Youth Ministry and Me

Growing in the bible belt...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:23:00 +0000

So our church is located in a very strong Christian area of Melbourne.

Within a 5-10min drive from our church are a number of churches with great youth ministries doing great things.

I believe we've got a great youth ministry doing great stuff here too, but we miss the one thing these other churches have. LOADS of people. Our youth group probably gets on average 10-15 on a Friday night. A few more come on Sunday, but they don't come on Friday, and many who come on Friday don't come on Sunday.

It makes it hard to get new people, particularly youth, to stick around. I think this is totally understandable, it's exciting to be part of a church with 40-50 or 200-300 other like-minded youth.

I'm still uncertain how to operate in this kind of climate. When I was in Tasmania, we were one of those 'big' groups, with 30, 40 or 50 people. There weren't that many other 'big' youth groups around. I new numbers would win more numbers. We didn't focus on numbers it was just exceptionally helpful in doing growing gospel ministry.

Here are some of the questions I'm thinking about often:

1. How do we be distinctive from these other groups?
2. Why do we bother existing when there are these other good groups?

Drug lab next door

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:10:00 +0000

Well not quite next door, but this is about 2 minutes from my house!

As I was driving home I found one whole lane of the main road just round the corner from our place blocked off and police cars everywhere and people dressed in full body overall things. It was like something out of the movies! I thought it was a murder... thankfully it was just a major drug bust...

Crazy!

Called to Youth Ministry

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:59:00 +0000

Called to Youth Ministry looks like it will be a great resource for youth workers around the world.

It’s got a bunch of resources on their and if you’re American, it seems to offer much more like coaching and conferences (although I haven’t checked that out too much because I’m Australian).

So why not head over and check out Called to Youth Ministry. Add them to your RSS reader so you’ll be kept up to date with their latest.

Note: These guys have asked me to contribute a few things to their site and I have happily agreed.

Is church an event?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:24:00 +0000

Over on Tim Chester’s blog he has a great post here about how the way we spend our time and money reflects that we actually think of church as a show or an event rather than a community or a family.

Tim also has a new book on porn due out soon. Be sure to check it out and get your hands on it as no doubt it will be fantastic!

Do you think you primarily think of church as an event or a family?

Can someone tell me what the Freudian slip here is?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:46:00 +0000

I read this in Tasmania's fine newspaper today:

State Infrastructure Minister Graeme Sturges made an embarrassing Freudian slip when asked whether it was just a coincidence that construction was starting in the middle of an election campaign.

"No, absolutely not," Mr Sturges said.

Now, I'm prepared to look stupid here, because I have no idea how this is a Freudian slip... he said no to a question...

See the full article for context here

Please leave a comment if you understand

My uneasiness with some vision/purpose statements

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:18:00 +0000

Is that they can be too linear. Having titled this my uneasiness with some vision/purpose statements, let me say that I think I'd rather have a bad one that people worked towards than be completely direction-less. With no statement of vision or purpose of values there is no way to judge what competing demands are more worthwhile to spend time and money on. So things like youth leader training funding get cut while flower budgets get increased.

What I mean by saying they can be too linear is that sometimes they sound like this: We do A to achieve B in order that C will happen. e.g. we reach people, to restore people and then we release people to reach people... and on it goes.

The classic Australian youth ministry model is a bit like this, we bring them in, build them up and send them out.

My feeling is that in reality sometimes B happens then A and C happen together or any number of other possibilities, not to mention those unforeseen ones. That is sometimes we bring them in and send them out at the same time and then build them up later or whatever might happen.

I've never quite figured out how to work out a statement that is fluid enough and complex enough to better reflect the realities of life, yet is simple enough to encapsulate what your organisation or ministry is trying to do.

When I was studying public policy we talked about normative and descriptive policy making descriptions or theories. That is someone would say public policy is made like this, first A happens then B then C. This was usually called a normative theory because it didn't really reflect reality, but rather what should happen in an ideal world. Others would have more complex descriptive models which tried to describe what actually happened in every day life.

I believe our vision statements have to be normative, in that they describe what our organisation should be like, but that they should be robust enough and big enough to also be somewhat descriptive, in that they describe or represent the realities of life and ministry.

I'm thinking out loud here...

Does anyone else feel my uneasiness? Or even understand what I'm trying to say here?

I got married

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:34:00 +0000

Sorry for a lack of posts in the last few weeks. I got married and have been on a much needed break in the days leading up to the wedding and then an amazing, best holiday of my life, 11 day honeymoon on the Sunshine Coast (QLD) with my beautiful wife Ellisa.

