Brilliant

California Trip - did we do the right thing?

2008-10-12T11:50:00.003-05:00

Hi all

I hope this finds you well. We are out on the road in California and have had a fairly eventful trip. As you can see from the previous post out flight out was pretty krazy. What was meant to be an uneventful 15 hour journey turned out to be a 48 hour ordeal involving police, ambulances and visiting more places that we would have liked. We finally arrived in Sacramento a few hours before we were due to play and when we got on stage we were pretty shattered. Plus, I had a pretty bad cold which made the job tough.

Although we had a good night with Youth Specialties, we were initially disappointed with the numbers who were able to make it out....there were only about 70 in the crowd.

The next day, after getting some tattoos, we were getting ready for our next trip only for me to be rushed to Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento in the middle of the night. I thought I was dying...but it turned out to be kidney stones!! (Which are apparently one of the most painful things you can get.) So I am sitting in hospital now, writing this blog, while the rest of the band are in San Jose leading worship at The Journey.

I think all these hassles/frustrations and pain have made me consider was this trip really worth it? We've put a lot of time, energy and money into being here and it has all been for what we would consider to be little gain. I've felt quite reflective about it and have been wondering if we made the wrong desicion to come here. The trip hasn't really gone as anticipated. I can remember agreeing to do this trip and at that time I didn't really have peace in my heart but I decided to push on ahead...it seemed like too good an opportunity to turn up. My family were not that keen for me to take it on but at the time I thought it was OK and a good idea. In my desire to get out and 'do something' I ignored myself, my family and possibly ignored Gods prompting.

We've chatted a lot as a band recently about how all our decisions need to come from a place of peace - a place where we all feel (and our families feel) that we are moving in Gods will and in his timing. I feel on this occassion, I was just a little too hungry and under pressure to create something that maybe wasn't in Gods timing. Maybe I was trying to rush Him and myself?

Certainly, things have not gone as we would have liked. It is not that we expected everything to be perfect....life isn't like that but I (and prob the band) have not had as much of a sense of ease and peace on this trip as we would normally have. I think there is a lesson here for us. I think we need to listen to ourselves and to God more, notice His timings and operate from a place of peace. I certainly need to do things that have my family's blessing...otherwise it doesn't work.

We are going to be out in Nashville and Toronto soon and we do have peace and blessing about those trips so it will be interesting to see how those turn out in comparison to how things have gone here!

Peace to you,
Johnny

The "Look at Me" Generation

2007-01-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

Mark Oestreicher recently blogged on some interesting aspects of the nexters which is worth a read. The document he refers to highlights some of the trends of technology and lifestyle which differentiates them from other generations who preceeded them. Check out the article here

What you see is what you get

2007-01-22T05:29:00.000-05:00

things become what we want them to be. take a stormy day, you can look at it from the perspective of it being too cold and wet to go out, that it has upset your plans, or you can get excited about the prospect of venturing outdoors with the feel of the breeze against your face, a chance to get on all your high-tech gear and see if it really works instead of standing under the shower to see if it is really waterproof. it depends on how you look at it. the issue of brillance in each young person is exactly the same, how we chose to look at the individual and what we chose to look for will determine what we see. i remember teaching in a Quaker school who had as one of their core values 'there is something of God in every person'. there was something different about the ethos and culture of that school, a sense of respect, tolerance and determination to look for the potential in students. if you are working with people today realize that the way you look will determine what you see. it is like the gold miner who disgarded a vein of bright coloured stone in his search for gold, not realizing that he had tapped into a rich deposit of diamonds! learn to see the brillance in every individual.

How to use this site

2007-01-02T23:37:00.000-05:00

We have added in several nifty gadgets to this site that can help gather a community of contributors. You will notive a few tabs on the top right hand side of the page. The community tab will lead you to a place where you can join up and have some chats and meet others. The Wiki tab will lead you to a spot where you can read about or contribute to the development of brilliant and some of the training courses we are pulling together. If you need a little help along the way or if you just feel friendly there is a contact tab to help.

The Big Idea

2007-01-02T23:21:00.000-05:00

Adrian Eagleson, Johnny Parks, and myself have known each other for many years as all of us grew up in or around Belfast. We began thinking and planning about doing something great together that could have an influence on youthwork and education.

We met in Scotland in November 2006 at the House of Cantle to get our heads together and dream of what would be possible.

We decided that instead of playing the role of experts in education we would instead gather the experts and novices together for an event and facilitate the dialogue and training. The vision behind the training days and the connecting online will be to stragetise and plan around how we can help every child discover and know they are brilliant.

The first phase is a 3 day event in Belfast in March 2007 where we plan to gather around 25 youthworkers and teachers.

The Journey begins...

Ideas

2007-01-02T23:18:00.001-05:00

As the community forms and develops this will be a space where we will post some of the great ideas that we can all benefit from.

Articles

2007-01-02T23:16:00.001-05:00

Here are some interesting articles

Events

2007-01-02T23:15:00.001-05:00

We are considering gathering everyone together for some dialogue and training once we get some momentum going. There are a lot of us who would like to learn together and discover more helpful strategies and approaches to working with youth.

It would be interesting to hear from folks on the ning site (community tab above) on what you are thinking, what you think is needed etc. We hope that this can evolve to something that has an international reach (although focused) so that we can all learn from what is going on in different places.

About Us

2007-01-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

Brilliant is a vision for every person to be able to accept their brilliance by the time they leave secondary/grammar/high school. To help make this a reality we have decided to pool some resources and gather those that share a similar dream. It is our hope that together we can discover new ways to serve the younger generations and relate to them in a manner that awakens greatness and transforms our world.

Our larger goal is to facilitate a community of like minded youthworkers, teachers and other professionals who work with and on behalf of young people who can collaborate and create new tools and approaches to draw out the best of the youth and students we work with.