I appeared on the Drivetime show on Premier Radio today.  This was really exciting – it was my first ever live radio debate and I think it came off well.  The subject was really interesting too.

Grace Idowu, the mum of David, a 14 year old boy who was murdered in 2008 had made some comments in The Sun newspaper about youth offending in Britain.  The Sun are running a scare story series about ‘Broken Britain’ and she had asked the question:

I am waiting for the moment in this country when parents go to jail with their children.  It’s only right they take responsibility for how their children turn out.

I profoundly disagree with this idea.  Parenting does have a huge affect on young people with regard to offending, but the answer is far more likely to be in education, rather than punishment.

And besides, prisons do not work (especially for young people).  Somewhere between 70-80% of young people who have been in custody re-offended between 2003-08.  Custody seems to be ineffective – a waste of money and lives.  I believe that we need to be a little more imaginative about the youth offending/custody process.  I’m interested in the way that Scandinavian countries deal with young people who commit crimes – through the welfare system (see the abstract of this book).

Anyway, I was told Grace Idowu might be appearing on the programme.  I was scared.  How do I disagree, live on air, with a mum who has been through that?  It turned out that she wasn’t on the show.  I was actually with a guy called Barry Mizen, whose son, Jimmy was killed in May 2008.  He seemed amazingly gracious when he spoke about young people, including those who murder.  He seemed like a good guy.

I’m interested in how the debate with continue.  I hope that the whole thing isn’t co-opted by the likes of Rupert Murdock and certain right wingers.

I was really pleased to get an email from Premier Radio today, asking if I’d be able to take part in their debate on the Premier Drive show.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to, but they might have used some of the blog anyway.  Apparently, they were discussing the Jon Venables case that I blogged about here yesterday.  I’ll try to catch the debate on their catch up service when I can, but I hope it was interesting.

The Bulger case is really emotive for most people who were around at the time or know much about it.  I was a child when the murder happened (I’m only a couple of years older than the boys who killed Jamie), but I remember Jamie’s mum appealing for people to help find her son, and then to help find his killers.  I remember the trial and Michael Howard’s, intervention which reduced the age of criminal responsibility to ten, so that the two boys could go to prison.  By the time I was studying for my degree, this case had completely changed the way that children and young people were dealt with in the UK – in everything from law and the media to parenting.

Well, watching the footage of people proclaiming judgement on Venables over the past few days on the news, I’ve been amazed to see how one case can so affect society’s idea of justice.  Numerous people have been calling for his life to be ended while I’ve been watching.

I guess I’m saddened but unsurprised by people’s inability to see past their (justified) anger and take a stance founded in real justice.  ’Street justice’ is a devoid of justice and I’m thankful for the relative temperance of law in the current situation.  There is obviously a huge emotive punch that comes from knowing that a vulnerable child has killed an even more vulnerable child, but this emotion should not guide our judgement.

It seems that, while a mother might be allowed the right to proclaim her grief-fuelled anger, the rest of us must, surely, need to temper our justice with mercy.  If we do not, we must have to expect the fair judgement of our own acts, with no mercy.  Who would survive in that situation?

And, if we use this mercy, within the confines of justice, might it even lead to forgiveness?  A friend texted me today with a great phrase:

Forgiveness releases the Forgiven and the Forgiver

I think that there will never be justice in this lifetime.  True justice would demand all our lives.  In the end, I believe, justice can only be in the gift of somebody free of fault, so I’m thankful that that’s how my God revealed himself.

So, Jon Venables, one of Jamie Bulger’s killers, is back in prison.

I’ve written about the Bulger case before on my blog, but I’m afraid the post was lost.  The thrust of what I said (so far as I remember) was that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, while guilty of an unimaginably horrible crime, are actually the products of a society that failed them – they were not born murders.  They were failed by family, by community, by wider society, by the state and, in those vital moments, they were failed, as 10 year olds, by their own judgement.

As a social liberal, it saddens me that Venables is in back inside.  I would have loved to have believed that some sort of redemptive process could take place.  I know that the way we treat offenders (young and adult) is about punishment, rather than rehabilitation, but there are plenty of offenders who do manage to change despite this.  It would have been great to know that somebody who committed even this crime (even before adolescence) could go through a reflective process and come out ‘clean’ on the other side.

