Something useful from Macd's

It isn't often you come acroos something useful necessarily from Macdonald's, but I thought this was a useful thing to know. Aparently in all of their franchises, they have bt openzone internet wireless facilities. What a great idea. Not only is this useful for those of us who do enjoy the odd burger or two, but here's a thought, as a youth worker, and one who elieves in being where young people are, why not be in Macd's with your computer, maybe a christian game or two on the laptop, or even write a talk, so when young people aproach you you can ask their thoughts there and then. How much use could we as youth workers get from thsi facility that Macd's offer, loads I feel.

Doings vs Beings

this thought is certainly not a new one, but I would say it is possibly one of the most important ones that I have learnt throughout my 12 years or so as a christian Youth worker, and you always need to remind yourself of some things from time to time. who are we as people? what gives us our quality as people? Is it by the things we do, or even by the amount o things we do? Or is it purely just by being the people we were created to be. so many times I have come across people asking questions of leaders like, so how busy are you? How full is your idary? almost to say, that the busier you are are, or the fuller the diary the better you are as a person. I reemember a leader I worked with once getting into trouble, because he put into his diary one day a month that he was psending on his own with god, and he also put into his diary time he was spending with his family. People saw the day with God as a day he was not doing what he should have been doing. God created as human beings, and out of being the people god wants us to be, then we do things, but the doings come out of the beings, not the beings comng out of the doings. Let's gain some perspective and realise that our actions come out of our beings, and we are not justified by our actions but by bieng the people that God wants us to be.

Vision and relationships!

There are many things that a youth worker has to do, and there are many things that people expect a youth worker to be able to do. Sometimes the thing that is expected gets in the way of the thing we are meant to be doing. People always want to know when are we going to see all these young people in church? When are you going to bring them all along? When sometimes the better questions would be: How are the relationships building with the young epople you are working with? Are those young people still asking questions and wanting to know more? If we focus too much on actually getting the people into Church we loose the focus of the relaitonship we are building with them. Sometimes we just needto go on a journey with the young people we are working with, keep that relationship, keep the dialogue going, and just see where it goes over a period of time. If you start puting time lengths on relationships, then you start taking away from the relationship and all the people become are numbers in your church.

Biological sense as well as Theological advice

I have just been spending some time talking to another youth worker and neither of us seem to be stopping too much at the moment. Lots of things on, and things to do. time always seems to be able to be filled up rather easily. God suggests to us, tourgh his creation that we should rest on the 7th day, as he himself did curing the creation. He also suggests this during the 10 commandments in Exodus. I came across this praise somewhere else which I think somes this ll up, and I will leave this post to these words: inadequate rest means not fully there.

Commitment

As I review my time as a youth worker, as I do from time to time, the one thing that seems to always stick out in my mind is the impact that commitment has upon young people's lives. There seems to be a lack of continuityin many people's lives today, but yet, as I reflect upon my work, I realise that the time when things have changed in young people's lives is generally when I have gone that extra mile and demonstrated a higher level of commitment than maybe they are used too. How far are we prepared to go in our commitment to young people? And I ask this question only to provoke thought into how much change would we want to see in the young people we meet.

play on words

Came across this on another blog that I visit most days, and thought there was loads in it. I won't go and say anything about the words, I will just let the words speak for themselves. Beware of an undevotional thoeology, or an untheological devotion.

Who has the impact?

As I have spent some time thinking about who has made an impact in my life, and who I see impacting the lives of other people, it occurs to me that those who make the greatest impact are those who first of all seek no notariety for the actions, and secondly, those wo believe in the people they are relationg too. I have come across so many people who would never believe themselves to be youth workers, but the way they interact with young people is absolutely amazing. they listn, they talk, they interact, they accknowledge the young person as a person, and they treat them in a way that does not judge. the challenge that Ihave started to feel is that we cannot necessarily automatically decide who is a youth worker and who is not just by their qualifications, or even by their words, but look at how they interact with people and how they bring thebest out of people. Actions really do speak louder than words some times.