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Happiness?

Last night I watched the first episode of Kevin McLoud's 'Slumming it' (reviewed here). He spends two weeks living in a Mumbai slum famous because of Slumdog Millionaire. He went there because it seems to have been suggested that they have a stronger sense of community than many Western societies in spite of the high level of poverty.

I am also reading a book called 'The church of Facebook'. The first chapter talks about how the evidence from positive psychology is that one of the main keys to happiness is 'Connectedness' - the sense of being part of something bigger and connected in meaningful ways to other people.

The research a few years ago suggested that Generation Y felt that the purpose of life was to be happy. At the time I read an amazing book by Tobias jones called 'Utopian Dreams', In it he visits a number of communities to work out what makes then tick. His conclusion was that those who have faith at their heart are more successful.

Is it any surprise that human happiness is most likely to be found when we realise that we are designed for relationships?

Remembering

It was with a sense of deja vu that I drove up the A1 on the evening of January 7. The snow made everything look very different, but just under a year ago I covered much of the same journey after an SU staff meeting. No-one could have guessed what would happen next. Within 15 minutes of being home, my wife Jackie had a brain haemorrhage. After a roller coaster ride where we were told she would not survive she is currently settled in a superb nursing home having suffered sugnificant brain damage in the days that followed.

The rest of life has been put into perspective throughout 2009, but in the midst of it all, I have learned that God can be trusted even when everything else seems uncertain. I have seen his hand at work through other people and been aware of being supported by others.

Part of that remembering has been thinking about the people who have been significant in my own faith development and giving thanks to God for them. The biggest issue that God's peoiple seemed to face was they had this amazing ability to forget! They regularly forgot
a) Who they were - God's treasured possession
b) What God had done for them? - in history through generations
c) How God had provided for them in the present

As I look ahead to 2010, I find myself wanting to be someone who remembers these three things.

Snow Day

Well I have arrived in Leamington Spa after an adventurous day in the snow. You can see from the photo that when I decided to set off from Sheffield thetre had been a bit of a snow fall. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the street and 2 hours to travel the 10 miles to the M1

I eventually arrived at the YfC conference 2 hours late at 12.30pm. At least I was not doing anything at it. It's been a good time and I am really grateful to Richard Bromley for giving me the opportunity. It seems like there is a real desire to collabarate with regard to strategy and share resources where possible. We are both very committed to building God's kingdom and need to work out how we do that most effectively

It's also been great to see people commenting about how much they benefitted from Breakthrough - the SU holiday that I am involved in helping to organise over the New Year. We now need to explore how we follow up effectively. I am exploring with a number of locations running a regular youth cafe as a way of providing a space for folk to get together. I need to add it to my to do list.

It will be a year on Friday since Jackie was taken ill and so this Saturday we are holding open house from midday until about 10.30pm. If you know us and you are in Newcastle - please call in.

New Year, New Resolve!

Well it's 2010 now and I have decided that it is time to blog more regularly. This is more of a personal blog but i will also post stuff on the SU Youth Blog, 'Gathering Crumbs' when the issue is directly related to youth & childrens work.

I have just returned from a fantastic few days on an SU holiday over New Year called Breakthrough. It was a real privilege to work with such a great team and have such a fun time seeing in the New Year with God. It was also great to see suchg a wide range of young people together. As i looked back on 2008 it was with considerable pain (check out my facebook notes if you want to know why) but also with a sense that I am not alone in this journey. God is with me and he has sent fantastic people to walk with me.

I have learnt to trust God more and my overriding lesson will be that God's plan never fails. As well as learning together we had a fab time with the hokey cokey on the beach at 1am on New Years Day and a paddle in the very cold North Sea. I had some great chats to people as well as lots of cake!

As well as sorting out equipment today I spent a great couple of hours sledging ( no thats not to do with cricket!)

The Sunday Times yesterday devoted its magazine to the question of happiness. You can read it here. I wonder if the key to happines is something to do with contentment? Paul says to Timothy that happiness with contentment is great gain and contrasts that with money. That will be my prayer for 2010 - to be content with whatever God sends to me.

Happy New Year

God is back

A couple of economists have written a book - 'God is back: How the global rise of faith is changing the world'. The brief description says

'Since the Enlightenment, intellectuals have assumed that modernization would kill religion, and that religious America is an oddity. This title argues that religion and modernity can thrive together, and that the American way of religion is becoming the norm.'

The book also promoted a really interesting article about this issue in the Times on Saturday - summarising much of the content. You can find that here.

It seems that the Times is having a bit of interest in religion. They did a feature during Holy Week, a story about Gavin Peacock training for church ministry last week and a story about Michael Howard's son Nick in April (From Tory Boy to God enforcer!)

So I wonder when will politics get around to doing God? Tomy Blair seems to regret not being more up front about faith in his role as Prime Minister.

Which leads me to think - what about me? Am I going to talk naturally abot God when the opportunity arises

Little people on the street

Got an ad today for a really interesting looking book

Its a book of pictures from an artist who paints tiny figures and then photographs them in places and poses on the streets. He apparently leaves them for people to find too. Looks cool and I thought I might even buy the book

Worth checking out his blog too

When posh met poor

Really interesting article in the Daily Mail this saturday about a channel 4 programme to be broadcast on Nov 13 - 'Rich Kid, Poor kid'.

The article offers a fascinating insight into the significant influence of parents and also the sheltered existence of many upper middle class youngsters.

Alice (posh); 'Mummy said that most of the people on the estate live on benefits and that I might get stabbed'

Natalie (poor); Alice was not as close to her mum as I am to mine... If that's what having more money does to a family, I don't want it'.