Very Hollywood.

But as a realist, Venables’ re-imprisonment offers a glimpse of a painful edge to society that I have to remember.  The fact is that we cannot redeem ourselves by our own efforts.  There can be the moves towards an improved humanity that we see and cherish, but just like a teenager’s bedroom, we continue in our entropic move towards mess.  Pain, oppression, injustice and violence become more and more ‘normal’.

As a Christian, I really do only know one answer.  Not a pie-in-the-sky Heaven that we might see when we die, but a re-creation that is current and with us, where even death can work backwards.  I know that my faith can appear to lack the answers that we need sometimes, and I know that words are far too easy, but in a situation where redemption is so desperately needed, I can’t help but see a clear answer emerge.

I replied (in my Southern accent) ‘Na  mate.’

I think I must have confused them (they were a bit merry, thanks to the produce of the previously mentioned off licence).  I think I’d given them too many reasons to hate me (Southerners, students and ‘Moshers’ were all objects of hate for many local people) and this gave me a chance to wander off home without the expected assault.

The Mosher/Scally divide was huge in the North West when I lived there (eight years ago now).  The Moshers were into skating-type sports, dark clothes and looking morose; they listened to heavy, grungy, rocky sounds.  Scallies wore lots of sports leisure wear and tucked their tracky pants into their socks; they were more likely to play football and listen to dance, rap or pop.  Each group offered plenty of scathing abuse to the other.

I researched these two tribes for a while and found that, what could (and often did) look like two different types of irritating/intimidating teenagers wandering the town in packs – ready to pounce on unsuspecting old people – was actually far more technical.  Within these two, vastly different groups, there were micro-sets of groups, for example, within the Moshers, there were Boarders, Bladers and… oh, I can’t remember their name, but they liked messing about on scooters; some were politically motivated while others didn’t care; some smoked pot while others were dead against it.

These Moshers and Scallies, like the Teddy Boys, Mods, Skinheads and other teenage tribes throughout the 20th century were behaving in a (mostly) healthy way.  A young person could take the cultural tags and ideas that came with their tribe, using them to present a picture of their own, developing identity.

This was cultural discourse, the same as the adult world, but with the most vibrant, alert, interesting, interested, engaging and innovative section of society.  Teen tribes were a place where a young person could practice their social skills, readying themselves before the adult world expected them to act responsibly.

I saw an article recently that was mourning the loss of the teen tribes.  It argued that young people seem far less likely to be particular about a genre of music and that this, in turn, has meant that the stylised groups that descended from these genres haven’t really developed like they used to.  The article suggested that, when people listen to a set of 12 songs on an album, their tastes would necessarily be limited but, with MP3 players, the opportunities for space and scope of genres is limitless.  There’s no longer any need for peculiarity of taste.

I hear what the journalist is saying, but this does sound slightly sickeningly like ‘youth is wasted on the young’.  Adults are foreigners, viewing a world we can’t inhabit with this subject.  Show me a person who understands the complex cultural world of teenagers and I’ll show you, well… a teenager.

I can think of 2 reasons for this (lack of) social phenomena:

Firstly, we expect adolescents to be adults more than we used to.  The obsession with ‘anti-social behaviour’ around the turn of the century became a sort of state-sponsored, anti-youth, adultist movement – it was no longer okay to be a teenager.  We expect so much of them: a 15 year old girl should be attractive; focussing on her education; not having sex, but if she does, only with the right people and keeping STIs in mind; she should show maternal instincts but think of her career; keep away from drugs and alcohol, but it’s fine to dabble, so long as she’s mature about it.

Secondly, the culture that teenagers are growing up in is no longer about the message, but the messenger.  Nobody cares about music – it’s celebrity that matters, far more than it has done in the past.  Our teenagers aren’t aiming to associate with genres of music, but a genre of people.  So the girl that I spoke about should aim to be Cheryl Cole, but better educated, less kitsch and using her infinite charms to keep Ashley from wandering.  Every teenage girl needs to be the Alpha Female, just like every boy needs to be the Alpha Male.

