Greensy Grumblings

Hi guys,

we survived the camp. It was great. We as leaders are a bit tired, 13-14 year olds really wear you out.


I am about to head to a meeting (should have left already) to organise some "alternative" worship sessions for Easter camp.

I don't like the phrase "alternative worship" because it makes music "normal" worship and anything else 'alternative'.

I come from the Salvation Army and my movement has a sad distrust of ritual and liturgy in worship. I think we have lost the deep significance that some other denominations have within their worship services. I think we can also be very arrogant and hold to our position claiming that ritual and liturgy are "irrelevant" and 'religion/law'.

Whilst I do agree with the Salvation Army's position that ritual can create habitual observance, so to a lack of ritual can rob us of its positive aspects.
Last year I had a lecturer who shared how she used rituals in her ministry, one she used was to assist someone who was grieving and unable to attend a funeral in another country.

All churches have rituals that happen every week, mostly we choose not to identify them as that.

But anyway, I better go to my meeting, be 'alternative' and keep trying to buck the system.

Hi all,

sorry I didn't get to blog yesterday.
We are taking the youth group camping on the weekend and I have been flat out getting ready for that. It is going to be great.

I wonder what your thoughts are on attitude?

I tend to think that my attitude makes all the difference on my day. I try and have a positive attitude to most things and I tend to enjoy most things. If I have a negative attitude to something (for whatever reason) I tend not to enjoy that thing.

I am really looking forward to camping this weekend.
I am expecting a great weekend.

I got some advert cards for see you at the pole. Has anyone had any good experiences of this they want to share?
I don't know what is the best way to encourage our yr 8 & 9s to take part, as they are not 'leaders' in the school or anything. Perhaps other groups are doing something.
I have a Synergy meeting tomorrow morning.
Synergy is all the church youth workers/leaders/pastors in Greensborough getting together to network and organise events. It is a pretty good group. Always keen to do something.

Anyway, I might not blog tomorrow, definitely won't over the weekend. Maybe sunday night. I will let you know how the camping goes.

I am currently in the process of setting up a mentoring program for some of the young people I work with.

How can one overstate the value of a quality mentor?

The word mentor probably conjures up differing images for different people.
I remember the first time I heard the word.
My minister was sitting on the other side of his desk to me, telling me that he wanted to mentor me. How scary.
Funny thing was that that minister was one of the greatest influences on my spiritual development as a teenager. Thing was nothing came of our 'mentoring' sessions and so we stopped them.

Today I have a different mentor, this one happens to be unavailable for a little while and so I haven't caught up with him since before Christmas.

The problem I find with mentors is that I am prone to pick someone who thinks similarly to myself. The trick is finding someone who you respect and will challenge and develop your thinking.

So this is a question for you the reader. What is your experience of mentors or mentoring?

I think the term mentor and disciple are interchangable. Isn't mentoring discipling, and how can we disciple without mentoring?

What are your thoughts??

Today I was reading an article in Four Four Two, a British football magazine.
It was an article on how the big clubs in England have shafted the smaller clubs and explaining the history of the Premier League and how it all came about.
Old story but a reminder.

For those that don't know what happened, the largest clubs in England turned around to the Football Association and said they were going to create their own league, mainly to get control of the huge television rights. A bit like the super-league crisis in Rugby League (cept it worked)

Consequently in England the same Large clubs win the Premier League every year.

The game of football originated in England and spread through the world. When you see how football can be used as a community development tool in places like South America it is sad to see the ugly greedy side of European football.

It will be interesting to see how the A-League ends up in 10 years here in Australia. I am excited by the prospect of being able to attend quality football games in Victoria regularly, I admit I only ever attended one NSL game, Morwell Falcons vs I can't even remember, when I was around 8.

Sydney Utd is aiming to head down the 'glamour club' road.
Melbourne has had a go at them about this already.

Hopefully the game in Australia will head down a different track to the game in England and other parts of Europe.

Only a pity that the first tournament featuring the A-League teams won't have a game in Melbourne.

