I’ve been invited to head up a team delivering a debate stream (I’ll explain in a minute) at the Church of Scotland’s National Youth Assembly in September.

The debates have in the past followed a fairly traditional model where people would be given written information prior to the event, someone would present more information on the topic at the event and then participants would ask questions, discuss and decide what they think.

This year there will be four debate themes; The Media, Healthy Relationships, Sustainable Living and Future Church.  I’m involved with The Media one.  Each theme will have four sessions lasting 2 hours each to explore one aspect of their topic with around 60 young adults.

So, we’ve decided to take an adversarial approach setting our sessions up as discussions around the opposites like control v democracy.  We’re also going to concentrate mostly on ‘new media’.  Should be fun.

We’ve decided to use a wiki to both provide information beforehand and to post what we come up with during the event.  More on that nearer the time.

I’m back from Crossover.  I’ve spent the weekend being tired and wet and it was great!  The young people seemed to have a great time and the mud only enhanced their enjoyment!  The sun came out on Sunday so all the tents got dried out a bit. The highlight for me was a U2 tribute band called Joshua//U2 who were fantastic… and LOUD!

I’m stepping down from the Management Group of Crossover in a couple of weeks.  I’ve been doing this for 9 years and it’s time for a rest and some new ideas.  I’ve loved being involved and have made some great friends through Crossover.  I’ll look on with interest to see what the future holds.