So adults create the culture in which teenagers form their tribes, so we should take responsibility when things go wrong.

I can’t remember where I planned to go with this idea, but it was good.  But then I saw an amazing documentary called ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children‘.  This had been shot undercover and described the life of several different children in Zimbabwe, coping with poverty.  It was beautifully made and featured some beautiful kids who were starving, searching for opportunities to find food or make money in a world that was too busy falling apart to care.

One boy was an Aids orphan in his Gran’s care – although she seemed to be in his care as much as he in hers.  The boy was panning for gold with his friends to afford a place at school.  He set traps for wild birds to feed his little family.  There was no room for adolescence for him, no opportunity to become any particular type of man.  If he survived to manhood, it seemed highly unlikely that he might do so outside of poverty.  The film maker said:

Ah, when kids can’t dream, I think we can pretty much say goodbye to everything.

And then it hit me.  Children always suffer more than adults in an unhealthy world.  The health and happiness of a society’s children is a very good indication of the health of the whole society.  Teenagers who feel free to choose their culture might be a great indication of a free, multicultural society.  When young people feel the need to act and look like the homogenous, sexualised adults in our magazines, we can see, in them the attributes we value.

And when a child runs out of food, dreams, health and life without anybody noticing, it’s hard to see what remains valuable to a society.

Hello, not much I want to say today, other than that I’ve heard the news that Iran have launched a rocket as part of their space programme.

I know, that’s hardly news, is it?  But this is different, this time they’re attempting to take the greatest step into the future yet.  It seems that the ancestors of the ancient Persian empire are taking the inevitable step – they are now taking their lead from American kids TV in the 1980s.

Ahmadinejad announced his pride in his nation as they launched a rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and some worms.  Idle speculation leads me to believe that this is the latest stage in an ongoing, international programme of planetary defence.   This small menagerie of animals is in fact a highly trained group of super-adapted, kung-fu warriors who are being sent into space to seek out the baddy aliens.

This also leads me to the further conclusion that Bucky O’Hare, Power Rangers and Iran’s continuous, blatant pretence of foolishness are actually an attempt by the ‘World Powers’ to cover up the conspiracy.

Anyway, with the help of science, computers and other hi-tech things, I’ve created a mock-up of the new space team.  This is almost definitely quite similar to the real thing.

We will pray for them as they journey into the future… and the unknown!

I read this article on Guardian online today.  Very interesting and very fairly written article.

As a response, I would say firstly that ‘popular religiosity’ (as the researcher calls it) is a cultural experience, rather than a strictly religious one.  You can’t measure the personal or communal desire to seek after a god or higher being by the popular movement of a society.  For this reason, apparently secular societies cannot be assumed to have a higher or lower level of faith on a personal or community level than any other.  It’s not rocket science – it’s just good social research.

Secondly, if a more secular society really did have less people with a religious faith, this cannot be assumed to be the cause of the lower crime rates.  Surely it’s clear (forgetting US for the moment – sorry US) that these less religious societies are the richest places on the planet.  As there is less inequality of income, there will be less crime.   ‘Quality of life’ will increase.  People will feel more self reliant.  Their natural desire to look for ’something more’ or a ‘first cause’ will be lessened as everything seems controllable – there is less to be explained.  The idea that there is a God eventually becomes too complicated to contemplate as they become accustomed to ease and simplicity.  God makes a mess.

It’s that whole thing that Jesus spoke about with the Pharisees.  He’s not here to deal with the ones who believe they’re alright on their own – it’s all about the poor and those in need.  When He said ’Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ it was clear that, in order to be comforted, we have to need comfort – it is a response to the pain of real life.

So Paul (the researcher) thinks: lack of faith leads to moral clarity, leads to higher quality of life, leads to more cash.

I think: more cash leads to improved quality of life, leads to moral distortion,  leads to lack of desire for God.

Of course, neither of these can be proved.  Also, I haven’t even started on the US.  But I’m tired and that’s all I wanted to say!

