a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

My original presentation about contemporary spirituality

I have tried to dig out my original notes for the presentation I made concerning Gen X spirituality in January. I have also found the notes I made from the flipcharts we used.

I have not posted this before, as I didn't have my blog back then.

Young people's expectations

I am grateful to Paul for his work to lead the celebration last Saturday.

From work with his own teenage group he proposed some of the requirements that they had asked for in worship that they want.

A good discussion

During the discussion time at the end of the Celebration on Saturday somebody made a very good point about contemporary society wanting to know what is meant in often quite technical language. People now expect to be able to go to the Doctors and have their ailments explained so that they can understand. I imagine this is partly due to the rising suspicion of scientists. This phenomena is by no means recent. If my memory serves me rightly there is a scene in Whistle down the wind (1961) where the children ask the Vicar what happens to animals when they die. In reply he waffles something, and they say that he doesn't know.

This point was made in connection with some of the language we use. If experts are seen as using difficult concepts as a smoke screen ("don't worry dear its much too complicated for you, take my word for it") then we have to be very careful with how we explain concepts that are difficult (2000 years later we are still divided in what precisely happens at the Eucharist). However this needs to be offset by a growing appreciation of mystery. I guess on a spiritual level people want to know, but want to find out for themselves.

Questions of science,
Science and progress,
Do not speak as loud as my heart.
(The Scientist by Coldplay)

Last night's celebration

A last minute change of plan, as I dropped the use of film clips. Rather I chose to look at some of the things we had been doing at the Gathering, and some of the lessons about what it means to be a Church we have been learning.

Some good questions afetrwards. It would be interesting to see if anybody is currently writing about building new Church whilst running in parallel with existing patterns (bearing in mind existing patterns of Church may be appropriate for some). I will do some investigation.

If you were at the Celebration and want to comment please feel free using the link below.

Celebration June 12

Am thinking through the material I want to cover for our second Saturday celebration tomorrow evening. In January we looked at some aspects of Youth Culture by using clips from DVDs. Recap on January:-

"Young people don't come to Church because they are secular; rather they see themselves as spiritual and the Church as secular"