Placement is nearly over,
that's all I need to say!

Brooke Fraser - Shadowfeet

This is a beautiful song that from an artist a new friend introduced me to. the video shows so many different types of people yet we are all God's children. the actual lyrics of the song (to me) are about standing strong even when you feel like the world is falling apart around you. Let me know what you think.
Here are the Lyrics too.
Shadow Feet (Album Version)
Walking, stumbling
On these shadow feet
Toward home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing
Less and less asleep
Made of different stuff than when I began

And I have sensed it all along
Now fast approaching is the day

CHORUS
When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

There's distraction
Buzzing in my head
Saying in the shadows it's easier to stay
But I've heard rumours of true reality
Whispers of a well-lit way


CHORUS


Bridge
You make all things new

CHORUS

CHORUS 2
When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
Every fear and accusation under my feet
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you


Copyright Brooke Fraser

Whatever!?!

I was listening to one of the talks from Holy Trinity Brompton today and Archie Coates was talking the passage in Philippians 4:4-9. He talks about the term 'whatever' which today has such a defeated and negative meaning, used by an annoyed teenager, a tired parent, a disappointed spouse and so many others too. But the way that i think St Paul means it is that whatever means everything, everything that is those things described in the passage, thats his whatever and i think that it should be ours too.
Archie read out this poem in his talk, i dont know if he wrote it or its from someone else (will ask him at some point!) so for now credit to whoever wrote it cause its very cool!

Let me know what you think about 'Whatever'!

Whatever is…
Whatever is true.
Whatever is noble.
Whatever is right.
Whatever is pure.
Whatever is lovely.
Whatever is admirable.
If anything is excellent,
Or praiseworthy.
Think about these things.
Live these things.
Be these things.
And then God will be near.
And you will find peace,
And the joy of God will come.

Whatever is…
Whatever is morning light through the curtain.
Whatever is compassion
Whatever is a real human voice on the end of the telephone when you ring your bank.
Whatever is moving beyond words but not beyond tears.
Whatever is being heard and understood.
Whatever is offering and giving and receiving.

Whatever is…
Whatever is white sand and cool water between your toes.
A cup of tea and a hand to hold.
Whatever is challenging enough to change your life,
Funny enough to make you cry,
Whatever is yearning in you to be fulfilled.
Whatever is lost and needing to be restored.

Yes, whatever is…
Whatever is warm sun on a tired face.
Whatever is not beyond redemption,
Even though there’s a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t hope.

Whatever is…
Is not beyond God’s redemption.
Or His imagination.
Think these things.
Be these things.
Live these things.

Too many things happening all at once.....

Why do so many thing all happen at once? i have literally no time anymore!
Oh well....
Tomorrow i will be 19, that's quite exiting!
First Birthday away from home at university so should be different!

Some of the things going on in my little head at the moment that may explain the mush that i appear to have instead of brains lately!

1. Reflections on placement! They make me think so much about my youth work its scary, really good though, to look at all the things that i/others do in youth work and see how they can be improved or challenged!
2. Theological Reflection- kinda goes in with the above but meaning reflecting using the bible, theory and theology......it hurts my brain sometimes!
3. Everything going on back home, organising stuff for Easter/Summer, looking out for family/youth there.
4. All the millions of faith questions i seem to have at the moment (well, its been quite a long moment....but you know what i mean!)
5. Actually living.......day to day studentdom.......generally quite difficult most of the time!
6. Etc Etc....

Well thats some of the stuff.....so i appologise if i dont Blog as well as i should do because when it comes to having time or even the brain to manage it at the moment......its a little taxing!

Hope you are all ok!

Take care x

Empowerment

What colour should the pool table be?

On my placement i have been entrusted the task of finding someone who will re-cover our pool table in one of our clubs.

at the moment its an aquamarine colour but i thought we should have a change....so i took the big step and asked the young people.

three of the youngest most trouble making boys on my placement were playing pool and so i asked them what colour they thought it should be.....GREEN....that solves that one then.....

