IAYN meeting
The meeting of both the Steering Group and the full group of the International Anglican You, h Network are now over. I think they both went really really well, even if I wasn’t in charge of either. Our meeting of the Steering Group did a good job of planning out our time, and working out who was in charge of which sessions. We had a clear vision and worked well to reach it.
People are rightly going to ask was it worth the money. And for me the answer is yes. I had lunch with Evans from the Sudan. He is only just appointed as the Provincial Youth Officer, having done the work as a volunteer over recent years, especially through the war. He now knows he is part of a network that knows him and cares for him, prays for him. His church still uses 1662, so to participate in liturgies written by young people was just amazing. He wants to go home and talk to his bishops about that and start working with young people and youth leaders preparing youth written liturgies. He has had time to talk to other officers dealing with similar issues to him and to gain ideas and encouragement. It was a huge week for him, and we helped make that happen. There will be some in Aotearoa New Zealand that will be unconvinced by that. Their focus is what is happening in our part of the world, and they can be scornful of any attention paid to the rest of the world or other issues. I cannot live in such a confined and compassionless space. If anything, as my eyes are opened to the issues facing young people around the world, so I am made more aware of what is happening in my own country and church, and my commitment tot work at those issues increases.
At our closing worship we had the gospel reading about mustard seeds. I wondered as I listened what this conference offered me. Seeds are the answer. Seeds are sown that will take time to take root and grow. Anglican Seeds! I realise each time I go away to things like this that my sense of who I am as an Anglican. At each of these events I encounter anew the Catholic tradition, and I realise that I am slowly becoming more catholic in my approach to liturgy anyway. Watching Douglas preside today, watching the priest at Walsingham, preside in such a devout (and ritualistic) way was very moving. I observe things, and new things make sense to me. I wonder ho I can take these into my work with young people.
I also reflected to myself during the closing worship how experiences like this have left me in a different place to many of my colleagues. What I want to achieve is often different to them. It feels bigger, less describable. I want to change how young people see the world. I want them to be overwhelmed by God, and to seek to live for God. I am not so interested in training them for ministry, or giving them leadership skills. That seems too small, too little a goal. I want to them live faithful lives which drip of God. And to do that takes much more than what we do, and what we are trying to do. We are aiming too low, too small.
O well. Enough of the ranting.
Some highlights include:
• Being with some of my friends from last time, like Steven, and meeting new people, both from my region and other places. It was great to meet people from Sudan, Tanzania, Japan, Honk Kong, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, England, and USA. It was sad people from two other provinces were unable to be there because their visas arrived after their flights left. (A cunning ply maybe?)
• Doing some excellent and creative work on how we might have a presence at Lambeth next year, including an interactive labyrinth focussed on the bishops’ role among young people.
• Spending the day at Walsingham, the site of pilgrimage after a woman had visions of the house of Mary in 1061. She built the house, and people came to pray and be healed in the well next to the church housing the house. It was destroyed by Henry 8th, but in the 1920’s the Anglican vicar rebuilt the house and the pilgrimages began again. Lovely Anglo Catholic, devoutly and yet humbly presided at Eucharist. Enthusiastic yet honest and real Rector, who spoke very passionately about the story and the effect of the place on pilgrims, and on their bus drivers. Yet he is not full of the propaganda, and played down aspects of the story. It was a great day.
• The worship that my friend Sam Dessordi organised and facilitated. It was creative, and yet deeply Anglican.
• Presiding at the opening service, and using the great thanksgiving written for Forum last year, and modified for Top Parish by Michael and me. It takes seriously the theology that all those present at the Eucharist are celebrants, and that the priest is the president. So the people say most of the words, including the “Take Eat” and “Drink this”.
People are rightly going to ask was it worth the money. And for me the answer is yes. I had lunch with Evans from the Sudan. He is only just appointed as the Provincial Youth Officer, having done the work as a volunteer over recent years, especially through the war. He now knows he is part of a network that knows him and cares for him, prays for him. His church still uses 1662, so to participate in liturgies written by young people was just amazing. He wants to go home and talk to his bishops about that and start working with young people and youth leaders preparing youth written liturgies. He has had time to talk to other officers dealing with similar issues to him and to gain ideas and encouragement. It was a huge week for him, and we helped make that happen. There will be some in Aotearoa New Zealand that will be unconvinced by that. Their focus is what is happening in our part of the world, and they can be scornful of any attention paid to the rest of the world or other issues. I cannot live in such a confined and compassionless space. If anything, as my eyes are opened to the issues facing young people around the world, so I am made more aware of what is happening in my own country and church, and my commitment tot work at those issues increases.
At our closing worship we had the gospel reading about mustard seeds. I wondered as I listened what this conference offered me. Seeds are the answer. Seeds are sown that will take time to take root and grow. Anglican Seeds! I realise each time I go away to things like this that my sense of who I am as an Anglican. At each of these events I encounter anew the Catholic tradition, and I realise that I am slowly becoming more catholic in my approach to liturgy anyway. Watching Douglas preside today, watching the priest at Walsingham, preside in such a devout (and ritualistic) way was very moving. I observe things, and new things make sense to me. I wonder ho I can take these into my work with young people.
I also reflected to myself during the closing worship how experiences like this have left me in a different place to many of my colleagues. What I want to achieve is often different to them. It feels bigger, less describable. I want to change how young people see the world. I want them to be overwhelmed by God, and to seek to live for God. I am not so interested in training them for ministry, or giving them leadership skills. That seems too small, too little a goal. I want to them live faithful lives which drip of God. And to do that takes much more than what we do, and what we are trying to do. We are aiming too low, too small.
O well. Enough of the ranting.
Some highlights include:
• Being with some of my friends from last time, like Steven, and meeting new people, both from my region and other places. It was great to meet people from Sudan, Tanzania, Japan, Honk Kong, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, England, and USA. It was sad people from two other provinces were unable to be there because their visas arrived after their flights left. (A cunning ply maybe?)
• Doing some excellent and creative work on how we might have a presence at Lambeth next year, including an interactive labyrinth focussed on the bishops’ role among young people.
• Spending the day at Walsingham, the site of pilgrimage after a woman had visions of the house of Mary in 1061. She built the house, and people came to pray and be healed in the well next to the church housing the house. It was destroyed by Henry 8th, but in the 1920’s the Anglican vicar rebuilt the house and the pilgrimages began again. Lovely Anglo Catholic, devoutly and yet humbly presided at Eucharist. Enthusiastic yet honest and real Rector, who spoke very passionately about the story and the effect of the place on pilgrims, and on their bus drivers. Yet he is not full of the propaganda, and played down aspects of the story. It was a great day.
• The worship that my friend Sam Dessordi organised and facilitated. It was creative, and yet deeply Anglican.
• Presiding at the opening service, and using the great thanksgiving written for Forum last year, and modified for Top Parish by Michael and me. It takes seriously the theology that all those present at the Eucharist are celebrants, and that the priest is the president. So the people say most of the words, including the “Take Eat” and “Drink this”.
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