Read the full story here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1082057/When-posh-met-poor-Living-door-worlds-apart-teenage-girls-different-backgrounds.html

Unseen Footprints

Among the books I've re-read this year has been 'Unseen Footprints: Encountering the Divine Along the Journey of Life' by Sheridan Voysey kindly sent to me by SU Australia. It's a fantastic read and is very much an evangelistic book for contemporary western society. Instead of starting with proving God, it looks for evidence of him in our world - his footprints.

In many ways it offers a similar approach to Tom Wright's 'Simply Christian'. But whereas Tom's book is like CS Lewis' 'Mere Christianity', Sheridan's book is at a more popular and engaging level. There is a fantastic chapter in it all about our vision of the future and how it shapes life in the present.

'God dreams that we become all he designed us to be, with all our individual flair and talent realised, But he wants even more for us. He dreams of us embodying the luminous character of Jesus Christ, "our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him." God dreams of that flame of faith within us growing until we become people of light.' (p135)

and then he goes on to say that we are called to transform this world by doing 4 things

Imitating the genorosity of God
Expressing the life of God
Cultivating the heart of God
Celebrating the love of God

This so much echoes the challenge and call to missional community that I feel.

A New Kind of Youth Ministry

I want to use this space to post about youth ministry books and issues. The first of these was published in 2007. A New Kind of Youth Ministry by Chris Folmsbee. It is an easy read and has lots of good stuff in there - stuff worth looking at and taking on board. Worth looking at his blog too. But so far this year I've began to wonder about the American Youth Minstry model. It seems to be programmatic and professional as opposed to relational and voluntary. Many of the shifts described in the book are excellent but are hard anyone other than highly trained workforce to do. I was staggered to hear that in parts of the States church attendance by teenagers runs at 40%. No wonder the issues they face are different to us.

On a positive note, I love the idea of 'reculturing' youth ministry. So much of what we do is passed down without much thought. We too often stick with methods and ideas that worked ten years ago without realising that we live in a different world. I was personally challenged by the contrast between 'spiritual formation' and 'biblical information'. We need so much to be allowing God to transform our lives and helping others to do the same.

The Jesuits haves ome great resources to help with that. Their 'Sacred Space' website and 'Pray as you go' are great - so different to the tradition I am used to and yet so helpful. These have been helpful in reminding me of our own Scripture Union bible engagement site 'WordLive.'
I'm sure I will return to this book a lot as there are some gems - but mainly because as I continue on this journey of challenge with God, I sense that he is going to 'reculture' my faith. That will certainly be an adventure.

The Four Generations

Recently read an interesting Grove booklet by John Finney. 'The Four Generations: Finding the Right Model for Mission'

In this the proposal is made that we need to explore different approaches for each generation

Generation 1: adults and children go to church so have a good background knowledge of faith
Generation 2: adults don't go but send their children so all still have some knowledge of faith
Generation 3: neither go to church nor send their children so adults some knowledge of faith but children have none
Generation 4: nobody goes to church or has a background knowlegde of faith

He then suggests that our approach to evangelism depends on which generation we are reaching

Generation 1: evangelism centred on preaching in church
Generation 2: evangelism by mass evangelism and/or nurture group
Generation 3: evangelism by nurture group
Generation 4: evangelism by long period of instruction and fellowship

There is also a critique of the place of groups

My own reflection on this is that its a useful analysis but I would like to go one step further and think about evangelism beginning with community engagement. Perhaps the weakness of the booklet is that it doesn't offer a model of evangelism founded on an an incarnational approach. There may be some clues to the way ahead by looking at the renewed emphasis on spiritual formation but if people are not in contact with the church how will they meet Christians in the first place?

That will require us to think about how we engage with communities that no longer want to engage with church or faith.

Thinking aloud

For some time I have been wondering about writing a blog. There have been a number of questions buzzing around in my head about the value of blogs for sharing ideas, connecting with others etc, etc and I find myself amazed that people find the time.

But as I approach the end of my 20th year on the Scripture Union staff I wonder if there might be some value in dialoguing with others about the issues of life and faith and the way that they interact and intersect.

So here I am - thinking aloud about what comes my way.

But there are some parameters too

1. Mission

I am passionately concerned about how we connect the good news of the Christian gospel with those who would never even consider entering a church. In recent years I have been challenged about whether or not my comfortable midle class existence has led me to accomodate and even compromise the gospel so it fits me. Last summer I began under the prompting of God to explore what that really means in practice by getting involved in mission activity on a local estate. This involved leaving my evangelical anglican church which I had attended for over 25 years and getting to know Christians who have a concern for the same estate. The challenge finally came to a head through listening to Rob Bell speak on Acts 19 at Youthwork the conference in 2006.

2. Young people

For most of the last 30 years I have been involved in relating to teenagers - as a secondary school teacher, schools worker, volunteer youth leader. Investing in the next generation is key to the future and I love seeing young people grow and become the people God made them to be. That is why I continue to be involved in youth work even now.

3. The Bible

I believe that God's story of redemption contained in the Bible is the adventure of life that we have all been called to be part of. We need to join in with what God is doing in the world and help people to engage with the Bible. The decline in Biblical Literacy is not just that people don't know Bible stories, it is that the story of the Bible is no longer the or even one of the framing stories for their lives.

It is with those three areas in mind that I have begun a D Min in theology this week
Exploring the practical implications of the decline in Biblical Literacy for the practice of Christian Youth Work

Watch this space for developments in all three areas