paultilley.net

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs[/youtube]

Speaks for itself

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Technorati Activism, fairtrade, justice, Music

Chris Moore’s Blog put me onto this, it looks amazing!

He writes:

The Roman Empire is clearly an important background to not only the New Testament but also Early Christianity. Google Earth have added a new Ancient Rome layer, and it’s good!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMXIRwQniA[/youtube]

Go find out more by looking here and here.

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Technorati 3D, Ancient Rome, Bible, Google Earth, History

I really enjoyed this but would love to know the source of his material… any ideas?

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1465663627958239828&hl=en[/googlevideo]

Rob Bell speaking at Willow Creek Community Church on Jesus and Domitian and the book of Revelations

“Domitian was the first emperor to understand that behind the Christian movement there stood an enigmatic figure who threatened the glory of the emperors. He was the first to declare war on this figure …” Ethelbert Stauffer

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Technorati Bible, Domitian, Revelations, Rob Bell, Willow Creek Community Church

A friend of mine emailed me this:

Hi guys!

Popularity: 24% [?]

Technorati Discrimination, Youth Work/Ministry

Dear Friends, Gentry and Peasants,

I know that I have spoken to some of you already about this, if not:

“I am doing an essay that will contribute to my dissertation.  The essay will be looking at ‘How does Kingdom theology influences youth ministry?‘ So I need to interview some youth ministers, would you like to take part, I would love to buy you a coffee and find out about your theology and its impact on your youth work practise….go on you know you wona!  Please don’t be put off by ‘theology’, I really just want to know what you believe about certain things, not trying to trick or change you!”

HOWEVER, it seems that youth workers have far to much on, so was wondering if you would be interested and cant meet face to face would you consider:

Sending me an email with your thoughts on ‘How your Kingdom theology influences your practise as a youth minister?‘

Or

Would you do a Skype or  iChat interview?

Paul Tilley

Popularity: 25% [?]

Youth Work After Christendom

I was recently at a workshop day in Exeter looking at ‘The Future of Christian Youth Work.’ The workshop was led by Nigel Pimlott who recently wrote Youth Work After Christendom.  A great book that really every person who is working within youth work/ministry should read.

As part of the workshop FYT have got a downloadable report called ‘A Report on The Future of Christian Youth Work’ that you can get here. It very challenging reading with some great questions like:
- Will future youth work ethics be consistent with church ethics?
- How will we equip young people to be theologians?

and my favourite:
- Should we re-imagine the ‘Christian package’ enough to make it accessible and open enough for all? Will young people be able to openly question and reject parts of ‘the package’ without rejecting it all?

There are some very importent questians that I think need to be wrestled with within Christian Youth Work. But also I think that the conversation needs to go wider then youth work and spill over into the rest of the church to prepare it for when the teenagers become adults as well as encoraging the Church to ask the questians that  it should have asked 10 years ago…just a thought.

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Technorati Future, FYT, Pimlott, Post-Christendom, Report, Theology, Theory, youth ministry, Youth Work/Ministry

I came across the BBC Human, All Too Human series on Google Video.  I remember watching this when it first came out in 1999 and great to be able to watch it again.  So if philosophy is your bag you may enjoy this lot:

Nietzsche

Martin Heidegger

Sartre

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Technorati BBC, documentary, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Sartre

The British National Youth Agency (NYA) has a very interesting document called ‘Ethical Conduct in Youth Work‘ that calls itself ‘a statement of values and principles from The National Youth Agency.’ The principles of ethical conduct for youth work and what youth workers should be commitment to are:

1. Treat young people with respect, valuing each individual and avoiding negative discrimination.
2. Respect and promote young people’s rights to make their own decisions and choices, unless the welfare or legitimate interests of themselves or others are seriously threatened.
3. Promote and ensure the welfare and safety of young people, while permitting them to learn through undertaking challenging educational activities.
4. Contribute towards the promotion of social justice for young people and in society generally, through encouraging respect for difference and diversity and challenging discrimination.

From there the document lists ‘professional principles’ and states that Youth workers have a commitment to:

5. Recognise the boundaries between personal and professional life and be aware of the need to balance a caring and supportive relationship with young people with appropriate professional distance.
6. Recognise the need to be accountable to young people, their parents or guardians, colleagues, funders, wider society and others with a relevant interest in the work, and that these accountabilities may be in conflict.
7. Develop and maintain the required skills and competence to do the job.
8. Work for conditions in employing agencies where these principles are discussed, evaluated and upheld.