The next week they were playing again and complaining at the state of the table. i reminded them about the new covering i was looking at and they talked to me a bit about it, then one of them asked if they could have a pool competition next week.......

once again me being the ever 'reflecting' youth worker (whatever! i'm just lazy!)

i asked them if they could run it........

now they wernt to sure about that but said that they'd see next week.......

so we shall see.........

two things could happen........

1. they could come and run the competition

or

2. they could come back next week and totaly forget about it.

should i remind them? should i let them run it? even though theyre normally trouble?

i think yes to all those questions.........do you think that's empowering?

Prince's Trust Advertisement - Footsteps

This is the new advertisement for the princes trust scheme. it came on when i was at the cinema and all the way through there was a sudden concentrated silence until the end when people turned to each other and said how great they think these sorts of schemes are....but will they actually do something to help them and the young people that they say need helping....why say something's does a great job and that young people need something like this...should they get out there and actually do something themselves? or is it enough just to give others a pat on the back for their work!

I just want to pick up on somethings that were talked about in today's key issues lecture. Dot asked us to write down what we believe...no other instruction just write down what you believe.

Tough question eh?

Well.....what do you believe?

Just this once I'm going to tell you what i wrote down.

I said that I believe.....

• That our past experiences shape the people we are today.
• That anything can be overcome, no matter how hard it looks.
• That no one can make a decision for you about anything, especially your faith.

And then i was stuck.... didn't really know what to write next. Dot asked us to share our lists with someone we didn't talk to very often. So we did and then she asked how similar our beliefs were and what kinds of things we had written down. Music? Football? TV?......God?

Had i written anything about what i believe about God....nope.....she asked people to say what they'd written about God....going around the circle. I don't know but i did feel a little bit singled out and frowned upon because i didn't write about God....Ok there were three of us who didn't but i still felt like we were kind of looked down upon by the rest of the group.....sorry guys but that's how it came across.....i know it wasn't meant to but that just highlights Dot's next point about how hard it is to be vulnerable....it was so hard to just do it then....to admit that i hadn't written anything down about God, i guess the reason was that i didn't know what i believed in order to write it down, put it into words.

But that's not the point.

Why is it so hard to be real with people? especially Christians who seem to have the 'I've got it all sorted' attitude in a way that makes others feel uncomfortable about owning up when they have a problem. Now I'm not going to go off on a big long rant about this but i just think we need to look at ourselves and see how real we are being, with ourselves and with other people too. So that we don't give off the persona that says 'I'm a christian, of course I'm happy!' and so that we're not afraid to tell people when we need help. This is so hard, I know that for myself but if we're Christians, we're family and we should support each other. maybe we need to make ourselves a little more venerable.....and in that way show others that its Ok to let the mask slip a little and show us a little bit more of who they are too.

I'll stop now because i want to know what you think.....

What DO you REALLY believe?

(don't be afraid to be controversial, you can even post anonymously, i don't mind but be honest.....)

The question is......

Does God allow this.....??? (world war, tsunami, suffering etc.)

This question came out of the context of us talking about things that had happened to us and Craig telling us about when he went to Auschwitz concentration camp as part of his peer mentoring scheme. We talked about what it had been like to visit a place where such atrocities had taken place and a question was raised as to whether God allows these things to happen.

When i was in year 10 on a German exchange we went to visit the camp at Dachau and i will remember the feeling of being in that place forever. It was such a place where you feel that if you talk loudly you are disturbing something very profound, so you talk in hushed voices and walk around very softly. while i was there i just felt really sad and it lasted for ages after i left the place. it was so peaceful but so utterly heartbreaking to realise what happened there. Did God let it happen?

Yesterday in theology we were talking about Does God Suffer?
There's so many questions going on in my head over this at the moment that i don't know what to think......so if you'd let me in on you're opinions that would be helpful....
I'd love to know what you think.

