Tired Of An Endless Discussion
Last night and today was the youth staff retreat. It’s the second year where we have gathered with the Focus Team for a meal and prayer and then stayed over to discuss and think about direction for the next year.

Interesting discussions about future directions. Things are being shaken at the core in terms of people moving around, ideas changing, applications changing. Even though we are a large group.. I’m drawn to addressing the question of what do we do well rather than how do we do everything.

Pretty tired of discussing an endless drift.. there’s a vertical line down the crux of the congregation and it doesn’t seem like people are moving from one side to the other in a hurry. There’s a lot of compartmentalised faith and that’s dangerous, limiting and cruel to those desperately seeking immersion.

It’s like the best way to learn a new language is to be immersed in it, and similarly, the best way of learning a new way of being, is simply to be in a different place with people who are doing it differently. I feel an unbearable pressure that as a single person without dependants or ‘responsibilities’ to model this. Yet I feel remarkably unequipped and dispassionate about doing it in this climate. I’ve suggested starting a step before intentional community living, with intentional lifestyle teachign & accountability. Even from there it may take years, if we ever are able to reach a point of sway, movement and bias away from ourselves and onto the poor, the addicted, the unloved.

We are not doing immersion. We are still doing lessons. We need to change the core of who and how we are operating. We need to be changed, rather than simply changing the strategy. Need to grasp hold of the fact that strategy for a task is not vision for a people.