Author Archives: Richard Passmore

Hopeful with Aslan

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I love the summer. I know feeling are very subjective, and quite in contrast to Marks last post on science. Summer makes me feel good. Summer reminds me of great residentials with young people, detached work when it is too hot to play football so you sit in the sun and talk, days out with young people who have never seen the sea, and chilling out with them as friends.

I love the evocative feeling that CS Lewis writes about Aslans recovery and his joy at rising again, but what is even better is how Aslan includes the children in the joy and journey ahead.

‘Oh, children,’ said the Lion, ‘ I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!’ He stood for a second, his eyes very bright his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he mad a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws an d catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.

‘And now,’ said Aslan presently, ‘to business. I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.’

And they did. And Aslan stood up and when he opened his mouth to roar his face became so terrible that they did no dare to look at it. And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind. Then he said,

‘We have a long journey to go. You must ride on me.’

What Doesn’t Kill You dvdrip

Small is Beautiful two

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I have used this track several times around smallness, it fits both youth work and church training stuff I often do. It comes from a track by Belljar on the Secret Volcanoes album.

Small is beautiful,
I’ve heard it said,
When things get too big,
You can’t keep them in your head.

You can take your big ideas,
And your big hat and your big shoes too,
Coz’ small is beautiful and I don’t need you,
Spoiling the view,

I’d rather know two or three,
Than a thousand smiling nameless faces,
So won’t you let me be,
Coz I won’t be thinking of changing places.

Small is beautiful,
Keep it that way,
You let it get too big you can’t give it away,
You can take your techniques and your ten top tips for success,
Coz small is beautiful and I’m convinced more is less.

I’d rather know two or three
Than a thousand smiling namesless faces,
So won’t you let me be,
Coz I won’t be thinking of changing places,

Small is beautiful,
Small is beautiful,
Small is beautiful,
Small is beautiful.

Deep Ecclesiology and Learning

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TSK has been writing on the term Deep ecclesiology which was the first time I had come across the phrase.
The term has been picked up and used by bloggers in a number of ways one definition TSK offers is –

We practice “deep ecclesiologyâ€?– rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.”

For me his definition links into the Generous Orthodoxy of Brian Maclaren. I like both terms Deep ecclesiology and Generous Orthodoxy and the sentiment, acceptance and openness that they express. I have recently been doing some work on Learning and the concept of Deep Learning both for lecturing and for my own thinking about process ecclesiology (which builds on tacking). Deep Learning includes a scale that moves from “performative understanding” through “direct application to indirect application” to finally a “holistic integration”

I am left wondering if the definition TSK offers is more apt to Generous Orthodoxy and whether “deep ecclesiology” has a notion of process involved because it is evolving from the growing emerging church movement. As we move to a deeper and greater understanding of church through the praxis of the emerging church movement are we moving to towards a deep ecclesiology that is more integrated, more holistic, and whilst hopefully maintaining the openness that TSK’s definition offers is also more actualised. By actualised I don’t mean that it is a theology of church that thinks it has arrived but one that has a greater sense of holistic integration and knows itself better so it can get on with task of being the type of church that serves the world well.

Still going to a new place

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For many years I have urged myself, youth workers and missionaries (with Donovan) to journey with others to a new place. See Articles on the right The Tacking Church. The reading on Sunday from Hebrews struck me as how central to our calling and history this is.

8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Thinking Out Loud

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Is social action evangelism just poor mission but with good PR?
What would be a good way or word to replace the word “leader(ship)” for the way we need to start thinking about this in post Christendom?
Why hasn’t the house sold?
The difference between knowing of God and about God, how they inter relate and each help sustain a relationship with God. How one comes to prominence at different times.

Government propose treating young people inhumanly

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I have pasted an article by my boss, Dave Wiles from FYT.

I want to share a brief personal response to this ridiculous idea on the basis that I have been getting increasingly concerned about the way that young people (especially those who have got into trouble) are being portrayed, labelled and treated in our society.

We routinely display disdain and dislike of teenagers in press stories, for example, ‘Young People Now’ conducted some research which found that in a given period across a wide range of media reporting 71% gave a negative view of young people. I am fearful that we are entering a period of irrational knee jerk actions against young people based upon biased and misleading propaganda. Another recent example of this is the banning of hoodies and baseball caps in the Blue water shopping Centre which The Children’s Society has called a “blatant discrimination based on stereotypes and prejudices”. here

So what about the notion of a uniform for young offenders to wear when they are involved in community service? I think this is demeaning, humiliating and offensive and possibly more importantly it will not work in terms of doing anything constructive about offending. It reduces human relations to the kind of humilating tactics used by Victorian educationalists who inflicted dunce caps on some youngsters.

If a ‘uniform for young offenders’ ever becomes a reality I promise to wear the same uniform through out my work as CEO of Frontier Youth Trust (obviously hoping very much that it becomes a fashion statement!!!!!) I will do this as an act of protest against a government that has lost touch with the notion that young people’s behaviour is more complex than the actions of ‘bad’ individuals who are to be castigated for their ‘bad choices’ and which seems intent on responding to populist media fear factories by endorsing inhumane ideas and actions.

This governments responsibility under Article 37a of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that, “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Mosquito the Rapist aka Bloodlust download

Fantastic Four psp

CPR for Youthworkers

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Welcome to Sunday Papers if you are visiting after reading the CPR pages in Youthwork magazine. If looking for the Visualisation exercise it will posted later today on the right hand side. We are in the process of setting up a dedicated space for CPR to make the site easier to navigate, so please bear with us. In the meantime please feel free to browse around there are already quite a few youth related items and links.

Going Live

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Protest4 has gone live. Well worth checking out, and I think an important way forward. Particularly in the light of recent thoughts I have been having on the impact of individualism in current culture and the impact this has on the possibility of social change. A quote I have held close to my heart for a while is from Fiske who said

    “The people are neither cultural dupes nor silenced victims, but are vital, resilient, varied, contradictory, and, as a constant source of contestation of dominance, are a vital social resource, the only one that can fuel social changeâ€?

However the question remains what has the impact of a declining meta narrative and the increase of individualism been on this? Can people still be the social resource for change?

Post modern bananas

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Lori is writing an essay around commodification and a play with a hint of post modernism thrown in. A question I often ask is “if an Orange is orange why isn’t a Banana a yellow?” I wonder “is this the ultimate post modern question?”

What do you think?

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Welcome to the revamped Sunday Papers. There is still some tidying up to do and pics to add but we have moved to wordpress. Thanks to Mark for all his work. The main reason for changing was to be able to categorise the posts. These have been set up to reflect the strapline and are LIFE, MISSION, YOUTHWORK with some sub divisions and a few other categories. We can also manage any comments better, and hopefully increase dialogue. We will still allow anonoymus comments but registered people can get pinged if they get a response to the comment or a related post. Although I am not sure how all this works yet.