Mark is married to Jo and is a 23 year old youth and schools worker based in South Cave (near Hull). Mark spent 4 years as a youth worker in Peterborough whilst studying for a degree in youth work & ministry with Oasis.
This topic of this post has becoming very prominent in my thoughts in the last week and a half and whilst I think my thoughts in this blog would be served better with some specific examples it just isn’t appropriate to post them (if you’ve spoke to me recently or live in South Cave you probably have a pretty good idea of what I mean though).
Often we find that church is about a ‘Sunday (Spiritual?) Fix’…thousands of people turn up to church on Sundays because it’s what they’ve always done, because they believe it sorts things out for the week and secures their place in heaven or maybe even because it’s what their family have done for generations however this easily creates a separation between real life and church.
The difference between ‘church’ and ‘real life’ can be just as big for even the most committed Christians because often (sadly) church is very separated. The world provides a fix for our physical or emotional needs and the church deals with the spiritual.
The problem with this is it’s completely different from what Jesus did…the Message paraphrase of John 1:14 puts it like this;
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
The word incarnation was thrown around a lot during my time at Oasis and the approach Jesus took was very incarnational. He didn’t set up camp and sort out people’s spiritual needs but dealt with their emotional and physical needs too. Jesus wasn’t a one-trick pony nor a one hit wonder but a bloke who journeyed with people.
Journeying as a ministry is something I’ve always been aware of in my youth work…I’ve always been aware that it’s not just the spiritual aspect of the young people that matter but the physical and emotional aspects too and to do this effectively in youth ministry we need to journey with young people.
The same applies to anyone who’s a Christian and their relationship with others (both Christian and non-Christian), we need to journey with people…we need to cry with them, laugh with them, celebrate with them, mourn with them and truly focus on the whole person not just the spiritual. We were created to be relational beings, Jesus was relational…we need to be relational.
In the last week I’ve found myself on a journey within the community and school that I never expected to be on and it’s really got me thinking about the purpose of our journey’s with others and I encourage you to do the same. Let’s not have a quick fix church but a journeying church.