When I get some photos I will most definitely post some.

When I've dealt with all my emails and things that have built up over the last few weeks, I will begin more consistent and regular blogging again.

Ps. You should get married, it is awesome!

Pastoring and Praying people

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:43:00 +0000

Tomorrow I am giving our youth leaders a new framework for thinking about how we do youth ministry and how we measure success. I believe that this is something that God has shown me over summer as I've listened to the leaders and their joys and frustrations, prayed, read and thought about our youth ministry. It's below.

Please leave comments with your feedback!

Our Goal
To be a community that thirsts for God
With all our heart we desire to be constantly seeking to grow in our love and knowledge of God above all else.
We want to cultivate this desire of our hearts in those we pastor.

Our priorities
Pastoring people - our main job is to care for and lead our people
Praying people - we cannot do the first without God, so we pray

Our Danger
Becoming solely program planners - the nature of the Youth Ministry beast is to run programs and we will have plenty of them in 2010. However, we must remember that the majority of our focus, energy and time should be spent on our priorities.

How does this mindset help us?
Our priorities affect how we measure success. If we see ourselves as program planners then we will be constantly obsessing over who is coming to our programs. If we get 20 kids to something we have been successful. If only 4 show up we have failed. If however we see ourselves as pastors and people of prayer then we will measure success by the quality of contact we’ve had with people and the amount of time we’ve spent lifting these people up in prayer to God. For example if we’ve rung the youth directly assigned to our care and asked them how they’re going and prayed for or with them then we’ve been successful.

Haiti earthquake

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:55:00 +0000

Not having a TV it's only been today that I've had the chance to get a visual look at what I've been hearing on the radio - a terrible terrible earthquake in Haiti.

I'm slightly more interested in this earthquake and it's survivors than I otherwise might be because I sponsor a child through Compassion in Haiti. Compassion do not know if he is alive or dead.

Haiti is a country in crisis. May God help them

Here is a great collection of photos which may help you realise the full devestation that faces the people in Haiti.

Here is the article on the compassion site about the state of their staff, sponsor children and families in Haiti.

Saddleback is like Google

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Check out this interesting post here which notices how the Saddleback buildings (Rick Warrens megachurch) are a lot like the Google buildings.

Very interesting!

HT to Matt Perman

KFC has a racist ad...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:36:00 +0000

Only problem is... it's not racist.

That ad depicts an Australian cricket fan (the same guy from all the other KFC cricket ads this summer) sitting in a crowd of West Indian supporters who are dancing and singing. They are dancing and singing because they are West Indian cricket fans and that is how they watch the cricket. I think that most Australian cricket fans think this is a cool part of West Indian cricket. I wish it was a part of watching Australian cricket, but we are too reserved for anything like that.

Anyway, in order for the Australian fan to watch the cricket in peace he gives the crowd a bucket of KFC chicken, when they start eating they quieten down. This is the apparent racist part, see this quote by an American radio announcer for example:

"These people, they're so unruly and uncivilized and so rowdy, jumping up and down," U.S. radio announcer Ana Kasparian said, in her criticism. "They just can't sit down unless you give them some ... fried chicken."

But actually Ana Kasparian has severely mis-understood the ad. They are West Indian cricket fans having fun watching the cricket. But our Australian fan can't focus so he gets KFC which quietens them down. This is just like what the same guy has done in all the other KFC ads this summer. He has given his girlfriends parents KFC so he can change the channel on the TV and watch the cricket, he has given a security gaurd KFC so he can sit on the other side of the fence as a fake security gaurd and get an uninterupted view of the cricket. Now, in this ad, he gives chicken to the West Indian crowd so he can watch the cricket.

It's not racist, it's cricket.

It's also not America, it's Australia and I think that racism probably has some cultural elements to it. What's racist in America, due to past cultural history, could be not racist in Australia because we don't share that same cultural history. It probably works both ways.

Here is an American news story on the ad

This story from the Australian is well written and sums up much of what I think.

Here is the actual ad

and here is one of the other KFC cricket summer ads for context and comparison.

I'm looking for a speaker

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:52:00 +0000

Anyone out there know of a good speaker I could get to speak at our annual youth camp in August/Sept this year? Or are you interested in speaking at our Youth Camp this year?

I can't pay much/anything, except covering costs for the trip. I may be able to offer my services to you and your youth ministry for a weekend camp in return...

Comments and applications appreciated! ;)

New Blog Design Done

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:35:00 +0000

It's up and it's going. My redesign is finished

What do you think?

Any feedback or broken links or things you can't read anymore?

I'll try my best to fix all that over the coming weeks and months.

