The broad category is “Christian work with young people”. Primarily, it has meant:

1) Youth ministry, which has meant the evangelisation, discipling and equipping for mission of young people.  It has taken place within the local church, with the primary aspiration of drawing more young people into relationship with God and participation in the local church. To which I say, ‘Amen’! I became a youth worker through my participation in a church youth group. Because of the nurture I received, I was empowered to become a leader in the youth groups of this ministry, eventually taking the role of youth pastor.

2) Parachurch organisations such as YWAM, YCW, YFC, Scripture Union, chaplaincy bodies and Concern Australia do Christian work with young people, but they locate this work outside the context of the local church. In schools, prisons, homes, large youth events, the holiday season, drop-in centres and neighbourhoods, they often have similar aims to local church youth ministries. Though a sympathetic friend of the local church, their location ‘at arm’s length’ has created opportunities to utilise youth work philosophies & practices borrowed from social work agencies: employment programs; post-release initiatives; community development; counselling services etc.

3)  Another form of Christian work with young people is these social work agencies mentioned above. Many social work agencies in Australia have strongly Christian roots and still have connections to the denominations that birthed them. Christian youth work in these agencies is done by Christians who are not ‘professional Christians’ as in youth ministry or parachurches, but work with Christian inspiration and vision and see their work as a full expression of their Christian identity, with equal value as an ‘explicitly’ Christian worker.

4) Yet another form of Christian work with young people is expressed when local congregations release youth leaders to work primarily with young people outside, or marginal to, the congregation, with little or no expectation that this work will result in increased numbers of young people attending. Admittedly, this is rare, but it is an important innovation. It recognises the role of the local church in serving the local community, outside of any benefit to itself in terms of numbers. In this form, Christians working with young people are playing a similar role to parachurch workers, but with a significant difference – they have a strong and ongoing connection to the local church.

5)     One last form of Christian work with young people is that performed by people who are not Christians, but the character of their work can be affirmed as ‘in sympathy’ with the values of the Reign of God. How far such work can be affirmed is a thorny issue, but we need to at least acknowledge that such youth work is valuable, and to consider partnering where we can.

What are the winds that make this storm?

First, we have a rapidly ageing workforce, and a majority of the population will be beyond working age. Two major consequences flow from this: 1) that there will be less tax dollars to fund human services such as mental health, community development, youth work, family support etc; 2) a generation which is, in general, more likely to serve the community, is going to disappear soon.

Second, my wife came back from a work conference at which a Department of Human Services (DHS) senior bureaucrat foresaw the withering of the welfare sector as the financial crisis that is currently engulfing Europe inevitably finds its way to Australia. Funding to nonprofits and human services will be cut drastically, with the idea of the Big Society coming to the fore. The Big Society is a UK policy of devolution of responsibility for communities to the local level. Usually, I am all for a such a redistribution of power to the local level: it gives responsibility and ownership to people on the ground, who know what their community’s need. My first thought was – that’s great that the financial crisis has stimulated such a creative policy.

But then the crunch came.

Mark Sayers spoke at “Heartland”, a Christian youth work training event organised by Praxis and others in Bendigo. There, he mapped the cultural terrain that youth workers need to navigate. Mark’s main point is that youth and young adults approach life from a consumer perspective. That is, choices of all descriptions (phone, job, education, church, relationships) are re-framed in terms of what is good for the individual. The arena of decision-making has become the individual, rather than the community. Mark gave a rousing challenge to us there, to model wholehearted commitment to the cause of the reign of God.

You might be able to see the connections I’m making here. The factors of ageing population and financial crisis/Big Society require a new generation of people committed to the common good, who make decisions within that orbit rather than their personal needs. Great! But the pervasiveness of a consumerist worldview, across most of the population, means that people generally have a consumer approach to community service. I’ll do this homework club until I get bored; I’ll read to these kids until their parents frustrate me; I’ll visit the nursing home for as long as it’s ‘rewarding’; I’ll mentor those young people until I get a job offer interstate.  This consumer approach to community service doesn’t build a community, it undermines it. Let me say that this attitude is not limited to young people and young adults.

