evening form. Many of these come from the more traditional denominations, and they are often used in monastic type communities. I have been trying to use the daily office and looking at few different forms online, I have  been using a version from the Northumbria community (along with one from common worship online) which starts with a time of silence followed by the words “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen” and it suggests making the sign of the cross as you do it. I have only used it a few times so far and have made the sign as I say it (although despite being in an office all by myself I have found myself doing it quite shyly and discretely) and there is something about it, it fits, it feels like it belongs. So why do some do it and others not? Are there other symbolisms like this that we don’t do? Is there room to explore some of these traditions within the evangelical church? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and feedback.

written by Simo

Had a couple of days away on retreat this week, depth was organised by our Diocesan youth & Children’s advisers. We were just 4 miles down the road from home which made it convenient, just 13 of us there (plus the two leaders) but this was really good as we had a chance to chat to everyone and felt you got to know everyone a bit, as well as having the opportunity to catch up with good friends. The two days were a good mix of input (which was optional) and space to think, reflect, chat, read & pray. It was fantastic and very thought provoking and challenging but in a really good helpful way. The time was spent reflecting upon how things around us, our culture, is changing and looking at how we as youth and children’s work practitioners respond to that in our lives and ministry. Of course there were some really deep questions that were raised like were there fish on the ark? And as for the prayer shack, we established that it is 15 miles down the road from a faded sign!

Thank you to Ian and Yvonne and doing all the work in putting the event on, the team at windmill Farm for their hospitality and fantastic food, the belt is now one hole looser!  And to everyone else who was there and part of it for being just that!

written by Simo

As part of going through a course in our church at the moment I have a regular meeting with a mentor (which is absolutely fantastic and we even spend some time talking about things to do with the course), My mentor is a retired clergyman, with great wisdom and I find it really helpful to talk with him about all kinds of issues surrounding my ministry and where it’s future lies as well as the specifics of the course, (in many respects I suppose the future stuff is linked).

Anyway this week we got to talking a little about the image of the church, I guess for several years now the church has had a reputation for being an outdated institution, I remember someone saying a few years ago (can’t remember who) “the church is a organisation for old ladies run by middle aged men” and I guess I can see the argument, for many who don’t attend our churches it does have a reputation of not having changed much in the last 150 years or so. Perhaps another part of the problem is that many people don’t distinguish between the Church and being a Christian, leading to an idea of “if you are a Christian then you are everything that my idea of church is” and looking at the media’s portal of Christians and the church in recent years we have ‘Christian characters’ from the telly like Dot Cotton who I would say is not a great advert, the Vicar of Dibley perhaps slightly better, in that it put a normal human face that people can relate to in the church. Then you go on to look at the news and the church suddenly becomes a place full of child molesters and homophobes. Even from within the church at the moment we seem to be full of infighting and disagreement.

It’s time for a change, lets look to Jesus, as for the infighting, yes we all interpret different parts of the bible differently, but lets face it, as confident as we maybe in our own interpretation somewhere we have probably all got it wrong, I am looking forward to getting to heaven and finding out where I was wrong! No matter how right we are, “let those who are without sin cast the first stone”, and I don’t recall “love your neighbour” having a clause about “so long as they agree with you”. If we are the body of Christ lets celebrate our common ground, love one another and get on with the job of serving him, yes lets discuss the areas where we disagree, but not let it stop us from serving and loving one another. Surly the image the church needs to be displaying is one of compassion, one of concern for our communities, their individual members and our world. One of the phrases I have heard a few times recently is about the gospel being for the Last, the least and the lost, I also remember Mike Yaconelli speaking at Greenbelt (probably back in the late 80’s) and talking about the church is the only organisation that exists for it’s non members, and yet these are the people we are putting off. it’s time we stopped casting stones and started loving and forgiving. it’s time to improve our image and become more Christ like.

written by Simo

Where do you go, and who do you talk to when you are thinking about your future, your career or ministry etc, the big decisions?

As most of you have probably worked out by now these are the kind of questions going round in my mind at the moment.

The other evening we were round at some friends, sitting around chatting, eating while the kids were playing upstairs (we had fed them as well!) and we had a Wii going with a brain quiz kind of thing on. One of the things you could do on this game was a series of personal tests and it would give you some interpretations as to your strengths and weaknesses etc and then give you an ideal career. All a bit of fun and those that had done it some of the results were quite funny. So I had a go and the conclusion was I should be a photographer, now I have to admit there have been times when this idea has crossed my mind recently so it seemed rather bizarre that this is what the Wii also suggested. However I’m not sure this is where God is calling and as tempting a proposition as it may be in some respects I believe the calling from above should probably take a higher priority than a Wii but it did make me laugh.

written by Simo

I am trying to read a book, for those of you that read regularly (well in so far as I write regularly) you will know that I�m not very good at reading books but I am trying, I saw this one I a shop a few months ago and really wanted to read it. It�s part of the mission-shaped series, called mission-shaped but rural, it�s bizarrely written (no that sounds wrong but it will make sense) by Sally Gaze who is the Team Rector of the Tas Valley Benefice (that�s the bizarre bit as this is right next to the benefice in which I grew up in Norfolk).
Anyway to the point a couple of weeks ago I came across this quote (which actually comes from Tim Dearborn in his book �Beyond Duty: A passion for Christ, a heart for mission� and is then quoted in the original Mission-shaped church document.):-