The only thing I can't get to work is the image in the header. So currently that's blank... which is annoying, but it seems to be beyond my technical ability to fix it. If you think you can, let me know!

Also, thanks must go to these guys who did the design and let people use it for free.

I hope that this increases the readability and usability of the site.

Feedback most welcome

Blog undergoing changes to look and feel

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:43:00 +0000

I've been working on this for a while now.

I'm about to make the change over to a new template.

I'll let you know when it's done. Hopefully I don't stuff anything up!

Let me kill a straw man

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Recently I've noticed that often people who have slightly different opinions on something don't actually engage and argue properly. Rather they tend to ignore what their opposition is really saying and take the other person to be more extreme and then argues against that non-existing extreme. That's called building a straw man (i.e. someone who doesn't exist) and then killing it because you kill a point of view that doesn't really exist.

I see this most often with Christians arguing amongst themselves about theology. But also between Christians and Atheists who both make assumptions about the other that probably aren't true.

So if you do this, please stop.

Jack Bauer meets Santa

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:33:00 +0000

I like 24. It's the only show on TV i would probably class myself as obsessed with. Even then, I'm not too bad. I've never spent any money on 24, just lots of time.

(HT to Terrace Crawford where I saw this first)

Plan your Bible reading for 2010 today

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:51:00 +0000

Today is a good day to work out what and how you will read the Bible in 2010.

I suggest heading over to this website and choosing one of their plans.

I got there from John Piper's church website where he recommends one of them for his congregation members. But I think all would be good depending on what you want to achieve!

I'm going to be using the Discipleship Journal Reading Plan over the coming year.

The Contemplative Pastor – Eugene H. Peterson

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:45:00 +0000

Another day, and another book review! I read this book a while ago. In Reformed Evangelical circles old Eugene gets a lot of flack, or at least I’ve heard him get some and I think I’m in those kinda circles. Anyway, mostly the flack relates to his paraphrase of the Bible (The Message). The gripe is something to do with it not being literal enough. As far as I’m concerned though those who have a problem with this have an actual problem with how people use it, not with Eugene and The Message itself. He’s a smart guy and he’s trying to make the Bible more accessible. Why don’t we slam Kel Richards for writing the Aussie Bible? Maybe it’s because he has Sydney Anglican links? Or maybe it’s actually because no one in Australia understands the Aussie Bible and therefore it isn’t misused much by the larger Christian population?

Anyway, I digress from the actual topic which is The Contemplative Pastor. I enjoyed this book, and I found it challenging to my ways of thinking about ministering and pastoring. He slams Pastors for promoting themselves as being busy and unavailable to their flock and to God. He gives some great advice about appealing to our schedules and makes a compelling case for diarising prayer time and family time and making them as immovable as that meeting that’s taken you 3 months to set up!

He reminds us that Pastors are subversive like a revolutionary even though many will think of us as they do their local green grocer or milk bar man. He tells us to remember God is God and we are not, even though some will act and think like we are their god. He challenges us to be cautious with our words, to live in the mystery of God and the mess of people, to teach people the language of prayer (willing to participate in what is willed – willed passivity) and reminds us that we aren’t just Pastors of Sunday (or Friday in a Youth Pastor’s world).

There are some awesome quotes, like this one Peterson quotes from Annie Dillard:

Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?… On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does not one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares: they should lash us to our pews. Explores unmindful of conditions died. Why don’t similarly unprepared worshipers perish on the spot?

Or this one:

Most people’s lives are not spent in crisis, not lived at the cutting edge of crucial issues. Most of us, most of the time, are engaged in simple routine tasks and small talk is the natural language. If pastors belittle it, we belittle what most people are doing most of the time and the gospel is misrepresented.

In other words, Pastors need to do small talk.

There was also a great bit about seeing people as sinners:

To call a man a sinner is not a blast at his manners or his morals. It is a theological belief that the thing that matters most to him is forgiveness and grace… If people are sinners then pastors can concentrate on talking about God’s action in Jesus Christ instead of sitting around lamenting how bad the people are. We already know they can’t make it. We already have accepted their depravity. We didn’t engage to be pastor to relax in their care or entrust ourselves to their saintly ways.

Finally the book finishes with Peterson’s story about how and why he had a sabbatical (year long) from his parish. I thought that was a great story of how he and his parish lived out what he said in the book as a whole. And the sabbatical was to great effect both for his soul and the maturing of his parish. Perhaps if people are to do long stays in one place, long (year?) breaks should be made a requirement?