What is needed? A body of people committed to the wellbeing of others and the community beyond personal comfort, whose source of motivation comes from beyond what others can give me. Sounds like the Church. Jesus Christ’s outright denial of a culture of reciprocity, which consumerism relies on (I’ll buy this if it gets me that; I’ll participate if I get X), is the good soil in which commitment to the common good can be fostered. And here is where I get alternately despondent and hopeful. On the one hand, the Church is withering away in Australia, and its numerically successful instances often rely on consumerism. On the other hand, there is a new movement of Christians excited about mission, pouring energy into their neighbours, schools, workplaces and communal institutions – that gives me courage!

However, if this ethic of community service doesn’t get passed on, and if the Church’s better angels don’t win out, and if the welfare sector we have contracted to do our dirty work for us is simply not there to hold back the tide, what’s going to happen? Wholesale breakdown of society. I’m not usually given to hyperbole, but I don’t see another option. Feel free to provide a more hopeful one.

In that day, the oddest book in the Bible, Revelation, will become eerily sensible. When humanity is stripped bare, when all the props have been knocked out, all that we have left is “patient endurance”. The book of Revelation advocates that the Church be the Church – if we allow God to shape us into that Church, there’s some hope.

After having these thoughts, and I tend to have them frequently (not sure what that says about my state of mind!), I tell myself: “Dave, stop thinking that. We’re not in competition. We’re all in the same game.” Christian leaders often say the same thing: “We are not in competition”. When a new church starts up down  the road, or a ministry begins that needs the same sorts of leaders as you do…”We are not in competition”.

Let’s take a look at this aversion to competition, or the aversion to publicly admitting it. For this blog, I’m not examining the role of competition in business, sport etc, but between Christians groups.

Ostensibly, we don’t want to compete because we believe we are part of the “one body” of Jesus Christ. That’s true in an abstract sense. All people following Jesus are working towards revealing the Reign of God in all dimensions of life. However, this is not true in a practical sense – we are not working in one big church or mission organisation. There isn’t one “Jesus Church” to which all of us are members. There isn’t one big mission agency. Instead, there are thousands of groups, denominations, agencies etc, all trying to do the same thing in different ways. I think this is basically a good thing, because it allows variety of expression.

However, often these different bodies are quite similar: they have similar objectives, try to connect with a similar demographic, and need similar types of leaders. This is not a problem for anyone until these groups find themselves in the same ‘territory’, whether that be a university, neighbourhood, city  or ‘media space’. When this happens, competition can’t help but occur. It doesn’t usually occur on the level of the people they are trying to reach; there’s more than enough people to go around. But it happens more on the level of money and people. Money to resource their activities, and people to be contributors to making a Christian ministry or mission happen.

Up to now, I’ve been describing the situation, but the question is – Is Christian competition bad? Regular readers of this blog will know that I am going to give some thoughts on both sides of the question.

Christian competition is bad
On the ‘Yes’ side, Henri Nouwen certainly thought competition was in (umm) competition with the values of the Kingdom. He reveals:

I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me– my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts– and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards. (The Return of the Prodigal Son)

Christians in competition communicate that even when groups are on about the same thing, they can’t work together, a disappointing advertisement for the command to ‘love one another’. It’s a drain on the resources of time, energy and money of Christian groups. They all need to spend themselves in self-promotion in order to show their distinctiveness amongst the others, and self-promotion is poison to the good news. Smaller groups, who need to continue their valuable ministry, end up folding while the strong, populated and wealthy groups cannibalise the rest. Competition simply reflects the values of the success-oriented culture we find ourselves in.

Christian competition is good
On the ‘No’ side, arguing for competition as a necessary dimension of our existence:

[T]he Bible describes human beings making choices to stand against natural limitations of any kind when these are the result of the Fall, of sin, or of a broken world. Competition is necessary in order to struggle for that balance required to live …We compete in order to fulfill our purpose as human beings and live. (Udo Middelmann)

The benefits of competition are well-argued by economists, and I think some of them apply to Christian groups as well. There are often Christian groups and churches in which there is little spark left. Christ is with them as ‘two or three gathered together’, but as an organised group it is time for them to disband. A little competition from other groups can be persuasive. Competition also helps us clarify what our special ‘charism’ or gift is. Rubbing up against other groups refines what we are trying to do, and motivates us to improve what we do.

