I'M BACK!

Sorry for the lack of posts in recent weeks, I have been busy - honest! I have just got back from Spring Harvest in Minehead as part of the team responsible for the 11-14's.

This is our third year being involved in Spring Harvest Youthwork and although it is tiring work, it is very rewarding. Quite a number from Arun Community Church made up the team, which was excellently led as always by Jon Jolly (I have to say that as he reads my blogs - but it is true all the same...). My role was grandly entitled "Bible Teacher", which meant I had to come up with a presentation each day based on this years theme of "One People".

To be honest I loved the theme - it's a great opportunity to speak to 400 - 500 young people for almost a week on what it means to be church together. We took on the line from the Nicean Creed that states we should be "one, holy, catholic, apostolic people", looking at one key word each day. We had some fun trying to explain what it meant to be catholic and trying not to confuse anyone that Spring Harvest was becoming part of the Roman Catholic Church (to be honest the young people had no problems with this, but some of the leaders did! One leader actually said to me that the Catholic Church is completely wrong and was under the impression that the Pope was the beast!!! I thought that theory had been and gone - doh!)

I guess my favourite part of the week was seeing the young people engage in worship in all sorts of different ways. On the last day we had some of them singing, some playing instruments and some signing (no, it's not a spelling error!), some handing out communion bread and wine (don't worry it was just blackcurrant squash) and even one lad giving a short talk as part of the teaching!

Although I was starting to feel a little old for youth work (most of the team were under 20), it was a great event to be part of as always. Great to use the gifts God has given, great to work with such an excellent team and most of all my children loved it!

Last word goes to some letters of encouragement I received from some of the young people:

"Dear Sim, don't stop preaching you are doing a great job. Thank you for your enthusiasm for the Lord and I encourage you to start preaching in full seminars. Your biggest fan, Sam"

"Sim, thank you for all the talks you have done over the past few days. The words were really encouraging and touched me and probably most people. Thank you for your kindness and being strong for talking to so many people, Luv you and keep going, Charis"

YOUTH ALPHA

What a night! Tonight we had 30 people pile round our house as part of the church youth groups Alpha course. We looked at the topic of the Bible, is it relevant today and how should we read it. We looked at the top 20 Best Selling Books of all Time and discover that the Bible was the number one bestseller at almost 6 billion sales, with number two a mere 900 million! Almost all the books in the top 10 (apart from Agatha Christies "And then there were none") were spiritual books, showing that we all have a desire to find out more about spiritual things. All of J K Rowlings books were in the top 20 with sales of over 50 million for each book - Wow!

After discussing the bible we broke into small groups to answer some questions and that is where I discovered the random mind of young people. We started off with questions on the Bible and ended up discussing whether elephants could swim or not! I have got no idea how we even got to that point - I think it was something to do with Noahs Ark, but not too sure.

Oh, well. It seems the Bible is alive and well and keeping the world talking even if it is random!!!

STORYTELLING

Yesterday I took part in a training day for Spring Harvest. A team of around 30 or so of us will be having the pleasure of looking after 500 young people aged 11-14 in the wonderful world that is Butlins, Minehead. My job for the week is grandly entitled "Bible Teacher", which means what? That I am suitably trained and able to teach young people what the Bible is all about? I think not - I have been trying to teach the Bible to young and old since the age of 13 and I sometimes feel like I know less, not more than when I started...

I am realising that the Bible doesn't actually give all the answers (shock, horror!). It tells the story of the people of Israel, some poetry and excellent writing, the birth, life and death of Jesus and some letters that talk what happened in the 100 years or so after that original, amazing, life changing Easter Sunday.

What the Bible does is give us a context, a background, some difficult verses that people, much cleverer than me, have argued over for 2000 years and LOTS of stories. Jesus told lots of stories and although we think we know the meanings to most of those - look again and you might find something new. Jesus often told the story to the crowds and then gave the meaning to his followers - think about it. Jesus told stories to the masses and never told them what to do with those stories, he never explained the detail, he never made an altar call and he never asked you to sign up for a monthly Standing Order with Gift Aid..

So the challenge is can we tell stories and resist from giving all our oh-so-clever answers or are we happy just to tell the stories?