Ignite…

Signs of the times: Luther bashed a list into a church door: now people use PowerPoint. Last night at the weekly “Ignite” youth meeting a couple of the YP’s set up a video beamer for the purpose of confronting the group about some issues they saw in the church youth.

Some background may be useful here: “Ignite” is the name given to the Monday evening meeting for staff in the church youth department. Over the last month or so it’s changed to become a more discipleship focused weekly session, filling a gap in the youth work here and fitting in with a general policy change that leaders need to be part of at least one weekly discipleship group. This makes sense: as we all know you can’t take people further than you already are, so you need to grow.

The tricky part of raising the bar is dealing with the people who aren’t ready for this step: the danger being that the bus of ministry bounces down the road, leaving people who fell out of the back door for not having the “right” theological beliefs or responses. Part of the presentation was about that, although it covered other things not appropriate for an open blog. It took a critical look from an outside perspective at how we believers need to match words with lifestyle. It wasn’t gentle and occasionally became personal, but I think some of the points needed to be said. It made me realise how much people are watching Christians, and how small issues –like illegal copies of worship CD’s- can be a major stumbling block for people looking in. I think it also provided a much-needed check on the increasing emphasis on a few narrow theological ideas at the expense of a lot of others.

At the end of the evening some people were feeling attacked. Another meeting has been set for Sunday evening so we can discuss further. Hopefully this is the beginning of a change from traditional “Top down” approaches, to a conversation, and to community. As one person put it last night, it’s a change of heart that’s taking place instead of a change of programme.

Please pray for us as we go through this dangerous, but exciting process.