Our group began by reviewing some of the posts from the youth end, particularly on their opinion of cultural differences between youth and adults. We then went into Mark 5, which I could not at first remember why I chose. Juliette and Louisemarie were also perplexed but found that the discussion was still good. Ultimately my group made connections with Jesus acting in the interruptions; and the desperate nature of the people's request, followed by their mockery of Jesus. In short, I apologize for forgetting the thrust of this passage for this week, but you may want to let it hang and see what your group comes up with.
In discussing the multi-layered world of youth we highlighted how adults often still live in layers but it may not be as dramatic. What this means generally for us is that we can't become overconfident that we have at any point figured out youth. There is always the center of the person that only God knows, so our task is not to unmask youth but to walk along-side them.
The topic of talking about our faith came up, and this is a struggle we will dive into in coming weeks. Two important points in the short term were, 1) no system or training is going to "fix" the difficulty many of us have with speaking about our faith. The devil is at work in shutting us up and we need to recognize this in order to overcome; 2) Bob Newton pointed out that you can't rush your witness, and that sometimes people see it more in your whole life than in a single conversation. More on this later...
Overall it was a great discussion and I want to pass along to all of you the encouragement we received from Pres Newton. He sees a lot of churches in his job as District President, but we was encouraged by the warmth of our congregation and the wisdom of our people shown in the visioning study. He commended us for not taking any short-cuts, and noted that he saw depth of change occurring here. This might be worth sharing with your groups.
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March 8, 2009
Led by Juliette
1. We read Mark 5:35-43
We mostly discussed the reactions of people in this story. For example, they laughed when he said the girl wasn't dead but sleeping. We also talked about the Lazarus story and the reactions of people in that one. We then discussed the reactions we get sometimes when we talk about Jesus.
2. I explained the concept of "layers" and asked them to name the layers in their lives:
-School (and then different clicks within school)
-Internet
-Family
-Church
-Sports
-Strangers
3. How do you act in each of those layers?
-Someone expressed that with friends they just kind of hang out, and with family they have to be more polite.
-There are different topics of conversation depending on the group (some stuff more comfortable sharing with family and other stuff more comfortable sharing with friends)
-Act in a way that will make them fit in with whoever they're with.
-If they're with someone new, they have to get to know them.
4. Where do you feel safest, why?
One person answered family and someone else answered friends. Then someone said, it depends on how they feel at that time. Sometimes they feel the need to be with family, sometimes with friends, and sometimes alone.
5. Which ones do you allow Christ to be part of?
-They said not as much as he should be, but he's always there even when they don't recognize him.
-Sometimes it's hard to bring God into every layer because some layers are not as receptive.
6. We ended by reading John 10:10, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
Thanks,
Juliette
Notes from Week 6 - How does looking at your as a culture affect our interaction with Y? We need to not stereotype people. One group member talked about stereotyping the Jonas Brothers only to find that they really are pretty wonderful young people. We also talked about that we need to be interested in Y for who they are and not make assumptions.
Situational Ethics – We talked about how Y might be afraid that we’d tease them about their true feelings, or that we’d tell other people, unwittingly betraying their confidence in us. One member talked about her experience in asking her son, “How was your day at school?” She explained that after finding this a fruitless effort over time, she stopped asking. Finally, her son said. “Don’t you want to know what happened to me today?” We need to be patient and wait for the real connection.
We defined “safety” as a need to belong. Funny, part of the sermon talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how safety was one of the primary human needs. We discussed that Y might be willing to be part of a group without condoning the actions of the group; simply desiring the protection that being part of the group represents. Sometimes Y might be gullible and not know the reality of the group norms - may not know the right from the wrong of the association.
Connect with Y: We discussed some personal experiences where we were newly aware of how we could connect with the young people that we encounter. On being addressed, one young person said (paraphrased), "I like you, you’re nice." Just what the doctor ordered to keep us trying!
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