I read this book in Warbuton. It was a great book to read as I was taking time out to think, pray and reflect on my ministry. This book encouraged me in that, and challenged me to be more open to people and more open to God. For that I am grateful. I didn’t agree with everything he said, nor with some of his arguments, but the challenge and the Spirit of the book are much needed for those of us who have a tendency to glory in our business for the Gospel and seek the praise of our followers for doing so.

Tribes: Seth Godin

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:22:00 +0000

I really like Seth Godin. He’s a smart guy and very adept at figuring out the way society is and where it’s going. I hope and pray he gets to know Jesus.

Anyway, I’ve just recently finished reading his book Tribes with Jono (we read books together to direct our discussion in supervision meetings when we catch up). I thought this book was excellent.

The book is not traditional. It has no chapters, and reads somewhat more like a series of blog posts linked to a central idea.

The idea, is that in today’s world everyone is organised into Tribes. But unlike in ye olden days when they were based around race or geographical area, Tribes are now based on interests and causes and the internet frees them from geographical constraints. Godin says Tribes are all about communication, and a Tribe leader is the person who allows a group of people communicate about an idea or interest that they share.

Godin encourages us to be heretics. That’s sometimes an uncomfortable thing to read when you’re a Christian, but rather than encouraging us to say Jesus and Budda are all the same, what Godin means by his heretic encouragement is that we need to get over our fear and buck the system. We need to believe in our ideas and move forward with them, go against the pre-existing and often prohibiting structures and organisations we find ourselves in. This will led to great success and we have nothing to fear because nobody kills heretics anymore, either they ignore you, sack you or you led a great revolution by getting people talking about your dreams and ideas (essentially a Tribe).

There is much the church can learn for Seth Godin, and I think many pastors should read this book and Godin’s blog. Over the next little while, I will be going a little bit more in depth with some of Godin’s ideas and why I think the church needs to listen to this secular prophet.

Introducing Andrew Reid

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:04:00 +0000

Andrew is going to be the new vicar here at Holy Trinity Doncaster where I work as the Youth Minister.

Currently Andrew is a faculty member at Ridley Melbourne (where I study). Here is his bio, ripped straight from Ridley's site:

Andrew is married to Heather and they have two married sons and one grandson. Prior to coming to Ridley in 2005, Andrew worked in IT while leading an independent evangelical church plant at Curtin University. He has also been the senior pastor of St Matthews Anglican Church in Shenton Park, WA, Anglican Chaplain at Macquarie University, and National Director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES).

Andrew is also the author of a number of Christian books on the Old Testament, hermeneutics, and apologetics and has a passionate interest in helping people understand the Old Testament as Christian scripture and in training preachers. He regularly speaks at conferences around Australia, volunteers as an international facilitator for Langham Preaching, and has trained preachers in expository preaching in Australia, Pakistan, South East Asia, South America, and Papua New Guinea.

I think this is a great appointment for HTD, and I'm really looking forward to working for him, when he starts in May 2010!

See the official post on the HTD site here

Faith in all the right places

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:59:00 +0000

So I've had this thought recently, and I thought I'd put it on my blog.

I'm a Christian because of what Jesus has done on the cross. I believe that is fact and I believe that because of what Jesus has done I am made right with God and now have the Holy Spirit growing and changing me to become more like Jesus through all the circumstances my life might throw at me.

I'm not a Christian because I see God's hand at work in powerful miracles of healing and special knowledge. I do believe that miracles and things like that happen. I know a boy involved in some of the youth stuff I do who speaks with truthfulness and sincerity about the miracles God has done in his sick little brothers life to make him well again. I don't doubt them one bit. And I am strengthened and encouraged by these awesome works of God. But I'm not a Christian because of miracles. My faith isn't dependent on God acting in miraculous ways. I'm quite comfortable with the idea God might allow much hardship in my life in order to make me more like Jesus.

So yeah, what I'm basically saying is that if our faith is not in the cross of Jesus Christ, but in the power of God to do miracles now, I'm not sure we'll be people who can go the distance on the narrow windy tough road that can be the Christian life.

Thou shalt shoplift

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:32:00 +0000

I forgot to read that one in the Bible. I also forgot to read about how when things got tough breaking the law was ok. However, Rev Jones from the UK thinks it's a clear principle from the Bible that allows people to steal.

The married father-of-two insisted his unusual advice did not break the Bible commandment "Thou shalt not steal" - because God's love for the poor outweighs his love for the rich.

"My advice does not contradict the Bible's eighth commandment because God's love for the poor and despised outweighs the property rights of the rich," he continued.
"Let my words not be misrepresented as a simplistic call for people to shoplift. The observation that shoplifting is the best option that some people are left with is a grim indictment of who we are.