So I’ve been looking at the ‘leaving care’ system in the UK.  This is the service that deals with young people who have been brought up in the care system.

The idea is that, a young person will leave the care system in the UK when they are 16.  In the past, there have been serious problems with children and young people’s services in the UK finishing at 16, while adult’s social care kicks in at 18 or 19.  This leaves a very awkward couple of years where people argue over who takes care of a young person’s needs (this causes particular problems if a young person has disabilities, but that’s another story).

In the nineties, it was recognised that there is a serious problem when a young person is looked after through the care system, but is then theoretically on their own from 16.  They could be told ‘you’re an adult now, that’s all you get from us’ and effectively left own their own to get on with their lives.  This would obviously be totally immoral, but add to this the fact that young people who have grown up in care are immensely disadvantaged  anyway:

• 11% of children in care gained 5 good GCSEs in 2005, compared to 56% of all children
• 29%  of care leavers are not in education, training or employment at age 19, compared to 10% of all young people
• Young women age 15 to 17 who have been in care are 3 times more likely to become teenage mothers than others of their age
• Research suggests that around 27% of adult prisoners have spent time in care

These stats are from the Leaving Care site, but a stat never tells a story.  Every child who enters the care system is experiencing extreme stress in their most important personal relationships.  They are all at a point of crisis – that is, ‘crisis’ in the technical sense of a life changing event.  They are going through this crisis in the care of people who are paid to do the job and are unlikely to be the person they would like to be with.  This time in care will affect their story dramatically.

So it was decided that the local authorities should – as the ‘corporate parent’ of young people in care – act as parent until a young person is older and more established.  This should theoretically mimic ‘normal’ parenting – slowly releasing their children into the world.

Okay, so there’s the idea.  If you really fancy it, there are more details on the Leaving Care site, the Children’s Society also do immensely interesting work in this field.

The thing is, there’s still a drop-off that happens when a young person ends up leaving care.  I think a major issue for kids in this situation can be where to live and how to go about getting a home – there’s no ‘fall back’ of the parental home.  Centrepoint, are a charity that works with homeless young people and they say that 17% of the young people they work with have experienced time in care (remember that only 0.5% of all the young people in the UK have been in care, so 17% is hugely disproportionate).

When I worked in a children’s home, a young man started living there who had been in the care system since he was a toddler.  He was about 16 and his behaviour was very difficult to handle in such an institutional setting.  He was, however, a lovely guy who enjoyed cooking and chatting.  He had never been allowed to maintain an education because of the constant emotional and physical turmoil of moving around the care system.  He had recently gained his first GNVQ while in secure accommodation.

Eventually, it was clear the the young man couldn’t stay in the children’s home anymore and, since he was sixteen, he was given temporary accommodation in a nearby city, an allowance and a social worker.  This accommodation was in a hotel that was full of other young people also looking for homes.  Drugs were freely available and acceptable in this new setting, violence was commonplace.  I was profoundly sad for this guy who had never learned to look after himself in the truest sense of the word.  I still think of him, years later.  I worry that he is another of those adult prisoners or homeless young people.

Another young person was a woman who was brought into the home to remove her from an abusive situation.  She had also been in and out of care all her life.  This young woman was immensely intelligent, but had never gained any qualifications.  She was on her way to gaining a GNVQ, but it felt like a race – would she achieve her qualification first, or would she be arrested and taken into custody when the police caught up with her?

Eventually though, she revealed that she was several months pregnant.  The home couldn’t look after her while she was sixteen and pregnant, but neither could anyone else for the moment.  She was placed in the same hotel as the young man.  Again, I wonder where she, and her child, are now.

That hotel holds so many valuable stories that need to be heard.  Unfortunately, these individuals leaving care are also (as well as all the other condemning stats) amongst the least likely to be able to tell their own stories.  Where is their voice?

I also worked with other guy in that hotel.  He was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the country claiming to be 16, although he looked a lot older.  He came from a war zone and had painful, disabling injuries.  He didn’t speak a word of English.  He was accommodated by the local authority in this hotel, with a violent, aggressive drugs culture, unable to even communicate with the people on reception.

