God can do anything 2: What change looks like

The last post was for february's edition of Running Free and here is March's ... I’m writing this month following on from my last instalment what change may look like as a community that has faith in a God who can do anything. Have you ever found yourself getting angry at some wrong in the world? Ever found yourself watching the news and thinking this shouldn’t be happening in society? It has been said to me that you are asking for a hard life to care about the things in this world that you can’t change. As Christians is it ok to be apathetic about things we can do nothing about? I say bring on a hard life if it means that I recognise that I can’t do things in my own strength but also recognise that God can do anything and so I cry out to him. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across the serenity prayer? It asks God for a sense of peace about the things we can’t change and the courage to change the things we can. I’m not sure if that prayer doesn’t encourage us to get on with the things that we can’t change when I do think we should have a healthy discomfort especially for the things that don’t have a place in the kingdom of God.

Have you ever found yourself getting angry at some wrong in the world?

This half term the young people and I have been looking at the values of the kingdom of God as set out in the Sermon on the Mount. One of the sessions we did asked the young people to design an ideal city and then asked where do unemployed people fit in, what happens to poor people, how do lonely people find community? You may guess what we found, large houses, blocks of flats, shops, places of entertainment, and environmentally friendly modes of transport but no places of support for the unemployed, maybe a church for lonely people, expensive houses and shops excluding the poor. As Christians who ask as we were taught for the kingdom of God to come on earth what can we do as people called to be salt and light, labourers in God’s vineyard, as stewards of God’s creation? It may seem when we ask ourselves that question the answer is something insurmountable. When we look around the world and see the horrendous things happening it can be easy to think what could I possibly do to make even a slight difference? There is always hope. As Christians we have a secure hope; ‘being made right with God by his grace we could have the hope of receiving life that never ends’ (Titus 3.7). The writer of Lamentations says I have hope when I think that the love of God never ends and his mercies never stop and are new each morning. This hope we have puts a perspective on this life but does it mean that as we look forward to a day that there will be no hunger, thirst or tears so much that we ignore the fact those things are in abundance in the world now?

‘... You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.’ (Taken from the Message).

Christian Aid is a Christian organisation that insists that the world can and must be swiftly changed to one where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty...poverty; people made it people can end it.’ Christian Aid is aiming to tackle the causes of poverty, the structures that marginalise the poor, and relieve the effects of poverty, they believe in life before death. They work to improve people’s quality of life here and now as well as sharing with people the hope there is for an eternal life through Jesus where poverty will definitely have no place. Lent is upon us and is a time to reflect on the sacrifice Jesus was to make for us after he was tempted whilst fasting in the desert. This Lent what I will be doing and encouraging the young people to do is ‘count your blessings’. Christian Aid’s campaign asks us over Lent to donate small amounts of money for all the good things we have in our lives that others don’t. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says ‘you are blessed when you’re content with who you are, no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourself the proud owners of everything that can’t be bought... you’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.’ (taken from the Message). What we can do to make a change is to donate our money to a charity that is working to bring hope to people living in poverty and there is always hope because of the loving and powerful God we have! It's coincidental that I publish this post when it is now Christian Aid Week!

Thoughts for the New Year: God can do anything!

I know it's been a ridiculously long time, too long for anyone saying that they were going to think more serously about blogging but hey ho! I deceided that my articles for the parish magazine could go on my blog too to share the news from Emsworth and to offer some of my reflections on life as a church based youth worker at the same time!

Well, we’re well on the way into this New Year but my reflections for this coming year bring me nothing but excitement as I look ahead to what God has in store for the young people and the community of Emsworth! I took some time to listen to God for the New Year and read the NLT version of Genesis 1, the account of creation. The thing that leaped out at me was that God said there would be light and ‘that is what happened’. I also read Luke 1, of the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist and found again those words ‘God can do anything’ he can bring a child into the world through the Virgin Mary and she is blessed because she ‘believed that what the Lord said would really happen’. Also that day I heard the great wisdom from Duggie Dug Dug, so in the words of Duggie Dug Dug: ‘have we made our God too small?’ What incredibly good news that Is, nothing is impossible with God! Have you ever found yourself saying there’s something you simply cannot do or something that cannot happen? Maybe you need to ask yourself Duggie’s question and remember that we have a God who can do anything!

...so in the words of Duggie Dug Dug: ‘have we made our God too small?’

Following on from my last instalment about what it’s like to be a young person in modern society it seems to be a focus for the year from the Arch Bishop of Canterbury’s New Year speech. Dr Rowan Williams pointed out that young people are a minority group, most of who don’t identify with the violence of last year’s riots and yet the few as ever give the majority a bad name. Dr Rowan Williams asked ‘what kind of a society lets down its young people by treating them with suspicion and negativity?’ in response to the feeling in society that young people on the streets are to be avoided. He argues that the energy that can be released when young people feel safe and loved, can flourish for everyone’s good. Young people don’t need to be made to feel unwanted and useless; they need guidance to release their gifts. Dr. Rowan Williams finished his speech by saying ‘being grown up doesn’t mean forgetting the young’ and that we need to ask ourselves how we can make friends with our fellow younger citizens for the sake of our happiness as well as theirs.

‘being grown up doesn’t mean forgetting the young’Arch Bishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

Robin Rolls, the Director of the Arch Bishop of York’s Youth Trust, writes in the Youthwork Magazine that devices have been made for the use of police that emit a high pitched noise aimed to only affect those under 20 to move them on. If any other minority group were treated like this we would be outraged! Young people are not just a minority group but a vulnerable one at that and yet society seems to accept that they are targeted in a negative way. The Bible has many examples of young people being used to do God’s work, often the people that would have been last in line to do anything important have been instrumental in some of the amazing things God has done. There is some thought that even some of the disciples were much younger than Jesus when he called them, so you could even say that Jesus was a youth worker! If the kingdom of God belongs to people such as youth, surely we want to be focusing our energy on helping them to realise their amazing potential in Christ. What I also need to remember is that the solutions to these issues surrounding young people are not about me, I am not the expert, I am not young people’s saviour, the solutions lie in working together as a community to help young people and essentially it is all about our God who can do anything, the credit belongs to him!