Again I must say- read this book. It is a little weird, and more than a little anti-Christian but raises some really mind blowing thoughts.
A few weeks ago I had a phone conversation with a friend where from nowhere I realised just how weird it can be that we talk to kids so much about changing the world. As Christian youth leaders we talk about 'history makers', and we want our kids to be that. The point Barham makes is that our society sees young people disconnecting when they see the world. They look out onto the drabness of life and rather than change it per se, they create disconnected spaces that mean they can 'be' independent of it. From gaming, to feitsh, to cyber clubbing, young people create zones where they can do what they want and live- albeit temporarily in their own values and passion. There is no apathy here. There is creative, passionate, energetic disengagement from mainstream culture.
My question is in this culture how do we live and encourage young people to live as followers of Jesus. Church in some ways is a disconnected zone. Barham could have gone to a Soul Survivor festival and see the same kind of passionate creative energetic thing. But how does it relate to the everyday? Has our faith become a 'thing' like car racing, weekend ket snorting or gaming?
And how do we engage both these expressions and relate them to a world where 150,000 people are killed in twenty minutes? How do we stay in that world when everything we know encourages us to disengage? I'm not sure that I am expressing myself very well here- but I am aware of a real need to grasp this issue. Christianity can exist as a hobby in this dual, dissociative world. We can have our 'piratopias', little zones where we do our thing before going back into the hum drum. But Christ's commission is to bring the Kingdom. What does that mean in our culture?
So many questions... any answers out there?
A few weeks ago I had a phone conversation with a friend where from nowhere I realised just how weird it can be that we talk to kids so much about changing the world. As Christian youth leaders we talk about 'history makers', and we want our kids to be that. The point Barham makes is that our society sees young people disconnecting when they see the world. They look out onto the drabness of life and rather than change it per se, they create disconnected spaces that mean they can 'be' independent of it. From gaming, to feitsh, to cyber clubbing, young people create zones where they can do what they want and live- albeit temporarily in their own values and passion. There is no apathy here. There is creative, passionate, energetic disengagement from mainstream culture.
My question is in this culture how do we live and encourage young people to live as followers of Jesus. Church in some ways is a disconnected zone. Barham could have gone to a Soul Survivor festival and see the same kind of passionate creative energetic thing. But how does it relate to the everyday? Has our faith become a 'thing' like car racing, weekend ket snorting or gaming?
And how do we engage both these expressions and relate them to a world where 150,000 people are killed in twenty minutes? How do we stay in that world when everything we know encourages us to disengage? I'm not sure that I am expressing myself very well here- but I am aware of a real need to grasp this issue. Christianity can exist as a hobby in this dual, dissociative world. We can have our 'piratopias', little zones where we do our thing before going back into the hum drum. But Christ's commission is to bring the Kingdom. What does that mean in our culture?
So many questions... any answers out there?
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