This guy was a real person in a terrible situation, but he also works as an allegory to describe young people leaving care.  These young people arrive in the system with far more life experience than their years would suggest, they arrive damaged by the wars they’ve experienced and step into something that is often just as damaging (but in a very different way).  These are people with a voice that is not heard or understood.  They are then expected to flourish in the wider world.

The UK Government is looking into ways of improving the situation for young people leaving care.  Unfortunately, they are also looking to cut spending – this will effect the poorest first, as always.

I think I should point out that not all young people who go through the care system leave to such terrible circumstances.  I know several care leavers who are doing amazingly well.  But I have to say that this seems due to a mixture of good fortune and great strength of character, rather than anything else.

Neither are these problems all due to the workers in the social care system.  The system is full of dedicated workers who are passionate about improving the situations of young people, but who are slowly burnt out by a crippling system and bad press.

The bad press really bothers me, because all those column inches that deal with the intricacies of the failings of social care in such a holier than thou way never make reference to what care is really like.  They never look at the developmental problems that result from abuse and how those problems can be dealt with in a situation where your ‘parents’ look after you on a shift pattern.  They never try to understand the anti-social behaviour that results from this combination of familial abuse and loneliness in a disaffecting system.  And they never try to understand the people who are sent off to grow and prosper in the wide world after going through this mangle of a life.

I’m sorry this is long and seems like a rant.  I just feel so pissed off about this!

Where are the people who speak up for those who have no voice?

Delirious? were incredible yesterday. It was a really superb gig – probably the best I’ve seen anybody play because of the huge amount of passion involved. They played Investigate (one of my favourites) with Stew Smith (former drummer) and Paul Evans (the new one) in perfect sync and with the most superb lead solo that saw Stu G tear at his guitar to end. It seemed to reflect the passion involved brilliantly. I was powerfully moved by the whole thing (didn’t shed a tear though – callus, hey?), as were the band, with very good reason. It reminded me of the way they’ve always pointed so clearly to Jesus, not simply a ‘religious experience’.

I said yesterday when I posted that I wanted to write about something more serious. This was to do with something I’d been thinking about earlier in the day. A friend of mine gave a notice at the start of our church service yesterday morning about the support that our community tries to offer a family centre and homeless people in our local area. She reminded me of the devastating social situations that I know exist close to home. Then a longer description was given of a community for children orphaned by Aids in KwaZulu-Natal. These reminders of the situations that many of the world live with made me think that I should get myself thinking on a healthy track about people living on the edge of our society before I dive into the inevitable business of self indulgence at Christmas.

So I’ve made a decision. Advent is traditionally a time of ‘getting ready’. So for these next four weeks, I want to get ready by focussing on issues that are effecting real people in real situations of oppression or injustice. I’ll look at one issue a week. This week I want to think about the Leaving Care system in England – what happens to children who grow up in care and then get too old?

I also want to read the four gospels by the new year. After the gig last night, I felt a real desire to spend some time looking at Jesus. I’ve been reading around the prophetic books in the Bible for ages and I’m wondering if I could do with looking at things with the fresh vision that comes from Jesus.

So there’s the plan. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while (as in, since before I lost all my old posts to the evil computer monsters), you’ll know that I’m not the best at keeping to plans. I do tend to rebel against them. We’ll see if there are more tangible results this time!

Hi, there are couple of things I wanted to write about before getting onto something more serious in another post.

The first is that I’m going to see the last ever (unless unforeseeable circumstances come into play) Delirious? gig tonight at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Delirious? are a band I’ve loved since about 1996 and they’ve played a massive part in the shaping of my personality and faith. I have a tonne of respect for them as individuals and for their integrity as a group of men. I can’t say I know them properly as individuals, but the music they have made and the attitudes they’ve shown have really inspired me and a good few thousand others, so I’m really thankful.

So today represents a sort of ‘end of era’ type of moment. I think it’s going to get emotional in a ‘large crowd singing along and knowing all the words’ way and, as is usual with a Delirious? gig, I’m expecting to meet with the tangible presence of God.

So a great night then, all in all!

