Tuesday 13 January 2015

Belonging - Believing - Behaving


I am moving house next week. In the process of packing and finding documents to change address I came across something that I wrote when I was 19 (that's 19 years ago).  
At that time I had been involved in a Youth group/movement that sprang up in Gloucestershire called 'Holy Disorder'. Our purpose? To help churches understand how to reach and and engage with young people. Not only did we run regular week night 'services', we also traverse the country in a minibus and took our messages to others. That was while I was 16 - 18 years old. Then, one of the churches we visited asked if I would be a youth worker there for a year. I was about to go to Durham to study Theology. But I took a year out and got paid bed and board and £100 a month to help youth work in the community.

At the end of that time, I wrote a reflection on my time. I did not realise I still had this, or that I was so reflective back then as a teenager. However, I wanted to share some of the things I wrote, as the messages mirror those I am currently promoting/reflecting on. My spirituality may have changed along the way, but the message about belonging and relationships is at the core of our humanity.


" The heart of the message is love. The heart of youth work is love in action. We must be messengers of compassion and channels of love and peace. The most important thing will always be relationships. The interaction of people will always teach more than words.
Belonging. Believing. Behaving. I believe these are the three important stages of discipleship, especially with young people. A person will find it very difficult to believe, if they do not belong, and until they believe, it will be difficult to get them to behave. Once again the initial emphasis is on belonging - relationships.

Children want to copy and become like adults. Therefore the greatest lesson we can teach is behaviour and attitude. If we project behaviour which is not attempting to be a model of our values, then what are we teaching our children? 

So maybe my work has at times eemed 'unstructured' or not largely 'teaching' based. This is because I believe that if you have the relationship right, then the teaching bit follows"

That 19 year old my have been young, but I think those core values have developed over the next 19 years, and is probably why I believe that values in action make a difference. For me faith was never about words and the message I took from Sunday school wasn't about believing dogma or the bible. The message I have carried with me is that people will judge you on how you behave. Therefore if you want to make a difference, you do that through action and not through words alone. 

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