A Way Forward
In Perspectives on Competition – Christian & Otherwise, Dr. Sharon G. Johnson and Dr. Galen Smith give 4 approaches to Christian competition, in which they frame the question in terms of Christ’s relationship to competition:

1. CHRIST RESISTS COMPETITION: In this approach, competition is seen as antithetical to Christianity. It deserves no place in the individual or communal endeavours of Christians. It is a symptom and sign of evil in our world.

2. CHRIST AND COMPETITION IN PARTNERSHIP: In this approach, competition is an aid to the work of Christ in the world, and Christians should be involved in it. God is a competitive God!

3. CHRIST REFORMS COMPETITION: competition is seen as a qualified good, that Christians should be involved in, but need to challenge at some points. It is given by God, but in a fallen world is in need of redemption.

4. CHRIST AND COMPETITION IN PARADOX: this approach holds an uneasy tension with competition, recognising that the Bible warns against competitiveness, but also recognising that Christians are often in situations of competition that may contribute to the Reign of God.

My preference, when thinking about competition between Christian groups for resources (time, energy, money), is for the 4th approach. Competition exists, it can be good and it can be bad, it’s consequences can be good and bad, at times it seems to reveal God’s character, at times it seems to obscure it.

Your preference?

Here are some of the “enemies of renewal” that he identified:

1. Entertainment: “give them (young people) a god who can be the object of their unreconstructed emotions, and distract them endlessly from being left naked before God”. Ouch

2. Problem solving: beware problem solving as ‘plugging gaps’. “We are in a danger of putting an end to that lifelong task of listening and absorbing that is involved in growing into the space Christ has opened for us”

3. “Trying to fit God around the edges of your identity, rather than allowing God to shape us from within”

Great stuff. He is one of the pioneers in attempting to integrate inherited church with emerging/missional church. Luckily, the Bishop in my diocese has a similar mindset (Andrew Curnow).

]]> http://davefagg.com.au/2010/07/rowan-williams-on-fresh-expressions/feed/ 0 http://davefagg.com.au/2010/03/in-the-face-of-transience/ http://davefagg.com.au/2010/03/in-the-face-of-transience/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:18:12 +0000 Dave Fagg http://davefagg.com.au/?p=650 Today I got a phone call from the police. A friend of mine had been listed as missing – did I know anything? Two weeks ago, I had sat in his loungeroom-come-bedroom listening to his news that he would be moving away. Moving to a place a couple of hours drive away. “How long til you move?” “Oh, could be any day.” It was: 2 days later I got a call from the nurse at the facility he’d gone to, a much better place for him to be than in a 1 bedroom flat in Long Gully. He’d moved so quickly he hadn’t time to let his family know, hence the missing report.

Even though I know he is in improved circumstances, I feel a wave of frustration rise and fall. What is the use of building relationships when they are constantly eroded by transience? I have, many years ago, resolved that long-term relationships were necessary to unveil the reign of God, whether among the poor or whoever. I had decided that speaking out the good news needed to happen on the platform of trust and respect.

But it’s a lonely stance. Often, those we relate to want to move on to something else quickly. This is the case whether we are among the poor who want to rapidly escape, or among the general population for whom the next best thing can’t arrive too soon.

How do we deal with transience, when our theology inspires us to grounded lives and longevity?

Here’s a couple of ideas:
(1) We rid ourselves of any heroism: our desire to be the ‘key’ people in others’ transformation can cripple us when we no longer have the opportunity to be that ‘significant’ person.

(2) We re-member ourselves: “re-membering” is recalling the fact that we are members of a body, a movement, a people that is far-spread. We, as individuals, are not it. That should give us some hope in the face of transience. As the biblical saying goes: some sow, others reap, and we enter into each others’ labour. When we can no longer be a part of a person’s life, someone else will take up the labour.

(3) We recall the Trinity: relational mission struggles with the tension of ends and means. Is the relationship for the purpose of more effective evangelism, or so that the person will have a better life? Or is it simply for the sake of the relationship? I don’t think there is an answer to this one, but in the face of transience we need to remember the Trinity; the Godhead in which relationship is essential to the character of God.

