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Participative Evaluations
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Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff
Venn review
We did a venn diagram review last night at M and Ms with three circles around the aim of the project (Personal and Social and Spiritual development of young people). We listed 20 activities we had done with in StreetSpace over the last six months and asked the yp to put them into the venn diagram as they thought they connected.
With my its all one hat I was nervous about the differentiation of the three areas, but the exercise worked well, with several activities in the centre of the diagram to denote it was about all three. The best surprise of the night how many yp balanced the activity across the three areas. Not sure what this says about Gen Y and indifference to spirituality.
One of the activities i included in the list had been getting a new path put in to the skate park, which I simply described as “New Path” and a couple located this firmly in the Spiritual.
Living with Metaphor
For over 5 years now I have been using the metaphor that church is both the city on the hill and the journey to the city on the hill, which connects the action and attitude aspects of the allegorical descriptions of church in the bible. I play around with the edges of this; like the city is lit by the ethic of christ, or we loose sight of the city from time to time but just see a distant glow. For me the metaphor is also rooted in the connecting of mission, worship and church into a more fluid whole entity.
The sense of openness that using a metaphor brings is liberating and disconcerting. However in the last couple of years i have heard more tweets, status updates and conversations connecting the action and attitude parts of worship, or church or mission. The most recent from Ben that “Worship is about telling the story and living it out”.
I think this type of approach is a step in the right direction but I wonder if there is something in thinking about the trinity as a metaphor for a reconnecting of worship, mission and church. That being caught up in God and embraced by the dynamic relationship is to be caught up in mission, worship and church. not sure yet…..
Choose Youth
Dear Colleague,
An unprecedented 25 national organisations have come together to organise an indoor rally for the promotion of young people’s services on February 12th 12-4 in the Renewal Centre, Lode Lane, Solihull, B91 2JR. Support organisations include as you will see from the attached leaflet NCVYS, NYA, NUS, BYC, UKYouth Parliament, and many others.
Our campaign is called Choose Youth and we are seeking to arrest the decline of essential services to young people. Your support at this rally could make all the difference.
We will be celebrating good youth work, looking at the threats and challenges to it and discussing a way forward to support us all against cuts and closures.
We have had high press profile recently and feel sure that this rally will
achieve even more. But a good turnout would help.
I therefore write on behalf of the partnership to encourage you to circulate details of the rally and strongly encourage your members to attend and promote it.
Bookings for attendance can be made via the website www.chooseyouth.org where you will also find details of transport co-ordinators who will be able to offer support for group bookings.
I very much hope that you will help build for this rally, the largest in youth work’s history.
Your voice will make a difference.
All the very best.
Doug Nicholls,
On Behalf of Choose Youth.
(Kerry Jenkins)
Community and Youth Workers in Unite
National Section Operations Officer
0121 6436221
www.cywu.org.uk and www.unitetheunion.org
Follow us on Twitter – @CYWUnite
why we need to listen to children
For Once I fully agree with Kester
I agree go read this
New Job for the New year?
Frontier Youth Trust is seeking a dynamic, experienced and entrepreneurial individual to join the growing StreetSpace project. It is a combined research and networking role recognising that the best responses to challenging poverty often come from the bottom up, and that by sharing learning, expertise and resources, opportunities to impact policy and improve local work can emerge.
The post is for two days a week (for three years renewable annually) and is in partnership Church Urban Fund. The post holder will be expected to work from home and must be able to travel throughout the UK. The salary is between £20000 – £22000 pro rata depending on experience and qualifications.
For more an informal conversation about the role please telephone Richard Passmore 07830197160.
For an information pack and application details please contact: Leanne Youngson, Frontier Youth Trust, Office S15b, St. George’s Community Hub, Great Hampton Row, Newtown, Birmingham, B19 3JG Tel: 0121 687 3505.
The deadline for applications is 31st January 2011 and Interviews will take place in Bath on the morning of February 8th 2011
Scotland
Here are my plans for next weeks trip to Scotland I still have a bit of time Monday PM and Wednesday late afternoon if anyone else wants to hook up
Monday 10th Jan
AM- Glasgow – Meet up with Laura Hopkins in Bishopsbriggs
PM – Drive to Aberdeen
Tuesday 11th Jan
AM – meet up with Dan Robertson and Blue Horizon in Aberdeen
PM -Meet up with Hot Choc people in Dundee
Wednesday 12th Jan
AM – Meet up with James and Sidewalk in Perth
PM – Drive to Glasgow
EVE – Glasgow Pub Theology and Pulse Rate research (TBC)
Thursday 13th Jan
Early flight home
Personal responsibility
how do we take more responsibility for our own actions and approaches to faith and life. So often we rely on institutional approaches like membership which tells us what we should do or believe. It replaces grace and the need to dialogue when we don’t agree. To journey to the light is to journey in the light and embrace the difficulties and uncertainties that entails. To ditch the security blanket of the known, the institution, the rules, and regulations To take responsibility for our actions, to challenge the actions of others and so grow and become fellow travellers of light.
Giving birth to the agnostic within!
Being born is hard, the baby has to let go of a world that felt so secure, so safe, so warm , so comforting, once he didn’t even have to breathe for himself…and then the baby has to endure being pushed out, almost crushed in the process, out into a hostile, big environment with no safety of the womb. Here, the baby’s needs are not on tap, he will have to call out for his needs to be met and hope that someone will respond. It is frightening and scary in a world with no walls to touch.
Being born is risky, the baby could die, and there may be complications and physical abnormalities. For us to allow a hidden part of us to be born, to be revealed can be very risky, we could lose face, family, friends, church… but the greatest risk is ultimately you could lose your soul. To be born again involves letting go, letting go of old truths and beliefs, assurances and insurances, letting go of a way of life…
Many of us are afraid to be born again, to allow god to be born anew in us as it is frightening to risk letting go of the world we have constructed, even if that world does not content us or is uncomfortable, we end up living by the belief – ‘better the devil you know!’
So this Christmas maybe the best gift you can give to yourself is to allow the agnostic to be born in you afresh, to encourage it to thrive and develop. What both Christmas and Easter have in common is flesh, powerlessness, weakness and letting go. So let go and be born again!