Tikhtak

Who is your King ? - April eshort

Check out my April eshort on the Youth eshort  blog. Anita Matthews from our youth and children's team recently went out to Nepal and brought back some inspiring interviews, which will be featured on May's trax16. With this in mind I thought an eshort on the current state of life in Nepal from a Christian perspective would be good, especially as they worship a very different King and suffer for the right to do so. To find out on the latest from CMS in Nepal click here.

Trax16 on Bebo

Check out trax16 on bebo

Brighton rocks

Irfana and I took a trip to Brighton on Saturday and it was beautiful. We lay on the beach for about 3 hours and got lost in all the pebbles. I actually got sun burnt even though the air was quite nippy. I remember going to Brighton in the 80's and it was a grim place. I cannot believe now it is the same place. Young people everywhere, coffee bars, arty shops and a thumping pier revitalising Victorian England. I was never a fan of a pebble beach, but I think as I get older I don't miss getting sand everywhere and Irfana's passion for collecting pebbles is rubbing off of me. At only a 50 minute train ride from London it makes a great one day trip.

Wrekin and Wroxeter

Had a few days in shropshire to recover after Easter. Good to visit the ancient city of Wroxeter in the shadow of the wrekin. I hadn't been there for a few years and it was impressive to think that a civilised society had thrived here since the first century. In some ways Shropshire then was more advanced  than it is now... The tall monument was what remained of the baths and just as the Wrekin rises up like the mound in close encounters so this stone ruin has an entity of it's own.

Trax16 on Radio York

Trax16 the CMS Youth Podcast has been given a window to promote itself on radio york. Check out Mike North's interview on his blog.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! He is risen... We have got through our roller coaster of an Easter schedule at Holy Trinity Clapham from Maunday Thursday and the washing of everyones feet by the clergy, to the stripping down of all the church finery and glitter on Good Friday. Saturday was then a day of decorating the church ready for Easter Sunday. Just the physical nature and exertion involved has been a great tool to getting the Easter story inside your bones.

Musalaha

The Bible says that every tongue and tribe shall worship the Lord in heaven; let me tell you, Musalaha youth leadership training course was Heaven on earth for me! Israelis and Palestinians worshiping Jesus, praising his name, working to expand His kingdom and bringing glory to His name, isn’t that heaven on earth?!"

This is a quote from a participant of a recent Youth Encounter training course in Cyprus run by Musalaha, who are a Christian reconcoliation organisation bringing Christians from Israel and the Palestinian territories together on journeys into the desert. I went on a desert encounter with them in 2003 and these kind of experiences do change your outlook.

Sharing creative ideas

I have just clicked on a link that Jonny has on his blog think labs. It's a place of creative thinking, chatting, blogging and sharing of ideas. In the resources section are a whole range of video ideas, which can be used and shared. Also check out the BTAA web site and video game adds.

3 little pigs and trainee vicars

I travelled down to Canterbury on Monday to teach ordinands at the SEITE (South East Institute for Theological Education). The setting was an old synagogue, which made a great theatrical space for a lot of interaction. We looked at examples of cross cultural mission, which Jonny and I had brought back from India in the summer and applied some of the missional insights Christians had in that context to youth work in the UK. We engaged with different forms of technology, video, digital photo and podcast to present an angle on the story of the 3 little pigs. The group came up with some great stuff. One group filmed a counselling session with each of the pigs and the wolf, which was very funny. It was also great to see respectable grown men and women playing and laughing like children as they created a picture story by digital camera. I deliberately gave everyone a free reign to create what they wanted and to play in a way they wanted. We applied this to youth work and looked at ways we need to let young people do the same in the context of a gathering of Christians. While there were a lot of challenges it was also good to hear a willingness to create elbow space for young people to ruck in their way. The problem is that in a lot of the churches that these people will go to, there is not enough elbow room to imitate a duck never mind rucking.

Recording trax16 up north

Went up to our Yorkshire studios (Mikes house) to record the April edition of our trax16 podcast, which we did from Motiv 8 in folkstone. We managed to fit it in on the agenda of our Youth and Children's meeting. We have included a taster of  May's podcast too with some interviews from Anita's visit to Nepal.