Broken Glass v Broken Lives

I hear some people are furious, upset and talking about it.

Maybe a little too much for a piece of glass?  Sadly not.

Beverley is a fairly middle class place, with a large majority of its residents being of retirement age. It isn’t the most exciting town for young people. Quite often you’ll see in our local press, reports of anti-social behaviour caused by ‘unruly’ youth. I believe positive transformation comes alongside positive investment. And get this, one story reported of how the council was to pipe classical music through the bus station speakers on evenings, to deter young people from hanging around. No headline story of how our authorities were going to tackle the root cause of the problem, just another ‘let’s see if this works-shove it under the carpet response’.  Nationally, the church by far, is the largest provider of youth work, and this applies to Beverley too. The town has at least four full time church youth workers, not to mention part time, gap year, and schools workers. I think it’s a huge privilege to be in a position where the church has committed and said “yes” we want to play our part and provide provision for young people. With that, comes a huge responsibility and a risk. The possibility of broken windows for instance...

For six years, we’ve been running a large youth event in Beverley Minster, the ‘Youth Café’. We often attract between 200-300 young people to each event. The whole idea is above all to ‘welcome’ young people into the church, help break down any stereotypes they may have, but to also provide a foundation for creating purposeful relationships with them. My vision has always been to feed these young people into our weekly programme, so that we can work more closely, and enable these young people to realise their God given potential in life. I must admit, for a few years, I’ve questioned whether or not the ‘feed in’ idea has been working, but now I know it is! Last Friday we had 28 young people aged 11-14 come to our Friday night youth club. The majority of them live on Swinemoor Estate, which itself comes with many difficulties and challenges. Most of these young people have come from broken homes and broken families, and simple things like having a conversation with them, and complimenting their behaviour has really encouraged and given them confidence. You can see it in their faces when you say “well done – you were brilliant tonight!”

Last Friday was particularly challenging for our staff, as we were faced with a couple of new lads, who insisted on being abusive towards us. In the heat of the moment, my head was thinking logical, professional, common sense things, but my heart was clearly shouting “just love, love, love…” I find the heart speaks powerfully, and I try to listen to it moreso than my mind. Probably all day, every day, these young people will be shouted at, criticised, judged, punished, and starved of sincere love. They have come to ‘us’, the church on their Friday night. It's not our right, but our privilege and honour. It is these people God calls us to work with. It is these people God calls us to share the good news with. It is these people that we are called to love.

Yes, a window did get accidently broken on Friday night. There was a very apologetic young person, who went home in fear that his mother would tell him off. And for a short time, I was more concerned about the window, than being thankful to God for bringing many young people through our doors that night and touching their lives. I realised the reality of the whole scheme of things. The window is £40-£50 to replace. Easily done. We can forget it and move on. There were many more broken lives in that place on Friday night   that deserve deeper investment.

Over Easter we held a 24/3 prayer event, and seven of these young people gave their lives to Jesus. We had to ask them to spend at least some time at home each day, because they spent more or less every hour of every day with us. They couldn't get enough of just being there. They wanted to be in the very place where they experienced God, and felt welcomed, accepted and loved. Today, one of these young people came to church for the third week in a row. We are called to serve the broken and bring God’s restoration on lives. This particular young person is beginning a life where he wants to experience all the fullness God offers. Not a life where one will constantly condemn his brokenness.

Beverley Minster should not foolishly ponder too much on its broken glass, but rejoice that it is able to reflect Christ, and reveal His love to these 28 young lives, every single week.

If a saved life comes at the cost of a window, then bring... (I'll say no more)

Listen to your heart… What brokenness has God called you to be more concerned about?

Broken glass over broken lives anyday!

Chinos, Toms and a Cassock.

Overpowered by the lingering clouds of incense. Holy Water as you enter. Six candles instead of two. An array of icons. A bell to announce the start of worship. A tabernacle containing reserved sacrament on the altar. A constantly lit candle. Some of the things Father David gave the opportunity for me to experience in his church today. St Alban the Martyr Parish Church in Hull. None of these are unfamiliar to me, but they've never had a regular home in my weekly experience of church. Until now…

St Albans is the place I'll be spending quite some time at, over the next couple of months, particularly Holy Week and Easter Day. A combination of work experience, observing, learning and 'just being' there will form my placement at St Albans. Why? Over the last 12-14 months, I've been pondering where I'm meant to be in life, and what God wants me to do. I've been discerning a call to ordination and am now in the process of preparing for a BAP or a Bishop's Advisory Panel, in the autumn. I'm working through a whole heap of books, form filling, journaling and book reviews.