The other thing I wanted to mention was that I’ve started reviewing for a website called Louder Than The Music. It’s a site that deals with the music emanating from Christian sections of culture and I think the site itself is really informative and, although it is an idea that has a long way to grow, it appears to me that it is fairly stacked with information about the current scene. Anyway, I like it and am currently reviewing a couple more albums.

The reviewing thing has set me thinking a bit because so many lyrics from a ‘Christian viewpoint’ appear to me to be pretty clichéd. There often seems to be a load more imagination in the lyrics of the music from the wider culture. I’ve been wondering why that is.

At the same time, I’ve been listening to Stockholm Syndrome, an album by Derek Webb, a guy who is a Christian and usually produces fairly confrontational lyrics in a sort of folk-rock genre. Syndrome is far more electronic and is a pretty enjoyable listen, partly because the lyrics are focused on the nonsense that is often spoken loudly by Christians, such as attitudes to sexuality and gay people in particular. Weirdly, one of the tracks (probably the best and most important track on the album) was removed by his record label because he says ’shit’! Thankfully, this track is still downloadable.

So why are lyrics from Christians so often cliché-ridden and boring compared to the rest of the world? I got to thinking that being a Christian is like living in a house and,when we produce art, it’s like looking out of one of the windows and musing upon it. Well it seems that Christians have been looking out of one, small window together for several years and we’ve all been writing about that view, which is beautiful, but tiny and doesn’t tell the viewer about the rest of the 360° view that we’re allowed to appreciate. Neither does it allow for the fresh air and glorious atmosphere that we might experience by stepping outside every now and then.

Maybe we could pop down to the shops for some sugary treats.

Or spend a while in the countryside and splash in the mud.

All the while, still be living in that same house.

I’m thankful that Delirious? have seemed to kick start the artistic process for Christians who choose to look out of windows. New ’sounds and rhythms’ and new lyrical adventures have arrived on the back of Delirious?’s hard work. Now I’m thankful that something new could happen in this new era.

I really hope that Derek Webb is a glimpse of what might be to come.

I tried to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award between the ages of 14 and 16.  I wouldn’t say I failed exactly – I completed the Bronze Award.

My lack of organisation, determination or something-else-tion (I wanted to say far-sightedness but I was enjoying the Bono-esque line with lots of ‘-tion’ words) meant that I never actually did the necessary to get very far. I was probably too busy smelling bad and being unsociable or something.

Anyway, my brother (a sort of immaculate nemesis – better looking, better job, better person) (I think I’d beat him in a dance-off though) got the Gold Award and went on to become a sort of Duke of Edinburgh’s Award champion. He’s sometimes parachuted into failing governments as a sort of interim head of state.

That last bit wasn’t true.

When the Scheme reached the news this past week, I thought it was pretty strange. Prince Edward (has a lot to do with the Scheme these days because his dad, the actual Duke of Edinburgh, is too much of a loud mouth to trust with teenagers) was in Australia, where  a young man recently died while completing the expedition (hiking the wilderness) section of his award. Edward was being interviewed and the death of this guy came up. The Prince said that he thought the risk of death involved with the Scheme was actually attractive; the fact that ‘you could die doing this’ made it more serious and seemingly important to young people. The media gasped. The Award Scheme started squawking about ‘exemplary safety record’.

Now, this wasn’t the best-planned response to the death question. Obviously, there will be parents out there who say ‘Our little Jimmy isn’t going near any death awards…’ Prince Edward would probably ‘clarify’ his statement if it wasn’t for the fact that it would be an admission of stupidity.

But what he said is actually true.

We all love risk. Why else would we walk into dangerous, wild environments and stroll around? I went and climbed some mountains in Wales recently with some blokes. Much of my time was spent in situations where there were very real possibilities of falling hundreds of meters onto rocks. This would lead to death in most cases.

And I loved it.

It made me buzz with an excited energy that I rarely feel.

Kids are doing that stuff all the time and risking their lives for fun. Okay, so people like my brother and other instructors are managing the risk. The young people go onto the mountain equipped and trained to a suitable standard. But it is still a mountain.

