Talking

Good day to you all. I hope that you are well. Everyone is fine here  - taking all things into consideration. I hope you had a grand Mother's Day if you partake. I hope it wasn't too bad if it is usually a bad day. I'm afraid that we don't really get involved in Mother's Day very much here. I spoke to a lady at church this morning who had been up since six to get the meat ready and the potatoes peeled, all ready for a family lunch. Good for her, I say. I sometimes think it must be nice to have a big family get-together on these high days and holidays, but then I have a nice chat on the phone with my son and an equally nice chat with my daughter. Then, I wave them into the sunset, have a doze on the sofa, read some nonsense in the Sunday paper, play a bit of Pikmin on the Nintendo and possibly have another doze. It's not a bad life, really. 

We had a nice run out to Teignmouth this week. (I am officially 105 years old). It was very nice, but I am not a fool. I know that I was dragged there under false pretences (see above), so I spent half an hour outside this shop while HOH sorted through old vinyl. I am usually quite happy to stand in the shop, but this one was half vinyl/half folklore, and it smelled a bit funny, and I was worried about getting swept up into a scene from Midsommer.     

Someone said on the radio this morning that whole minutes had passed without them mentioning the television programme Adolescence. It seems to have been everywhere. Possibly twice. I have to confess I haven't seen it yet. I'm girding my loins, and I will watch it eventually. Without spoilers, it is built around an awful act committed by a child and what may have caused it. Yesterday morning, I was listening to the radio, waiting to hear The Rest is History. (For the uninitiated, it's a programme which covers various historical events or people with both a historian and a comedian, which is a clever twist. I'll be honest; I could live without the comedy interventions, but I suppose that would ruin the whole point of it.) However, in a "change to the advertised programme," we were now going to have a discussion about the programme Adolescence instead. Oh good. Anyway, the reason that I am telling you about this is that, according to the programme,  some of the best work that is being done in the area of young, troubled people is being done by Steve Chalke. Now, there's a name from the past.

Steve Chalke at iofnc - Howard Lake

For those who don't know, Steve Chalke was one of the most successful youth leaders in the church in the Eighties.  By successful, I think I mean a bit groovy and cutting edge. He was always the guy who did the sex talk at the Spring Harvest Conference (standing room only, usually).   This usually boiled down to "If you haven't got one  - don't touch it", which lacked nuance but was a good place to start when you were dealing with young kids who might be exploring with each other in ways that were neither beneficial nor legal. He also used big audio-visual presentations that young people were not ashamed to be seen watching. For those of us in youth work who were desperately trying to get our youths not to think that we were old farts just trying to ruin their fun, Steve Chalke was the acceptable, handsome face of Christianity which was both helpful and a bit annoying.

Chalke now runs the Oasis Trust, which, among other things, runs academies and works with trafficked children and the homeless. It's quite a set-up. One of the things they have been doing is setting up regular conversations with boys at some of the troubled academies. Just conversations, regular, one-to-one conversations. That's all. The SATS results have gone through the roof. It's interesting.

Today, I chatted with a lady with years of youth worker experience. Her group is doing much the same thing. They meet once a week in the church cafe from 4pm until 6, and they are just there to talk. She said it was going really well. 

(Incidentally, reading this, you may think that all I do at church is gossip on the door and complain about the worship songs. You may not be too far off the mark in that assumption. And, to turn on a sixpence, this morning we sang some nonsense with the line "If we ever lost each other, I don't know what I'd doooooo." or something. JESUS IS NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND. He is not going to chuck you. With us always - even to the end of the world  - that's what he said. Bah!)

The writer Caitlin Moran wrote this week that her male friends have set up a group to talk about parenting their boys. The group meets every Saturday and plays golf. Moran feels the time could be better spent just talking to their boys. When the dads are away, the children are alone with their computers, and the computer is always there for them. Talking to them, telling them horrible, untrue things about themselves.     

Not for the first time, I was struck by how Jesus was already doing this stuff. How much of his time was spent talking - one-to-one or in small groups - with young men, although women were - shockingly, for the time, also included. No questions were off limits, even if they had asked them many times before. And Jesus asked them leading questions  - who am I? Why are you afraid? Do you want to get well? And sometimes, Why are you so dull? These kinds of honest, open interactions changed their lives. Maybe there is nothing new under the sun, and people just want to be seen and loved and know that they are safe. Who knew? God maybe?

"Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11

Have a good week.