“it’s not the Church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world�”

Since reading the quote I can�t get it out of my head. It seams to me (and this is the context in which the book is talking also) that as church when we think of the word mission it�s about reaching out into our communities or wherever it maybe to bring people into the church, the mission of the church is to bring people into itself. This quote challenges that perception and idea, when we look back to the New Testament, Jesus didn�t invent church to bring people into, church was what that came out of His ministry, a gathering of like minded people a community built up of people touched by His message. One of the biggest stumbling blocks I think many people I meet seem to have with Christianity is the church, the church is the portrayed image of what Christianity is and for many it�s an image that is out dated, in some cases severely outdated. So what then is the difference between these two outlooks? In the first situation the emphasis is upon the church, the church needs to be reaching out and bringing people in. The second situation is about bringing people into the Kingdom of God, bringing people into a relationship with God. Our mission should be God led not church led. Church then becomes a response to our relationship with God rather than our relationship with God becoming a response to our church. All to often we look to the second position, our relationship being based upon our churchmanship how we relate to God being the product of what we do when we meet together. Surly what we do when we meet together should be shaped by our relationship.
So what is the challenge?
Are we abut building up the church, or are we about building up the kingdom of God? I hope it�s the second option, but then the question is how do we reflect that in our ministry, what impact does that have on what we do and how we do it?

written by Simo

So far I have only seen two of the Nooma DVD�s, the first one �Rain�, about a year ago and the second one �Rich� last night, both with my youth group. I have been very impressed with both and last nights was very challenging. If you haven�t seen or used any of them yet then I highly recommend them, I am going to try and use them a little more regularly than once a year I think now. They are superbly done and really do make you think, even though Rich was very American in some respects it still translated and although we don�t have the �God Bless America� bumper stickers (although one girl in the group is now trying to convince her parents to get one!) it still translated really easily.
The only down side is the cost, they have come down since I brought the first one when most of them were around �12 now you can get the for about �9.50 but for a small group that is quite a lot of money especially when you consider in the US they are $10 which is about �5. The discs are multi region so it�s not like they have to be repressed for over here or anything it�s just part of the whole rip off Britain that we live in, I was reading about a piece of software the other day that was $180 in America or �185 over here for exactly the same box, it�s bad enough when secular society wants to rip us off like that but why the difference within the Christian community?

written by Simo

You learn something new everyday, or at least so they say, well yesterday I learnt about Fathers Day, of course I knew of Fathers Day but I didn�t know as much as I do now.
It started with being asked if I was going to mention it during the service at which I was leading and preaching yesterday and I said �no, it doesn�t really fit� so I was then asked �well why are you not including it? Why doesn�t the church celebrate Fathers Day?� I replied �because we don�t� The argument that we celebrate mother�s day is that it has a tradition behind it where as Fathers Day, to my understanding, was about greetings company�s making a bit more money, apparently I am wrong, the story is this:-
The idea came from a town called Spokane, in Washington, America. A woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was sitting in church listening to the sermon on Mother�s day 1909. Sonora�s mother had died in child birth with her 6th child and so Sonora had not really known her mother but had been raised by her Farther, Henry Jackson Smart. Sonora saw that her father had made all the sacrifices most mothers do, in her eyes he was a courageous, selfless and loving man and she wanted an opportunity to let him know how special he was to her. Her fathers birthday was in June and so she decided to hold the first fathers day on July 19th 1910. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Fathers day and in 1966 President Lyndon B Johnson signed a proclamation making the 3rd Sunday in June the official Fathers day.
I don�t know when the celebration hit these shores, and I suspect it may have been the greetings companies who brought it over, but the question perhaps should stand, should we in the church be celebrating Fathers, as we do mothers? Could this be a great opportunity to reach out to some of the men who are on the edges of our churches? Whatever the means of it getting to the UK, the roots of the celebration are good, and maybe it is something we should take on board and include in our church calendar?

written by Simo

Friday afternoon was the new Bishop of Oxford�s (The Right Reverend John Lawrence Pritchard) Inauguration to which I had been invited to be one of three representing Licensed Youth Ministers in the diocese. It was a great service and a real privilege to be invited to such an event, the processing as mentioned over on Youthblog (where you will also find a bit of a write up here) was not as bad as first thought. The biggest problem actually came with getting in as I had forgotten to take the letter with me! Once in and processed we were in a side chapel which meant we had a wide screen monitor to watch most of the service on (and very little space) but the bishop did come round to the chapel to be anointed with oil so I suppose that made us feel a bit more a part of it.
I suppose the question it leaves in my mind is to do with how much say a new Bishop gets in his Inauguration service, there was a lot of Choral stuff, all very good quality but I just wonder how much of the service is put together in consultation with the Bishop (or whoever is being whatevered) and how much is because this is the cathedral and this is what we do? Did the service reflect something of the Bishops spirituality or more of the cathedrals churchmanship? I�m not trying to dis it, it�s not my kind of thing but I know for others it is and that is great, the church is made richer by it�s diversity and I think it is good to be challenged by going to services that are not of the style we would personally chose and I find often causes me to reflect somewhat on what I do and why, it�s just something I was wondering.

written by Simo