Ramble Alert! OK. I’m not sure where this post is going but stick with me and hopefully it will get somewhere…
I’m working on some aims and objectives for my job. I tell everyone I train to do it so it’s practice what you preach time.
The thing is… I can write down the stuff I do/will do/can do standing on my head OR I can do all that and try to do something that will make a difference. We have been talking a lot in our little Synod Team about ‘Culture Carrying’. That discussion has grown from a feeling that we have to do better than maintaining the church. To do that we need to embody something else. We need to be culture carriers.
So my quandary is twofold:
Does any of the stuff I do make a difference? And if it does, who or what does it make a difference to? And are those the right people?
What culture should I be carrying? I start where I always do. Asking for thoughts and ideas.
Headphonaught suggests I keep being me. I’m not sure I can be anything else, or that I can write that down on my forward plan!
1. Be me.
2. see 1
I think he’s right though. I need to be authentic. And so does the church. If it’s not about life and living it then what’s the point?
Avril asked me what difference the church can make to the lives of people in and out of it? I don’t really know the answer to that question. I’m sure it makes a bigger difference than we might at first think because the ‘organisation’ isn’t the be all and end all of being church thank God. The people live and move in the world, loving, caring, helping and supporting as they go. But then so do lots of others who have no involvement in church.
My thing is children and young people and the adults that work with them. At least that’s what my job is. My problem is that sometimes I have no idea what to do with that. (is that something I should be admitting?) I sometimes wonder if the church as it exists is anyplace for our children and young people? In some cases yes and in some no.
What I have noticed is that the churches that are willing to invest some time, money and most of all themselves are the ones that do well with children and young people. And yet few of our churches are growing significantly. That isn’t because they are not good places full of good people. I would recommend a number of them to anyone.
I wonder if it is because we don’t advertise our existence? Is that a confidence thing? Are we silent because we don’t know who we are or what we are for?
I wrote a chapter in a book called Inside Verdict which I began with the words “This isn’t working anymore.” Well, is it any better now? Of course some of it is. The Together@MCT project I’ve been working with people on perhaps sheds some light. Engaging worship. Discussion with no pressure. Hopefully some community building. But I’m not sure we have gotten our heads around who it is for and how we should move forward yet. We need to keep the bigger picture before us. That will come though.
The pervasive themes of personalisation and participation return to my thinking again and again. The world, my world, seems to value both of these. How does that fit with community? It seems to in the world of facebook and bebo. I can be me. I can have my personal page but I belong to the community and can participate and add and contribute. How does/could/should that work in church?
Media that targets you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.
Dr Tanya Byron has published her report into safer internet use and gaming. You can read the report HERE. This is the executive summary bullets:
The internet and video games are very popular with children and young people and offer a range of opportunities for fun, learning and development.
But there are concerns over potentially inappropriate material, which range from content (e.g. violence) through to contact and conduct of children in the digital world.
Debates and research in this area can be highly polarised and charged with emotion.
Having considered the evidence I believe we need to move from a discussion about the media ‘causing’ harm to one which focuses on children and young people, what they bring to technology and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer.
There is a generational digital divide which means that parents do not necessarily feel equipped to help their children in this space – which can lead to fear and a sense of helplessness. This can be compounded by a risk-averse culture where we are inclined to keep our children ‘indoors’ despite their developmental needs to socialise and take risks.
While children are confident with the technology, they are still developing critical evaluation skills and need our help to make wise decisions.
In relation to the internet we need a shared culture of responsibility with families, industry, government and others in the public and third sectors all playing their part to reduce the availability of potentially harmful material, restrict access to it by children and to increase children’s resilience.
I propose that we seek to achieve gains in these three areas by having a national strategy for child internet safety which involves better self-regulation and better provision of information and education for children and families.
In relation to video games, we need to improve on the systems already in place to help parents restrict children’s access to games which are not suitable for their age.
I propose that we seek to do that by reforming the classification system and pooling the efforts of the games industry, retailers, advertisers, console manufacturers and online gaming providers to raise awareness of what is in games and enable better enforcement.
Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe – this isn’t just about a top-down approach. Children will be children – pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim.
She was interviewed on the BBC news this morning. You can watch it here:
Leaning and Teaching Scotland have just announced what they think the markers fo excellence in literacy are for the 21st century… and the definition of texts is:novels, short stories, plays, poems, reference texts, the spoken word, charts, maps, graphs and timetables, advertisements, promotional leaflets, comics, newspapers and magazines, CVs, letters and e-mails, films, games and TV programmes, labels, signs and posters, recipes, manuals and instructions, reports and reviews, text messages, blogs and social networking sites, web pages, catalogues and directories. (emphasis added) (ht Ewan)
So, what will that mean for youth work in the 21st century? Informal educators inhabit the world their ‘clients’ live in. We meet people ‘where they are at. How do you think that Christian youth work will engage with this generation of digital natives? And will banning youth workers from texting, instant messaging and Bebo really turn out to be a good idea?
Over the next while I’m going to be working with ICC and some of my friends at Church of Scotland on a project to make a CertHE level youth work course available as a distance learning course with almost all of the content online using Moodle. Why? Maybe this video has some clues…
If you read this blog regularly you’ll know I’m doing a masters in research. I’ve come to the point where I need to decide what I’m going to research!
Any ideas? I was thinking something to do with church youth work and technology use. Would that be helpful? Does anyone care? What would be the point of knowing if and how churches use technology in their informal education with young people?
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