Bite the Bullet
Getting ready for tomorrow's Bite the Bullet event in Wood Green. Details here.
Day time includes input from Professor John Pitts, a panel discussion, plus seminars and more.
Evening is an urban music concert.
Last year's event was fantastic, and this years looks set to once again help churches and practitioners face some of the difficult questions around youth gangs and violence.

Swine Flu?
Just wondering if anyone had a youth work policy re. swine flu?
I know a couple of youth ministries where they're thinking about/facing this, and be interested to see if anyone had a written policy.
I guess in part depends on advice from local health authorities and the government.

Personally I wonder about the need for a policy - we don't normally have anything for seasonal flu or any other outbreaks that come and go, but I guess the media hype around this perhaps demands a response.

Meetings
Not sure if ministry means more meetings than other jobs, but you sure get to be part of lots of dreary sessions (and a few good too)! (I mean here businessy type planning meetings rather than "worship gatherings", although maybe part of the problem is separating the two).

Anyway simple stuff is always worth reminding ourselves of, so I appreciated this podcasted guide to "avoiding death by meeting". (You can get it via Itunes as well).
Like I say, nothing radical, but a reminder to keep focus, that we can learn a lot from!
And Baptist church members meetings often need some of these lessons too...

Youth Evangelism
Tim linked to this fascinating post about is evangelism child abuse?
It raises some good questions about the ethics of our mission and work with children and young people.

He has followed up with some reflections of his own about evangelism among young people and schools work. These are key issues as we work out how to do youth ministry post-christendom. It strikes me that so much of what we do is built on assumptions of both the knowledge of those we are trying to "reach", and of our position. I wonder if even our language of "us" and "them" needs questioning, yet I am cautious of those who seem to end up with all journey and no destination!

This paper from the National Youth Agency is also helpful in terms of ethics in youth work.

Valiant Men
Been reflecting on a 1 Samuel 10:26. Saul has been anointed king and it says in the NIV he went home "accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched".
I deliberately didn't put a picture with this post, because it would have set the tone (probably with a stereotype) about what a "man of valour" would look like.

Different translations render this phrase quite differently, from "young men" to "men" to "brave".
But I think the key is the 2nd part "whose hearts God had touched".

Anyway it got me reflecting personally about my heart. But also about all that "church is too feminine" stuff that you hear recycled around and (in my opinion) the awful "wild at heart" stuff (that I posted about back in 2005). How do we raise up "valiant men" without pandering to sexist, machismo type models?

The challenge of ethnodoxology
Been thinking about worship in a multicultural city such as London, a bit this week. Partly prompted by stuff from my dissertation a couple of months back, partly by some colleagues and partly by some input from Muyiwa at our worship training day last week.

I think the answer may partly lie in encouraging home-grown worship, both in music and beyond.
To encourage communities to express worship in songs that are birthed from within the community rather than simply buy the latest "Now that's what I call worship" type CD. Or at least take existing songs and use them as tools rather than recreating the "album version" like a dodgy covers band.

Confession: I'm actually a big consumer of worship music, I own lots of albums (it helps to have a producer friend), and hunt for free stuff online. But I know at the same time I have gotten lazy and have not written any music for a long while. Pete Ward charts the rise and place of the worship music industry well in Selling Worship, which I shall add to my re-read list!

Rambling thoughts I fear, but helping people authentically express worship is a huge thing. I think music and singing do still (and always will) be a key part of that, if only we can be willing to move beyond our own narrow expectations.

T Shirt Must Have
Found this great tshirt. Available here.
And fear not there is a UK shop...

And if you scroll down you see some "Baptist Chick" tshirts, which actually worry me more!