Gee, it is funny how time flies when you are having fun, or are busy.

if anyone has been checking this blog everyday (I am guessing that is noone) you probably thought that I got caught up in a new thing and then after 3 days the enthusiasm wore out.

Well that isn't true. Sunday I didn't go on the net. Monday I didn't go on the net.
Tuesday I went on the net at work but decided against blogging as I had to head home.
Yesterday I logged on to the net at home, and then as soon as the modem disconnected I remembered that I had forgot to blog.

New thing, old brain. I haven't been doing it for 21 days yet so it hasn't become a habit.

I could make a comment about how people are so busy today. We all know that.

I will admit that I don't always use my time effectively, too many long chats and reading too many emails while I should be doing something else.

Perhaps there is a challenge for me there. Effective bussiness as aposed to ineffective bussiness.

on that note I better get back to work.

Expectations can be a funny thing.

We all have them, sometimes voiced, but most of the time we keep them to ourselves.

Yesterday I listened to someone share their expectations with me. Or perhaps it was how someone wasn't living up to their expectations. I queried them as to whether they had shared their thoughts with the person concerned. "Oh no, I don't want to cause conflict" was the reply.

How fair are our expectations if they are unvoiced. How can we expect people to live up to our expectations if they don't know what they are, that is assuming they have to live up to our expectations.

As a person in paid ministry the church folk would have expectations of me. It is hard to know exactly what they are, but people are quite happy to tell me if I don't live up to them.

Perhaps I need to be more upfront with what my expectations are, that might encourage others to share theirs with me.

I have just finished putting together an information pamphlet on fair trade coffee.

if you don't know what fair trade coffee and tea is all about then go to www.oxfam.org.au/fairtrade

I think fairtrade is a great starting point for social justice.
I think most people want to help the world, I don't know many people who truelly believe that just because someone is born in a developing country then they deserve to die of malnutrition.

Fairtrade is a great opener because it shows people how their actions have a direct impact on people in developing countries.
"what you mean me drinking coffee is making someone else poor?"

It is also easy to be involved in, although the problem is so big, their response is so small.

Reflection on this: obviously justice is integral to true discipleship, but how do we relate fairtrade to discipleship.

How do I disciple people and encourage them to work on the 'big' problem by showing them something small to start with?

What is the best 'small' thing to start with in discipleship?

hmmm ......

It is interesting how people react to new technology.

This week has been one of those weeks.

Last friday our church got a new laptop and a portable data projector. I used it for the first time on sunday for a training afternoon.

I have a palm m105 it is always interesting to see people's responses.

How about setting up a blog and telling people about it?

It was great yesterday to be in a place where other people had PDAs because noone looked at you weird when you pull out your palm. I was in a class last year, pulled out my palm and the comment was "typical youth worker"


I showed my officer my new blog and his response was "oh no".
Someone else said "don't know what it is but it sounds rude"

How does this relate to the world? (my wife is sitting next to me asking what the point of a blog is)

Well what about the gospel? is it something that from the outside is viewed as geeky?
Is it viewed as being of no use?

Note to self, make sure I put everything in the post that I wanted to.

I should mention the blogs of the people who mentioned it at liquid.

Stephen Said almost a neighbour of mine in Hurstbridge - neurotribe.net/blog
LT a Canadian - www.theheresy.com
Darren Rowse - www.problogger.net

Well, where to begin.
It is 5:32 AM, I was up at 4:45 to watch the football game between South Africa and SBS that was advertised to start at 4:45 but didn't start until 5:15.

Yesterday I attended the 'taste of liquid' conference. Everyone was talking about their blog and yes I felt like I was missing an important piece of my life.
yes I decided that I needed to be like the crowd (most of them also had palms which was good)


My wife called me a 'yuppie' yesterday, my response was 'you don't realise how much of a yuppie I could be if I wanted to.' I think I am more of a geek than a yuppie, but anyway that is basically semantics.

Ok, one thing I need to learn for my blog, keep to one topic per post. Please hold me accountable to this.

Ok, I think this is enough for my first post.
See you round