Author Archives: Richard Passmore

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.

How far is too far?

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In pushing the theological boundaries how far is too far? I have been thinking a lot about TSK post here

on Acts 15 and recognise that as missionaries come back and tell the stories of how they contexualised the gospel, that the teachers did indeed make some sense these stories and grounded them in the biblical narrative. A couple of thousand years on are todays teachers willing to do the same leg work? As I try to make sense of where God leads through mission contexts I am not sure if the teachers will catch up. As the missionaries move on and culture shifts if they do not keep up it takes a Luther or Calvin to fill the vacuum (My fear is they would never be heard in the myriad of voices of postmodernity). If Dave comes back with a reinterpretation of Blessed are the mourners through his experience with the young people here that does not fit into the traditional narrative who is to say they are right and he wrong. Where should the weight be, with missionary or the teacher?

GMTV and wrist bands as resource idea

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I caught an interview this morning on GMTV about the number of counterfeit wristbands being sold and the money NOT going to the charity. One thing it highlighted was how hard it can be to get young people involved in charitable causes and political action. Their guidance was to only buy the wristbands from reputable shops or via the charity on the web. A few ideas came to mind on how we could tap into the wristband culture in our work with young people, I bet these ideas grab them more than talking about the election.

  • Do a survey of all outlets selling the bands and send this to local trading standards. AND/OR report these to local branches of the charity.
  • Extend the idea… If you give the young people a name tag from the group (official looking), get them to dress smart with a clip board as they go around the town then it is likely to cause the shop owner to ask questions and the simple response that you are conduct research as to whether the number of wristbands being sold correlate with the income the charity receives for a local organisation will probably be enough for them to withdraw them from sale.
  • Get the young people to spend a Saturday morning counting how many are sold from particular shops and send the shop the address of the charity with an invoice for the appropriate amount to forward onto the charity, copy the letter to the charity.
  • Get the young people to ask all their mates where they have got their wristbands and explain to them the issue. Ask if their friends would consider returning an dodgy wristbands and ask for a refund. This could be a good way to increase you contact with other young people as if there are enough you could arrange for adults to accompany the young people as they ask for a refund.
  • Write to local press to highlight the issue.

Let me know if you try any of these.

Wrist Action

Lets listen to fill the vacuum

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There is a great discussion going on with tall skinny kiwi here here and Jesus Creed here sparked by DA Carsons forth coming book.
But more importantly the discussion could be the beginnings of a genuine dialogue between the edge and core, the missionaries and the academics. At times I feel very frustrated that academia don’t seem to hear the stories unless written in academic form. So it was surprising yesterday to hear “Meet them where they’re at� was on the reading list for an MA in Evangelism and Mission. To kick things off I thought Skinnys Reflections on Acts 15 is great and is very helpful to the process.

Skinny says, Peter, an authority figure, got up and said the new stuff was really important. That shut everyone up. They were listening.
2. Barnabas and Paul, the missionary-travellers-eyewitnesses-storytellers, told stories about what God was doing out there where the action was. They listen to the stories.
3. James, the teacher, whips out a can of Old Testament Teaching and locates the present situation in the Scriptures. They listen to his counsel.
“Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas” 15:22
Here’s the deal.
1. In the past 7 years, we have had key authority figures rise up and give their blessing to the emerging church – Rick Warren, Len Sweet, Thom Wolf, E.B. Brooks, Tom Wright, Eddie Gibbs, Rowan Williams, etc, – and the whole church has been called to listen.
2. Right now, missionaries who travel and bloggers from around the world, are reporting that the new churches are emerging out of the global postmodern culture with the blessing of God and the good fruit of changed lives and reconciled communities. Thats where I put myself – as one of those storytellers, eyewitnesses, and participants.
3. The teachers are rising up and locating what God is doing in the present with Biblical precedent and historical memory. Thats why if you want to follow this story to the next installment, you should shift over to Scot McKnight’s blog Jesus Creed.

In some ways I have a foot in both camps (academia and mission) and regularly get frustrated, so I hope to blog around this subject again, particularly around rethinking church and the theological vacuum that post Christendom culture and emerging church is creating. However it may take me a day or two to put it together.