Youth Ministry Blog

Well people… they made it to 10,000 butterflies, but you can still make one of your own…

In the year 2009, you’d think governments would have well and truly faced the atrocities of World War II. Yet up to 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers have still not received an adequate apology – let alone compensation – from the Japan Government.
Their chosen symbol of hope is the butterfly. We’re going to cover the web in beautiful butterflies in the run up to August 15th – the anniversary of WWII’s end – to highlight this hidden tragedy. Each butterfly will represent a message to the Australian PM to pass a motion urging the Japan Government to recognise and compensate survivors. In all this time, Australia is one of the few Allied countries that hasn’t stood up and called the Japanese Government to account.

Link: Justice for Comfort Women

Then you may be interested in checking this out and getting the young people in your community to do something about it…

AI Action – Christmas Island is no place to detain children

Christmas Island is no place for children

Caritas and The National Council of Churches have just released the Simply Sharing Week material for 2008. 18-24 May 2008 are the suggested dates for Simply Sharing Week, the motto of which is “Live Simply so others may simply live.”

I used to be on the South Australian Council of Churches team that worked with the Simply Sharing material and promotion, I’m so happy that it is still going oh so many years later, it’s a great idea for churches and youth groups to use in order to focus on their lives and how their consumeristic lifestyles affect the world around us and to also begin to raise issues around injustice, poverty, hunger, starvation, war, slavery.

The resource includes ideas for study, worship, action, reflection, discussion…

Alongside the Make Poverty History health campaign for 2008, Simply Sharing Week is encouraging Australians to ensure that children at risk worldwide have access to a nutritious diet and health care. Suggested dates for Simply Sharing Week are 18-24 May 2008. However, please feel free to participate at the time of year that suits your schedule best.

These education resources focus on UN Millennium Development Goal 4 – reduce child mortality (under the age of five) and have been designed to help students understand our relationship with the global community.

Today in our world:

• About 27,000 children under the age of five die every day, 21 each minute, mainly from preventable causes.

More than 70% of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, pre-term delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.

Link: Simply Sharing Week Website

Link: Caritas Website

A friend wrote this piece yesterday…

Go and read it…

Ask yourself how our Youth Ministries might change if we talked about how shit it is to be poor rather than how shit it is to be rich, if we talked about how to do with less rather than what to do with our more…

Today I have dark fantasies about making a voodoo doll of the emergent church and giving it to the impoverished street kiddies of the world to play with. After emptying it’s pockets and stealing its I-pod, perhaps it would stop taking photos of them.

This morning I am angry.

Angry at myself for sitting safely in the blameless position of not yet owning an I-pod but for being part of the coffee groups and art installations and talk-fests that articulate very nicely our uncomfortably with other peoples problems…

That when people ask me ‘how was India?’ I say “really hard’ and then we talk a little while about how shit it is to be rich.

What I want to talk about is, how shit is to be poor. How boring to sit in the dark near the rice pot with dust (like that greasy dust that collects on old jars in the pantry) on your skin because the water is too cold to bathe in. To go for days in clothes you don’t have the energy to wash. To pass round burdens of dead and dying friends and neighbours unpayable debts, like a baby to be nursed through the night. How watered down curry continues to taste like watered down curry, even when it’s shared, and sex and heroin feel less dangerous and more like something that God is giving you to bear the sheer mundaneness of the moment.

Read the entire piece over at MorePraxis: I’m not at forge and i am calling this post the emergent-anarchist to get your attention……

Inspired by Chap Clark and Kara Powell’s new book “Deep Justice in a Broken World: Helping Your Kids Serve Others and Right the Wrongs Around Them” I’ve kicked off yet another category on the blog “Deep Justice” will attempt to link youth ministers / pastors / workers / leaders with different resources that can allow them to work with their young people to connect with issues of injustice and justice around the world and in their communities.

The first post is on Chocolate.

Yes, that’s right, chocolate.

As Easter approaches (this weekend) your youth and your church s possibly going to eat a lot of chocolate, many might actually hand lots of it out to friends and family, some churches might even give them out to their congregation. With this in mind I’d like to point you to some resources to help you discuss issues around child labor, the slave trade, fair trade and where this all connects with chocolate, cocoa, coffee, tea…

So, what does this have to do with chocolate?
(more…)