Missionaries need to talk over people. Regularly. Frequently. With godly vigour and fervour. I’ve been through some soul-searching over this one, people, but the kingdom of God requires rudeness beyond measure, inconsideration like we have never dreamed of. Yes, we need to start interrupting monologues with witty comments and jokes. Brothers and sisters, divert the flow of verbal sewerage into the decontamination plant of conversational purity with well-placed questions. Ah yes, even questions that have nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Place a gag in those overworked gums of that child of God, fill that space where they drew breath with a barrage of your own trivial stories…

Well, maybe I got a bit sweaty about that one, a little extreme. So, in the interests of paradoxical truth, let me know speak of the opposite. Keeping my trap shut is a lovely phrase, which I’ve never thought about until now. ‘Trap’ being my mouth….now that’s an intriguing metaphor. What does my mouth entrap exactly? Most of the time, myself. Little wonder that short passage in James has become so famous.

Yet, I feel strangely unmotivated writing about shutting up and letting someone else talk. ‘Being a good listener’ has become such a part of “good” Christian identity that I am loathe to add to the mass, or morass, of verbosity about why we should listen and how we should listen and that listening to people’s stories will change the world. It’s all so…polite, which is probably why I vented my spleen previously.

But, I will manfully try to justify why keeping your trap shut is a missionary virtue:

• I don’t often have anything useful to say: in mission, you will often befriend people who are in pain. They may be isolated, unemployed, ill, mentally unwell, oppressed, abused, dirt poor; often simultaneously.  I haven’t experienced this kind of enduring multiplicity of pain, my daily experience of hardship being lack of chocolate. Talking much in the face of this pain is harmful; the best we can do is make sure they know we’re listening

• When I do have something useful to say, it doesn’t need many words: in graced moments, the right thing worms it way through thickets of useless platitudes. Our words and the situation of the person happily congeal. When this happens, stop. Keep your trap shut. Say your bit and don’t wreck it by (my personal downfall) repeating the same truth in 3 other ways.

Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment.

For those of you who know me a bit, you will have heard me rave about “The Social Entrepeneur”, a book by Andrew Mawson, an English clergyman who turned his decrepit church into a centre for social enterprises – initiatives that are based on the following principle:

We know that every human being has a unique talent. By applying these talents in local communities it is possible to make them strong and vibrant instead of soulless and “deprived”. What matters is backing people before structures.

Andrew sought out people in his disadvantaged area who were passionate about an idea, and supported them to get it going as a business. I cried when I read his book. It wasn’t sad, rather the joy and hope that sang through his stories got to my heart. He was describing truly Christian community development.

Welfare Mentality vs Social Entrepreneurship
One of the sad things about Christian community work is that it often gets dependent on handouts, just like the people it aims to serve. Once dependent, we stick with programs that will ensure the transfusion of funds that we need. We eventually find we have strayed from our original purpose. We internalise the same Welfare Mentality that afflicts many of those we serve and become unable to break free of its bonds.

Social Entrepreneurship rejects this way of being and working. It starts with what people are passionate about, not what gains funding. It supports that passion, but always with the aim of self-sufficiency. I think this is incredibly important in poorer communities, because independence from outside help breeds confidence, dignity, responsibility and generosity. The constant supply of government benefits, cheaper housing, food handouts etc breeds apathy, boredom and self-loathing.

The Kingdom & Social Entrepreneurship
The links between God’s reign and social entrepreneurship need to be teased out. But some preliminary thoughts are:

• God created humans with passions and desires to create. Social Entrepreneurship taps into those passions and desires, whereas Welfare Mentality drains passion and desire from a person.
• Dependence, as in Welfare Mentality, is the flip side of domination. God did not create people to be dependent on others, but interdependent. Social Entrepreneurship enables people, especially the poor, to contribute to others as well as receive.
• God created humans with the need to give. Welfare Mentality focusses on receiving, which makes us bloated and unhealthy. The gospel motivates us to give, and when we do we find that feel more human than ever.

More to think about here…

But for now, if in Geelong go to Urban Bean, and if you want to support Bike Butcher, buy a cool fixie.

Which is why it pains me to say that, yes, missionaries need to talk over people. Regularly. Frequently. With godly vigour and fervour. I’ve been through some soul-searching over this one, people, but the kingdom of God requires rudeness beyond measure, inconsideration like we have never dreamed of. Yes, we need to start interrupting monologues with witty comments and jokes. Brothers and sisters, divert the flow of verbal sewerage into the decontamination plant of conversational purity with well-placed questions. Ah yes, even questions that have nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Place a gag in those overworked gums of that child of God, fill that space where they drew breath with a barrage of your own trivial stories…

Having got that mini-sermon out of my system, let me continue. In my neighbourhood, there are many people who cannot stop talking. It seems that once verbal momentum is gained, attempting silence is akin to inhaling while underwater. Some people are just glad to talk to someone who will listen, others have axes to grind, others are nervous, others have stories they wish to repeat now and forever, others want to dominate the situation or haven’t had attention like this in too long. All these are perfectly rational reasons for talking continuously.