Maybe if he'd left it at an observation that some people are forced to shoplifting because of our greed he would have been alright. But he should have qualified that by saying there is no good reason to shoplift and that if you are one of those poor people the church will help. Or something.

See the whole story here

Strapp Ford Screw Up (there is a pun in this title)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:38:00 +0000

**** NOTE: This post is simply a public name and shame and is not intended to be insightful in anyway****

Ok, so across the road from HTD is the Ford Dealership Strapp Ford. They have apparently been voted Ford Dealership of the year 8 or 9 times but this either must have happened a long time ago or all the rest of the Ford Dealers are worse than they are.

Here's what happened.

I went to Strapp Ford to get my timing belt replaced on my car (100,000km service). I got the rest of the service done with a trusted friend of the family mechanic earlier and he told me to head over to my local dealer to get the timing belt changed. So that's what I did and 300 odd dollars later I thought all was good with the world.

Well that was a month ago, and on Tuesday night some belts and pulleys fell out of my car after driving to the airport (right at the end of my first long drive as I was going about 70km/h down Springvale Rd)

That's right, I'm driving along and then bang, stuff falls out of my engine and my car stops. You can see the bits in the picture.

So at about 2:30 in the morning after the tow truck finally arrives I get it towed to Strapp Ford to ask them to explain how this has happened, and to fix their mistake.

I arrive at Strapp Ford at 7:30am on Wednesday to tell them what has happened. They investigate and find that they didn't do up the screws properly... They offer a half baked attempt at an apology as if I'm supposed to understand that these things just happen and then say but we wont charge you for the repair and send me on my way.

Discraceful! Never go there! They can't even tighten screws... imagine what they must do to your car if it actually has a real problem. So I'm off to my family friend mechanic this afternoon to get him to actually check the car properly for me.

---UPDATE: My mechanic took didn't like the look of the screws Strapp Ford had used so he took them out and put proper ones in. So far so good.

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:13:00 +0000

Part of my TV and Internet free life has meant time for books. I’ve just finished (took me a little under a week) this book about Jonathan Edwards. There were a few reasons I wanted to read about him. Firstly, he has inspired John Piper and I’ve heard Piper talk about Edwards many times. So I wanted to get a better understanding of the man who has influenced Piper so much, as Piper has influenced me. Secondly, Ridley is about to have some sort of Jonathan Edwards partnership with Yale going on, so I figured I was probably going to end up learning something about him in the future.

The book is pretty good. It’s engaging and interesting and very easy to read. The only real criticism I have is that it implied way to much knowledge of colonial America and the American Revolution. I knew nothing really of these events and so it was obvious as I was reading I wasn’t getting a full picture of some of the important things that Edwards did. (For example the book talks a lot about Edwards in contrast to Benjamin Franklin, I really don’t know much about Franklin at all, except that he is some important old American dude). So I’m at least inspired from this book to go out and read some more on the history of Colonial America and Franklin.

Edwards himself was a very interesting person. He was involved in revivals (aka Awakenings) that sounded to be very much like some of the more Pentecostal gatherings (eg. Toronto or Lakeland) we hear about, lots of physical and deep emotional response to the Gospel. Edwards recognised that these big displays of emotion could be used for ill, but defended them in general because it was a big deal for someone to realise that God had saved them a terrible sinner and why shouldn’t they feel a weight of emotion? I thought there was probably a rebuff to many of us who can tend to be hard nosed no emotion evangelicals. Edwards lived by his convictions and never apologised for that. Even if, as it did, cost him his job and therefore his security. I felt sad when Jonathan Edwards died in this book. It was like my new friend had just died, and all too soon. Edwards died in is 50s not long after becoming Principal of Princeton.

If you’re interested in famous smart old Christians (like I seem to be) then I would definitely recommend reading this book. There is a bigger longer one by the same authour (Marsden) called Jonathan Edwards: A Life, which is probably also worth reading, though I haven’t.

Some good points here

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Bowditch) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:30:00 +0000

Via Al Stewart Via Mikey Lynch

Does Paul say, 'Spend your life trying to win unconverted religious people'? (verse 5). I seriously doubt it's worth spending our time on those who don't want to hear and try to stop gospel ministry, just so that we can win over an antiquated building and spend our life managing that.

That's different to what many say regarding regenerating the church. But I can see where he's coming from

People in the church and paid ministry will cause you more damage than those outside the church.

Wise

You can't train someone in ministry if you only see them for an hour a week in staff meeting.

I agree with this 100%