Does God allow suffering?
Can God suffer?
If Jesus was fully human, did he suffer?
if Jesus was fully God, could he suffer?
If God cant suffer and Jesus was fully God then what was the point of Jesus going to the cross?

......

think about it.....
can you see why my head hurts? that's just a starting point......

This is all of us beautiful ladies from 14 CCC on our way out to battle of the halls 2006.

We came 2nd.....Bring on the final!!

CCC! CCC!

CU Weekend away!

This weekend just gone I went on a weekend away with the Christian Union (as the title suggests) I had a fantastic time, there was great teaching, worship and prayer times but the most important thing of the weekend was the people who went. it was amazing to get to know so many lovely people and so begin to build solid friendships over a game of Mafia and a cup of tea.

The best thing that I found about the weekend was the way that everyone supported each other. The teaching itself was given on the topic of community and that is most definatly what the CU here is, a community of people who look out for each other during the good and bad times. I hope that I can be a real part of this and really build up the others by being an encourager.

I've been struggling a bit with my faith and other things that have been going on in my life and what was amazing was how i was listened to and taken seriously for what i had to say. also the way that people just pray for each other as a natural response. this was something i hadnt experienced before and i am so thankful for the prayers of the weekend and for the things that found i could talk about for the first time, strangely with people i had only known for a couple of days. You guys have been such an amazing encouragement to me...thank you!

anyway....i'm rambling away now and i need to do a bit of theological reflection on the big question that Dot posed to us today....sounds painful right.....well....

Seminar Recordings!

As of popular request I have uploaded the seminar recordings from our group tutorials in theology but as I was thinking about it I realised that if I am to post them on here I need permission from everyone in the group...as these could be picked up from anyone...so I thought if you want to have them if you email me at griffin_laura@hotmail.co.uk and let me know your prefered format (windows media player or itunes) i'll email you the upload links. Just because I dont want to offend anyone by putting them online and also...we wouldnt want any of those theology students finding out how smart all us youth workers are now would we!

So let me know!

Also NEWEST THEOLOGY LECTURE UPLOADED in the theology lectures post!

Two really cool things in one REALLY cold evening!

Just for dramatic effect I'm going to use blue text...It really was soo cold tonight!

Sorry for the epic post but I wanted to write this stuff down even if you don't read it all!


Well I suppose I could really tell you about the things I did tonight. As it is Thursday I went to chapel (which is like a different church service every week), this week it was 'High Mass', which to me being used to 'Mass' in the Roman Catholic sense I was expecting something very 'High' and I was quite nervous about going but when I got there everything was all familiar to me... Men in robes.... Strange smelly smoke coming out of a metal swinging thing....Lots of stand up sit down stuff....(some people might think I'm being irreverent here. I'm not, this kind of church is what I've been brought up in, I love it!) I felt so at home to be able to say the prayers without struggling around the funny unfamiliar wording (sorry Anglicans!) and to just know and really understand the meaning of what I was saying...It was so good! Hmm...... After all that running away from my church background I finally find some solace in familiarity...God's a strange one! :-)

After chapel I practically ran over to Hoole Baptist Church (slight change of denomination-those from home will understand what I'm like!). I've volunteered to help out with a youth group called DBiz run by the Light Project in Chester. But you see the thing was that I didn't exactly know how to get there and it was dark and it was cold and every so slightly scary.....So....While I was in chapel I prayed that I would find the church, not freeze, be scared of the dark, drunk people or crazy old men (worried now mum??)....And God totally did that for me, it was fine, I got there safe and it didn't take me long to defrost. It was an incredible night, first they have a 'brief' thing where they pray before the youth arrive, then the actual group, then the tidy up/round up/debrief thing where there is more prayer. This way of doing youth work isn't a new concept to me of course but I just found it so encouraging that people could do that as part of the normal youth night...Since back home we'd be lucky if we could say hi to the team before they were going home again....Never mind praying for each other. It was so good to be back in a setting with young people again, I've missed their bad language...Attitude...Arrogance and disregard for rules! And is was amazing to be in such a God centered place. Even though I don't think I had one conversation about God all night....He was there...Big time...Covering the place.....In the smiles of the kids.....The patience of the leaders.....Just everywhere!