I never considered being ordained when younger, and always wanted to be a pilot as child (a decision not to be, will be what many of my friends will be pleased about, considering my severe lack of driving ability), but having the privilege of the experiences I've encountered, the roles I've been honoured to fill, and respecting God's call of duty (which includes all of us Christians), I've felt a call to serve God, and serve God's people, my brothers and sisters, in a priestly capacity. I've not quite got my head around the prospect of potentially wearing fancy dress on a regular basis, but I do know my heart and mind is at peace with having to sacrifice my selfish desires, ways, and life, and allow God to steer the life God has given me, in the direction He sees fit. Not to say that I’m still anxious and nervous to say the least.

I know there's a degree of uncertainty, unknowns, challenges, opportunities, highs and lows yet to come, and this journey requires considerable patience, trust and faith on my part. But what I've been most humbled by, is people's support and their responses when I’ve told them of my decision to explore a call to ordination. Only tonight, someone said to me "I knew you would go forward for ordination eventually" and I'm thinking, "Well you could have warned me before I knew!" In fact, part of discerning a call, is when it’s confirmed by others, and it has been over a number of years, but I've more or less ruled out the idea, ignored and possibly blanked out the shouts, and lived for the current and not had my eyes on the bigger picture. This whole process is now a journey of discovery, listening, learning, exploring and discerning.

Father David asked if I had a cassock, and thankfully I do from when I was a part time virger at Beverley Minster. And so over the next few months whilst wearing a black dress, I’ll be surrounded by hundreds of years’ worth of ancient, multi-sensory, ‘smells and bells’, of the Anglo-Catholic tradition. A different approach I’m accustomed to, but I’m really looking forward to all things new, and experiencing the mystery of faith celebrated in the Anglo-Catholic way. Of course, I’ll still be continuing doing what I love, working as Youth Minister at Beverley Minster for the foreseeable future, where thankfully chinos and Toms are my uniform for Youth Ministry.

I'm sharing this with you because I’d love your prayers, and because I want to share my journey with you over the coming months!

God bless.

In who do you trust?

Trust is something on my mind today. Possibly because we're in a time of expectation and preparation. We are waiting for the fulfilment of Christ's promise to return to earth. A season, celebrating the hope we have in Christ. A season that celebrates the fulfilment of God's promise of a saviour, and who one day will return. That season is Advent.

Trust and hope have a close relationship. I like to think that I trust everyone unless I have a reason not to. That's a brave thing to do, but the alternative is to fear everyone else's actions, and I don't like the idea of doing that. The problem comes when we have reason not to trust any longer. When we have lost that hope in something, or someone.

I've never ruled anyone out in my life as untrustworthy, but I have had reason to lose trust in people. The difficult thing is coming to terms with their actions and moving on. That's where forgiveness comes into the equation.

Sometimes, things might look different to what they did before, but we must be prepared to forgive, so we can achieve that inner peace. A healing.

We all, I presume, have experienced people in our lives who have let us down, and led us to lose hope in general humanity. I too, only a while ago, was painfully let down by a close friend who wrote untruthful things behind my back and tried to cover them up when I approached them face to face. Today, they still don't realise I know the full extent of what they wrote about me. But regardless, I needed to forgive. A situation that forced an end, but also a beginning.

Without doubt, their actions hurt. My trust for them was knocked. My hope in them faded. It crushes you even more when you thought there was a relationship of sincere trust but realise there obviously wasn't.

God's hope in them has not disappeared, and so my hope should also not disappear. To do that would be doing an injustice to God, because of the hope He has in me. That is why He sent Jesus to die for us. He still has hope in us because He loves us. That includes you too! Even though we fail, His hope and love never does. If He can have hope in me even though I fail Him all the time, then the least I can do is have hope in others, because God does!

I've recently realised there are lots of hurting people in the world. And when we notice other people's hurt, it touches us and stirs the compassion within our hearts. We feel their hurt too. We want to help heal and restore. A majority of hurt comes from being let down by others, or when unexplainable, we blame a greater being(s).

I've got to my remind myself, that my trust should be purely in the One who has never let me down, never hurt me and never been deceitful towards me. My trust should be only in the One that loves me unconditionally and whose love never fails.

What would we be capable of if we lived knowing God's faithfulness, compared to relying on human weakness to see us through? Amazing thought! Why not trust in the One who has never failed you, and see where He leads you to?

If you've failed someone, the hardest but most honourable thing to do is say "sorry". If you feel that someone has failed you, remember especially this season, that the greatest has come and will come again. We live surrounded by human failure but also live with a love that will never leave us. Jesus. He who has already healed and restored us by his dying on the cross for me and you.

In God do I trust! Do you?