Today began where the last sermon left off… The Lord’s Prayer. This was my first time in the church of the paternoster where the lords prayer adorns the walls in languages from all over the world. We spotted Scottish gaelic and Doric (a dialect of Scots).

My sermon the other week was about focusing on God as the Lord’s Prayer help us to do. It was an appropriate place to begin our exploration of the Holy Land.

We journeyed down the Mount of Olives, with its amazing view of the old city, to Dominus Flavit. We were met at the gate by a monk, sitting under a tree with a pipe and a pint of what looked very much like beer! He reminded me of friar tuck in Robin Hood!

The church commemorates the place where Jesus looked out over the city, and wept. It struck me that things haven’t changed much. A city of God which is divided equally by walls and belief. Today was Friday prayers and it’s still Ramadan so the Muslim Quarter was packed with people. The police were out in force but the rest of the city was quiet.

Gethsemane next and my favourite church, the church of all nations. For the first time the connection between the lord’s prayer and Jesus’ prayer in the garden struck me. Read them together and you’ll see what I mean.

Onwards to the tomb of Mary. Down lots of stairs into the dark of an Orthodox church. And the smell… Incense and candles.

From there we walked around outside the city walls to avoid the crowds to the dung gate and the western wall. The wall is as close as the Jews can get to where the Temple housing the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant once stood.

And that was our morning. More later but it’s time for bed. Off to the Holy Sepulchre at 6.30am.

At 3am to drive to Manchester to meet the young people in our group and my colleague Leo from North Western Synod at the airport.

We arrived in Jerusalem early this evening to be met by good friends. It was so good to see them and doesn’t seem like a year since we last met.

Last year we came to help with a summer camp, this year is for a pilgrimage to see the Holy Sites and to meet with people to hear about life in this beautiful broken country.

Tomorrow we are starting our day at the top of the mount of olives and working our way down the hill. Ramadan and the Sabbath collide tomorrow night so we will be steering clear of what promises to be a tense afternoon in the old city.

I’m interested to see how our group experience this Holy Land. And I’m interested to see how I encounter it with more time and space to see and think and feel it.

I think most of the places we’re staying have wi-fi so I’ll try to blog as we go but no doubt the detail will come next week when we’re home.

Now, to sleep. It’s been a long day. And we’re sleeping in the Knight’s Palace hotel, where the knights of the crusades gathered centuries ago. I wonder what the people of those times would make of it now?

HT to Steven

The Scottish network of community based Christian youth workers

The date for the next meeting of the Network of community based Christian Youth Workers is on

Friday 28th May from 10.00 am to 1pm

at: International Christian College 110 St James Road Glasgow G4 0PS

Christian Youth Work and Ethics

Led by Prof. Howard Sercombe

University of Strathclyde and author of “Youth Work Ethics”

At the end of 2009, following much debate, the CLD Standards Council decided to pursue a Voluntary model of registration for workers, managers, training providers and others involved in CLD. They decided that the core criteria for registration would be: · signing up to a Code of Ethics · making a clear commitment to the CLD values and competences · ongoing development and improvement of practice Youthworks will consider how the Code of Ethics will impact on Christian Youth Work and give the network the opportunity to discuss how these ongoing developments impact our practice and organisations. There will also be time to worship, pray and fellowship together as a network of community based Christian Youth Workers.

youthworksnetwork.co.uk

This weekend was the United Reformed Church’s Synod of Scotland meeting.  For the last few of years Youth Forum for 12-16 year-olds has met alongside Synod.  This year, following FURY Assembly’s plea to highlight the plight of the Invisible Children of Uganda, Youth Forum spent the weekend considering how we could tell the story of children who are abducted and forced to fight.

Every night hundreds of children gather in towns because staying at home in the countryside at night is too dangerous.  The Lord’s Resistance Army abduct children, kill their families and force them to become child soldiers.

The issue, highlighted by Invisible Children, is one which shocked and moved us.  We were delighted that following the young people’s presentation Synod discussed and debated how they could help.

The Synod of Scotland resolves to encourage churches to investigate the issue of child soldiers, to raise awareness of their plight, campaign for an end to this inhuman practice and to pray regularly for these children, their families and their communities…. to make these invisible children visible.

We also heard a report that the project we highlighted last year, a leprosy colony in Malawi, has been successful in achieving some of it’s ambitions, a process kick-started by the Youth Forum highlighting the needs of the project to Synod.

It’s easy to think that the problems of the world are too big, too far away, and that we are too small to affect change.

This weekend has been a reminder that we can make change.  It reminded us that we can shine light into dark places.

Last night I was at an open evening at my kid’s primary school.  Their work was on display and I was finding out what the ‘not much’ and ‘nothing’ they do all day is.

Two things struck me.  The first that there seems to be little room for initiative.  I mean real initiative beyond using a  different colour for something.  Castles, islands, knights, maps… all slightly different but essentially the same.

You get good marks for meeting the set criteria.

Seth Godin talks about this:

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it.

On the wall in each class was a chart asking parents the elements they think should be present to make the school a successful learning environment.

It was an interesting list and I wish I had taken a quick photo of it.  Coherent curriculum, rewarding success, respect, justice….

and also creativity, transferring skills, initiative…

I put my stars there.  But I was almost the only one.  Most parents preferred compliance.

I wonder if church is the same?

‘That’s not how we do that’  ‘That’s so-and-so’s job’  ‘We tried that once and it didn’t work’  ‘This is what the parable means’

Are we teaching compliance?  It is easier after all.

Thanks to all the people who came along to my two seminars at Deep Impact in Aviemore at the weekend.  It was good to meet some new people and some old friends.  Welcome to my blog if you’re visiting as a result of the sessions at the weekend!

Both sessions were recorded but they both were more conversational so I’m not sure how much sense the audio will make.

You can download the presentations as PDF files from my web tools page.  Let me know what you think!