Tonight has reminded me of why I want to do what I do.....Because of God's love....For those young people and for me too (since I'll always be His little Teenager!)

Theology Recordings!

Here are the download links for the theology lecture recordings:-

They will always be added in THIS post...In the comments.
I will add them week by week so you just have to come back...Find this post and download that weeks comment. Make sense?
Sorry...Its the only way I can get them out to everyone who wants them.

I was introduced to this video by my lovely housemate and i just thought I'd share it with you all. Let me know what you think!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2406460985877029386

War Child

Stands alone,

Cold and scared,

Hoping his mother and father will return,

Waiting, waiting,

But darkness comes,

No one is there.

Sits in the dark,

In the shell of her house,

Hoping her child will return,

Waiting, waiting,

But darkness comes,

No one is there.

The red sun rises,

The child walks alone,

Back to the shell of his home,

His mother is there,

Lying in the dust,

He is alone once more.

Copyright ©2006 Laura M Griffin

All Blogged out!!

I feel like blogging has become kinda like a part of my study here at chester and i think its going to be helpful for stuff like the big event next year....i'm really exited!!!....(anyway) but i'm not totally sure why i'm still blogging about random stuff but anyhow.....
let me know if i start rambling and i'll try to post something from someone else more inteligent!

today we had key issues and we talked about sex.
a little issue that christians seem to be just a tiny bit scared about. (agree??)
from my experience of youth work i've not really had to discuss this issue that much apart from when its february in coventry cathedral youth team.....when Keith has the tradition of talking about sex for a whole month in all the groups.
i do have to admit that the first year i lead groups in febuary i was very embarrassed about the subject just because its not something my family or home church really talked about that much (at all) but by the end of the month i realised how important it is not to shy away from the subject and to face it head on....young people are going to want to know about sex, young people are going to have sex.....no matter what the youth worker says (a lot of the time)....so we need to be prepared to deal with the issue sensitively and informatively.
i look forward to the day when christians are no longer afraid of sex but are able to talk about it as easilly as they can give talks on things like self-image (groan) or Jesus (yay!)....

Youth workers out there (and anyone else really).......what do you think??

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Congratulations go to the Boxer Family (Mhairi and Christian) on the safe arrival of Baby Oliver on tuesday this week!

Can't wait to see you soon!

I've once again not posted for a week....But never mind.....
BIG NEWS:- (Best house on Campus!) 14 Church College Close now has internet!! So I am writing this from the relative comfort of my bean bag! Very exiting!

this week has been really good...Had my Personal academic Tutor (PAT) meeting today....Hey Dot!'....And in my true style I managed to get it to last a whole 3mins!.....Yeah I know some of you from back home are tutting to yourself because you think I should have had more to say but.....Sorry guys.....I'm just being me as usual....I don't like talking very much!

theology was again on creation so don't really have anything to add there.

Tutorial was good but no real controversial topics launched.....Did mention about the bar etc in St John fishers (my home church) and that got many a diaproving look....What do you think? Also I did start to explain a little about the Catholic Missal (thing with the order of mass and readings in) but I think it came across as that we don't use the bible....Sorry Aimee! Hopefully there will be more opportunity to talk about this and the other denominations of churches further.....It's kinda my favorite subject being a Roman Catholic Evangelical Baptist Anglican Christian that I am! Short definition being a Christian...As described in earlier blogs.

well all for now guys....Take care and thank you to everyone for their kind words and prayers over the past week....I really appreciate it!