I did some work with some students comparing Vincent Donovan’s approach to Mission, The findings from Ambiguous Evangelism, Meet them Where there at and how all this compares and informs the Church on the Edge project. Thanks to the students for sticking with the process I will up load the PowerPoint slides. A few things that came out were:
Donovan saw leaving as one of the most important things in his context, does this apply?
How do you engage ambiguously with the young people around issues of church and use this to help enable non biased research?
Hopefully a few present may add to this via comments.
It led to me thinking about how do we ensure we hold to good youth work principles and do the research, ie not just engaging young people to do research on them. So in Chard one of the things we will say about the project is
The project will develop detached youth work with young people in the Chard area, contacting young people where they are, on the streets, in parks, and hanging around. The project will work with these young people towards their personal, social, and spiritual development in line with youth work principles. This will be an ongoing project.
The project will also invite young people to take part in action research into how young people would shape and define an expression of church relevant to them. This is part of an initiative of FYT called Church on the Edge, in partnership with Church Missionary Society, Diocese of Devon, and local churches.
In terms of how this links to the process I will use one of the ways secular agencies who have adapted the strategy to ensure those who do not want to engage with the church element that we can still work meaningfully and authentically together on the issues that affect them. So stage 9 of the detached process becomes
9. PEER EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT or CHURCH ON THE EDGE Enabling young people to become active participants in their community or to choose to take part in the action research