So how am I to respond? Being in a neighbourhood where crowded houses, arguments and noise abound, my middle-class nicety of waiting for people to finish talking is a disability. I have to interrupt, I have to verbally counterpunch. If I don’t, I will have a ministry of nods and mmms. There are valid reason for talking over people:

• to get the conversation on an open track, because nonstop talking is often a defensive manoeuvre to keep the other person at arm’s length
• to teach dialogue, not only conversational but intellectual
• to enable the other person to see me as someone having a valuable contribution to their life, not so that my needs can be fulfilled, but that they can look to others for enrichment

nb. To be followed by a post entitled “The Missionary Virtue of Keeping Your Trap Shut”

After returning a young man to his residential unit (where he lives), his 2 housemates both started mooning our car, despite the best efforts of their workers to raise the level of the conversation and their shorts.

What we give to get noticed! I get noticed all the time, having a job that involves facilitation and training groups, but I always like it. As a secondary school teacher, I found that young people were always trying to get noticed: through acting up, excelling at something. Even those people who seem to love hiding away in a corner so no-one mentions their existence appreciate quiet acknowledgement.

It’s not just young people and children who love attention, though. Adults seem to thrive on it. I know I do. I think it comes back to the fact that we are mostly cowards. When people notice our efforts it gives us the courage to keep going.

I visited Greg recently to invite him to lunch at 12pm. He asked me what the time was, as he had no clock and the one on his DVD player was wrong – he had no clock. Middle-class time is so important that I was momentarily gobsmacked by this small but significant clash of cultures – it meant that Greg would always struggle to turn up to anything on time. Think about the implications for relationships, health and employment.

In the Seeds community here, we are all middle-class. Our experience has been smudged in places by the same factors that affect our neighbours, but not in combination and not for long. Though we are trying to be in solidarity with the poor, our class loyalty is still to the middle-class, which distracts us in many and specific ways from our stated desire to be amongst the poor. I say this bluntly because unless I swallow this bitter pill, this dynamic will corrupt and deflate many of my efforts to love my neighbour.

‘Class’ and ‘Culture’ are abstract terms, but they jump out when we uncover some fairly ordinary items. How does our middle-class loyalty manifest itself?:

1. Spending time with the middle-class: we know the codes of middle-class relationships (when to speak, what to say, what not to say, how often to swear etc) but we don’t know how to spend time with those who live in generational poverty. Do watch the TV that’s always on? Is laughing at crude jokes OK? Should we ask personal questions? Because we have meetings to be at and people to see, we middle-class people have a sense of time which is cut up into segments for apportioning. Sitting for an hour on someone’s dirty lounge while watching wrestling seems like a waste of time.

2. Refusing the food of the poor: food is crucial to mission, as Jesus the glutton and drunkard attests. It connotes hospitality, connection and welcome. Even in our culture, refusing to eat someone’s food is extremely rude. People often offer me a beer or a Beam and coke can at their house, but this year I’m not drinking alcohol. The issue of accepting alcohol has nothing to do with ‘getting down to their level’ (what a hypocritical phrase of misplaced superiority) but of accepting the hospitality of those who we serve. We want to extend hospitality to them, but not the other way around…well, maybe it would be OK if they would only offer nice food. In my area, people generally eat unhealthily, and their children do too. This is a sensitive issue for middle-class  parents, who understandably don’t want their children eating sugary and fatty foods. Is the price of mission paying for dental work?! I don’t have children, so I’ll leave someone else to give a definitive answer.

These are just 2 examples – others are entertainment, physicality, sex, clothing etc

I don’t raise the issue of class because I want us to forget our family and friends, but to remind myself that cross-class solidarity is so difficult as to require regular self-scrutiny. Our middle-class upbringing is not evil, but has instilled norms of purity which seem as natural as the sun rising. Our desire to serve Jesus in the poor can’t be sacrificed for our middle-class sensibilities.