Hello, readers.
Some of you may have noticed some negative comments posted on a previous post of mine, disparaging my conduct in a previous job I held.
Needless to say, these posts are lies and/or irrelevant. I don't want to delete them because I don't want to look as though I have anything to hide. I was the victim of bullying at a previous job of mine, which my current boss is fully aware of and fully sympathetic to. I have worked hard to try and move past the experience, but the petty and shallow behaviour of some of the people involved seems to have followed me here.
One of them mentioned in their post that Christians are supposed to "forgive" people. To be the better person.
This reminds me of something in my mother's book, Learning to Love. How do you forgive someone who hasn't said they're sorry? Who hasn't acknowledged the hurt they've caused you? Can you break ties with someone and forgive them at the same time? She points out that Jesus says you must ask forgiveness before your Father can give it to you - without acknowledgement of wrongdoing, true FORGIVENESS - the reparation of a relationship - cannot happen. Making peace with the hurt someone has caused you is a different thing - forgiving someone in your own heart is different from forgiving and repairing a relationship. I have moved on in my own life, to a job where I feel as though I am appreciated, where I am thriving, where I am making a difference. I find it sad that people would follow me to this blog three years after the events and try to defame my character. But I am no longer eaten up with bitterness and hatred as I was three years ago. And for that, I have Father Michael and Father Robert to thank, who have shown me such support and welcome in my ministry at St. George's, as well as all the parents, who have entrusted me with their children and welcomed me into their lives.
I'm sorry for anyone who has come across these posts and hope that they will not distract you from the main purpose of this blog, which is to share ideas and experiences on the topics of children's ministry and children's spirituality.
I pray for all who have been victims of bullying, and for all who are bullies, that all may come together in love in God's kingdom.
Sunday 27 November 2011
Thursday 17 November 2011
Service and pastoral care.
I've been stressing out a lot lately on how to start doing service projects with the older Sunday School kids. We have very few teenagers at St. George's, but we have a large number of 9- to 11-year-olds, and I'm working on slowly turning them into their own "clique" (in a good way), so that when they outgrow Sunday School, we'll have a ready-made youth group ready for them.
A lot of them are very enthusiastic about raising money for charities - we had a child who raised over £120 with a bake sale for Children in Need - but I want them to know more than just fund-raising. I want to do hands-on projects with them. But I don't want to do it in a way that is patronising ("hey, kids, let's go meet some poor people and help them!"), and I don't want to do it in a way that gets in the way of actual skilled charity workers doing their actual skilled work. My experience volunteering with the Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James showed me that well-meaning groups of teenagers from the suburbs can actually be more hassle than they're worth - the staff know what they're doing, and when the teenagers come to "help with a programme for inner-city kids," the staff ends up having to babysit the clueless teenage helpers as well as do the actual programme. Sometimes, what's needed is for people to just give money and let the people who know what they're doing get on with the work.
But that can lead to isolation - children in wealthy areas of Kensington sending money off to charities without any real contact with people who are different from them, or people who are suffering. The desire to "help" can become insular or even smug, and disconnected from any sense of the realities of other people's lives, or the feeling that real love involves getting in the trenches with people as well as sharing resources with them.
Martin (our new Administrator) and I went to a course on "Power, Poverty and the Church" last week, which advocated for a relational model of service as opposed to a noblesse oblige model or a procedural/bureaucratic model. That the way to give people not just aid but agency and power over their own lives is to build relationships with them first and then to see what they need and help empower them to gain it. The idea of starting with relationship has helped to sort out some of these issues. Possibly we could get in touch with a church in a deprived area and start a youth group together - an arts group, or a sports group (or both), and work on creating relationships between the young people and seeing where that leads us. Perhaps we could open a youth club in the community space one or two afternoons per week, focusing at first solely on getting to know people, and then on serving their needs. Perhaps we could visit a domestic violence shelter around Christmas and focus not on giving (we'd bring a donation of toys but that wouldn't be the main event) but just on sharing time and activities together.
And I can't forget to grab the pastoral opportunities that arise in normal church life and share them with the kids. A child in our Sunday School is ill and has been hospitalised for the last week (she's home now), and so I've amended our Sunday School lesson plan for this week to include making a Get Well card for her. That's an act of service that comes out of an existing relationship, and the kids will take the lead on it. It's a start.
A lot of them are very enthusiastic about raising money for charities - we had a child who raised over £120 with a bake sale for Children in Need - but I want them to know more than just fund-raising. I want to do hands-on projects with them. But I don't want to do it in a way that is patronising ("hey, kids, let's go meet some poor people and help them!"), and I don't want to do it in a way that gets in the way of actual skilled charity workers doing their actual skilled work. My experience volunteering with the Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James showed me that well-meaning groups of teenagers from the suburbs can actually be more hassle than they're worth - the staff know what they're doing, and when the teenagers come to "help with a programme for inner-city kids," the staff ends up having to babysit the clueless teenage helpers as well as do the actual programme. Sometimes, what's needed is for people to just give money and let the people who know what they're doing get on with the work.
But that can lead to isolation - children in wealthy areas of Kensington sending money off to charities without any real contact with people who are different from them, or people who are suffering. The desire to "help" can become insular or even smug, and disconnected from any sense of the realities of other people's lives, or the feeling that real love involves getting in the trenches with people as well as sharing resources with them.
Martin (our new Administrator) and I went to a course on "Power, Poverty and the Church" last week, which advocated for a relational model of service as opposed to a noblesse oblige model or a procedural/bureaucratic model. That the way to give people not just aid but agency and power over their own lives is to build relationships with them first and then to see what they need and help empower them to gain it. The idea of starting with relationship has helped to sort out some of these issues. Possibly we could get in touch with a church in a deprived area and start a youth group together - an arts group, or a sports group (or both), and work on creating relationships between the young people and seeing where that leads us. Perhaps we could open a youth club in the community space one or two afternoons per week, focusing at first solely on getting to know people, and then on serving their needs. Perhaps we could visit a domestic violence shelter around Christmas and focus not on giving (we'd bring a donation of toys but that wouldn't be the main event) but just on sharing time and activities together.
And I can't forget to grab the pastoral opportunities that arise in normal church life and share them with the kids. A child in our Sunday School is ill and has been hospitalised for the last week (she's home now), and so I've amended our Sunday School lesson plan for this week to include making a Get Well card for her. That's an act of service that comes out of an existing relationship, and the kids will take the lead on it. It's a start.
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