People die on mountains.

So when I heard this news story, I was reminded how we are so immensely risk-averse in the UK. It seems that, after doing the dutiful, important work of reducing unnecessary risk, we close our eyes to the very real risks that can’t be neutralised. The press reaction to the Prince’s statement reminds us that we sometimes actually take part in risk for enjoyment’s sake while closing our eyes to these very risks.

It seems as if we do a similar thing with drug misuse. The government advisor on drugs, Prof David Nutt, was sacked this week because he had said some things that were too controversial and embarrassing. For example, he informed the world at large that cannabis and ecstasy are less harmful than tobacco or alcohol.

This is statistically true. Tobacco and alcohol kill you slowly, whereas there is a lesser (but still present) risk involved with cannabis and ecstasy.

But this is politically ‘un-say-able’. Not only does it sound like illegal drugs aren’t risky enough, it also reminds us that we run a risk of seriously damaging ourselves with more socially acceptable habits.

It seems the idea that clean-living, middle class types might run risks is suddenly slightly taboo.

I think that risk aversion is part of the reason for people’s negative attitude to emergent and fresh expressions of church. These ideas and expressions are all about how we as the Church can open ourselves up, allowing ourselves to be and do the things that make us purposeful in the context of our society. How do we address the people and communities that we’re with everyday without looking like the irrelevant fools we have been and without compromising our beliefs?

There is great risk involved here. There’s the risk that, as we shed our religious sensibilities, we might lose the security we find in routine. The risk that, as we meet real people and take their ideas seriously, we might find that we’re often very wrong. The risk that, as we become more accessible and available, we might meet people who aren’t like us – and worse – we’ll have to welcome them and begin to understand them. There’s the risk that, as we’re exposed to these new ideas and new people, we might even be changed.

My own church is trying to begin to take these risks in the realisation that standing still will never build a Kingdom. I’ve blogged before about the model for cafechurch we’ve been looking at. This started last month and is looking interesting and maybe even exciting. We’re only beginning to take small steps though.

I’m really of the opinion that current models of church are increasingly outmoded for large sections of our society, while still holding great value for others. There are swathes of people who we should never expect to see at a church service. The problem is knowing what would be relevant for these groups of people and how to begin.

One of my old youth workers is a really dynamic guy who has tried to address this. He lives in (and loves) Medway, the area where I grew up in north west Kent. It’s a very urban setting, with very urban needs. Rob says:

I have had a dream for a good few years; a dream of connecting with people who long, maybe are even too scared to dream, of church being a place which really connects with people outside, but also with themselves. People who dream of a church where differences are celebrated, where diversity adds to the community’s flavour. They are not worried so much about what people believe, but more concerned about how people believe: how they live out faith, how they are Christ-like. People who don’t care so much about worship style, but rather, are interested in something that’s authentic and enables them to connect with God where they are emotionally and spiritually.

It’s clear that there are huge risks involved here. In gaining a place for these people, Rob is likely to lose so much. But he takes these risks, with the help of some traditionally risk-averse organisations (Rochester Cathedral for one) and produces a brilliant – incredibly dangerous, maybe sometimes shaky, but still brilliant – model of Christian community.

I would highly recommend this frank, honest article about Rob’s progress in his work and also his blog, which is far more regular and consistently interesting than mine. I’m personally hugely excited by Rob’s work and would love to have the same opportunity (although, as becomes clear from the article, it’s taken a very particular set of gifts, maturity and perseverance through difficult situations for Rob to get this going). I’ll be praying with Rob in his situation. I’ll also be praying for my own community that we, the church in my town, learn to take the risks and make the movements that will get us more deeply involved in God’s mission.

Going back to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and drug misuse, it seems pretty clear that we are more than willing to take risks for our own benefit. In these cases, risks are taken with personal well-being in the hope of some experiential benefits.

As the established Church begins to take risks, like Rob has with the cathedral at Rochester, the benefits could be more adaptable, effective communities who can work for the Kingdom of God, worshipping and learning together. I know I’m a ridiculous optimist, but I wonder what is placed at risk here, other than our own self image.