I wonder if Christian Youth work/ministry could or even should adhere to such statements. As I was rereading through these I couldn’t really see anything that I would disagree in practise. However, I do think the statements, if examined in Christian Youth work/ministry’s, would raise lots of challenges. Number 5 for example is interesting because a great deal of Youth work/ministry is practised in local churches were relationships are often very close between members and there offspring. Also, this could be seen to clash with the Christian principal of going the extra mile, were we open our homes and life’s to the people we work with.

I think one of the biggest challenges would be to youth NYA. Evangelism, from my prospective, is frought with ethical issues, especially the issues of the autonomy for the young people being ‘evangelised’. How much are they being truly empowered to make an informed choice and how much are they being given the hard sell, were do we cross the lines into manipulation?

I think it would be interesting to come up with a list of ethical principles in Christian based Youth Work/Ministry. I wonder how they would be that different to the NYA list… any suggestions?

Popularity: 29% [?]

Technorati Activism, Church, Ecclesiology, Emerging Church, Ethics, Evangelism, Featured, Ministry, praxis, Theology, Theory, What is Youth Work/Ministry, Youth Work/Ministry

I’v always been a the larger side. My mum used to say that it
was just puppy fat but when I got married and hit my 30s I couldn’t use
the puppy fat excuse any more.

Then about a year ago I was playing on the net and did one of the see how overweight chart things, a six foot guy who is 18st (252 pounds) = GROSSLY OBESE!  I was less then a happy bunny.

Now the other thing to happen was listening to one of the most life changing talks I have ever listened to. It was a talk by Tim Keller called Doing Justice.
The talk focused a lot on the idea of Shalom and its holistic
transformation of committees and self, this he call; Shalom.  Later I
came across this quote from Plantinga:

‘The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in
justice, fulfilment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophet’s call
shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind
or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible shalom means universal
flourishing, wholeness, and delight—as rich state of affairs in which
natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts are fruitfully employed,
a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and
Saviour opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.
Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.’ (Plantinga, N
(1995). Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans.)

The way things ought to be!

Now the idea of Shalom has greatly affected my theology over the last 2-3 years and from it I have started to ask the question… is this the way things ought to be, from a Kingdom/heaven point of view..should it really be like this?
When you really start to look at things in this way it can really mess
with your head.  So on top of this I started to look at my gut my
GROSSLY OBESE body and ask is this the way I should be?  Well doh…no.

Read this from NetDoctor.co.uk

Common physical problems from being obese are:

• difficulties breathing
  
• difficulties walking or running
  
• increased sweating
  
• pain in the knees and back
  
• skin conditions such as acne
  
• gallstones.

The following medical conditions are also more common in obese people than in those of normal weight:

• high blood pressure
  
• high cholesterol
  
• diseases related to hardening of the arteries such as heart attack and stroke (cardiovascular disease).
  
• Type 2 diabetes
  
• some types of cancer.

Is that someone who is in shalom with themselves?  Is it the way I should be?

So I took up running, at first I did the typical,
run-like-hell-and-hope-to-survive thing, then my sister-in-law, who is
a runner, put me onto the best was starting to run, the run-walk way.
To try to keep a long story short, I now can run for about a hour were
before I struggled with 1min.  I am now starting to train for an 1/2
marathon in October.  The best of all, I feel the most in Shalom with
my myself then I have ever done in my life. I may actually live to see
my grand kids, be better example to the young people I work with and I
currently have lost 2 1/2 stone (37.8 pounds)

This is me after my first race, The Chagford 2 Hills:

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Technorati Kingdom, Shalom, Theology, Theory

Faithworks is a movement of thousands of individuals, churches and organisations motivated by their Christian faith to serve the needs of their local communities and positively influence society as a whole. Faithworks exists to resource, inspire and speak up for these vital initiatives.

I love what Faithworks is about, resource Christians be do professional, high quality community action. This magazine is great & every time I get it I feel very inspired with my work and get some hope for the Churches work with the community.

One tool that I think would be very helpful for any church or Christian organisation is the Ethos, effectiveness and excellence toolkit.
I am encouraging the organisation I work to us it.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Technorati christian, Church, Community, Faithworks, resources, Tools