Community...

Following on from some of the comments left on the previous post (thank you they have been very helpful), I realise that my language has probably not helped me ion communicating what we see here, that I realise is something I need to be more careful with.

A community, I will do more reading on community soon (once more urgent study is firstly completed). I'm fascinated by community, how they work, what creates and maintains community, how they change and how they grow. I love the fact that communities can be so diverse. I think what is at the heart of our community is acceptance though. I realise now that some of my original statements may seem to have contradicted themselves, and to some level it is hard to get out of those contradictions. At present our community is a mixture of those who believe, those who are on the fringe and some who have no belief, and may choose to have a faith in something other than God. I do not want to see those people excluded or judged fro their choice, I want them to feel they are always welcome and loved in the group. However I think it is important to be true to ourselves, always being a place to explore faith, to talk about God and for those who feel able to worship God. By always being clear to the young people and adults that it is a place where we will explore God they can make their decision as to whether it is a community they can be involved in.

As for the 'leaders', this is a term which I have used, and yes we do have leaders, which may appear to create some divide and does, however I realise that a group with young people in needs some levels of leadership, at present the leaders do the 'teaching', however I make it clear that we learn alongside the young people, their comments, thoughts, questions are all valued contributions, ones we shouldn't take lightly, ones we may learn from, as Jesus told us to be like little children, we can learn from one another. I would love to see the young people finding their feet in the group and encouraging one another in how they live their lives, their own theology and faith. This is something I look forward to seeing grow.

I look forward to learning how to look at faith from a child's perspective again and sharing their experiences and my own with each other.

The Challenge...

I've been thinking about the comment left on one of the posts which has been greatly received in helping me think about how we grow and become noticeably different to just a youth group.

At the moment we are just a youth group of a mixture of believers and those who don't yet believe, as far as we are aware. This for start creates some interesting challenges, how do you encourage those who believe to challenge their faith in the way they think and live whilst at the same time reach out to those who don't yet have an active faith, who don't quite grasp some of the basic principles of faith, so to ask them to live out lives transformed by Jesus is hard. If we want to see a community of people living out faith we need them to see how it can transform your lives. Inclusion is really important to us, not leave behind anyone yet not compromising on what we see this group becoming. I am increasingly encouraged to see the young people come and interact with topics they may not yet fully comprehend, my prayer is that not just the adult leaders but the young people with faith will help teach and demonstrate God's love to those others.

One way of including all in being outward serving is to take part in something simple which will serve our community. This has been a good thing to be thinking through, it is something they can all enter into, most have the ability to sympathise and have the willingness to make change to people who's lives are tougher than their own. There is a local charity in our area who give out food parcels to families and individuals who can't afford food. This may just be something we can tap into helping, by asking young people to bring food to go to the charity. It's a thought...we'll see if this is the right one!

Hopefully we can grow a community who seek to serve their communtiy, those who know God for that reason, and those others may find God through it