Grownups Behaving Badly.

Grownups Behaving Badly.

“Welcome to the age of self-management, it’s all on you from here.” It was said with a smile, but in a tone that makes the blood run cold. More truth held in the six words at the end of that sentence than I’d heard for quite some time. I was being given a choice about how to respond.

The infallible truth is, my life is a direct result of my choices and actions. Both poor and good choices construct a set of circumstances that I, and I alone, must take responsibility for. Regardless of how we interact with other individuals and how their choices may impact on us, our choices to respond to those circumstances lands the responsibility firmly in our own hands. Your life isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you respond. (more…)

Two Years On.

Reborn and shivering
Spat out on new terrain
Unsure unconvincing
This faint and shaky hour

Day one day one start over again
Step one step one
I’m barely making sense for now
I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it
From scratch begin again but this time I as i
And not as we

Gun shy and quivering
Timid without a hand
Feign brave with steel intent
little and hardly here

It’s been two years since my last Eastercamp. Gosh, that went quickly. Didn’t feel like it at Year One, but at Year Two it seems like a flash in the pan. By Year Three, there’ll be barely a trace left… I won’t recognize the faces or the names. That’s how quickly it can all turnaround. 

Year One, I mostly just stayed home, cried, cooked and drank a little. Or a lot. But it was mostly red wine and I had a very communion-y mindset about it. It was a very sad and angry communion, so it was especially important. 


Year Two.. I mostly just stayed home but participated in some Easter celebrations, even some leading of the procession in my local community. Helped with the re-telling of the story to some 10 – 13 year olds. Told a story about being less of a priest and more of a person, singing the songs of ascent up to the Temple steps. 


I still miss the anticipation of telling the story. I miss the community of friends. My inner self trembles with anxiety that I won’t be that good again, that others will be better. Until I realize that is what I want, despite myself. I still want what has come after me to be better than I was. Doesn’t make me feel very righteous though. And maybe that’s better, the nothingness and then the desire. 



E hara taku toa, I te toa takitahi Ä“ngari he toa taku tini 

(My strength is not from myself but from the strength of the group)

Please follow Anne, Lars, Marko, Adam, Ian and the rest of the YMATH team for their on the ground stories, videos, messages and reflections on being in Haiti. 


Tomorrow morning at 9am EST they are hoping to help get aid to a tent city of some 5000 Haitians as yet unaided since the earthquake a month ago. 


If you don’t do anything else, please at least pray for them and the fingerprints of God.

Even When You Change, You Remain Who You Are.

For those of you that peruse my sidebar from time to time – there’s a special column there. It’s called Thinkers. The reality is most of those folks, I consider to be friends regardless, but usually their blogposts are thoughts worth considering, whether in regards to faith, faith in praxis, music, travelling, people, community. They are my must-reads. I’ve posted them in a truly random order. They are diverse enough to engage my brain in the way it ought to be, not all regular bloggers although some are ‘dailies’.

whyismarko.com was formerly ysmarko. I decided I wouldn’t delete Marko’s site from the sidebar because I think it contains some of the most forward thinking youth ministry/faith in praxis content around. For the time of his tenure as Youth Specialties President and blogger, this site has been one of the most accessible points of conversation that I regularly participated and observed.

Which brings me to the point – that even when you change, you remain who you are. When I finished in my role with Eastercamp, it forced a point of clarification in my own identity. What changed was the outlet of my knowledge, passion and praxis. I didn’t cease to be interested, experienced, knowledgeable or a continual learner in my field. It was simply the outlet that changed.

I count it as an honour to call Marko and others in the YS family, true friends. People that I deeply care about and respect. There are folks that work here that you’d never see teaching a Lab or writing books (yet) who truly care about young people, those that work with young people and the current/future state of this praxis we call Church. So, in all the things that are changing and may change.. my hope and secure belief is that you remain who you are.

I’m still really good at being me – in all the varied expressions that I create around that. And Marko remains a prophetic voice in youth ministry. That matters, because we’re a tribe of people not just an organization. And likewise, there is every hope that YS the organization can remain an organization completely committed to loving and serving youthworkers.

I had to remember that I had eternal permission to remain who I was. Others had given me a title and credibility to work within their organization, but ultimately that was simply an expression of the much bigger picture that the Father always had in mind. I’m not necessarily a believer in Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. I think that God enjoys the ongoing creativity of making something beautiful out of our lives as we go, hand in hand. However, sometimes in life, people will change your position or role, the expression of who you are may change. Sometimes people will want that to mean you cease to be who you are. Those voices should be gladly ignored.

I’ve never quite got back to blogging or writing in the same way since ‘my contract was not renewed’. It’s been a conscious choice to not want to slight or discolour what was a magical, wonderful, awful time in my life. Sometimes I regret that, because I now think, I should have remained feisty enough to fight for my character and my good name, despite how others were gently and publicly shaming me. But therein, lies the lesson of remaining who you are.

I’m glad Marko’s back to blogging, simply because I think the expression of who he is continues to remain important and beautiful in our world.

Back home, we have a word called ‘mana’. It means a form of respect, authority, stature that cannot be easily bestowed on another. Some people simply have a presence, that gives them permission to speak and a voice that rises above others. Mana is something that can be credited to you by the elders and members of your tribe, but it cannot be attained, if you know what I mean. Reach for it and it will slip from your grasp. Aspire to it and you will learn humility and service.

Mana, is exactly what it means to remain who you are, despite how things may change. So, I hope for Marko, as much as myself – that his ongoing expression brings something rich, deep and necessary to our lives.

Both organizations and tribes require leaders, but the way that comes about is vastly variant. Tribes tend to choose leaders for certain seasons, but also hold an enormous capacity for elders and ambassadors within the collective knowledge of the tribe. That’s why tribal gatherings still reference those who have gone before us and remember with fondness their words. Tribes have a much greater capacity to hold broad spectrums of ideas, to wrestle with ongoing ideas and issues whilst seeking greater practical application.

Possibly this is why we must be so careful with the business models and leadership lessons we chose to apply in Church, because we naturally are more tribe-like in our existence. We compel ourselves to organizational structure because we view some form of necessity in it, to which end we may be right, but it is not easy for us.

Tribal behaviour is the proof in the pudding, of how even when we change, we remain who we are. My hope for the future of YS is in this tribal identity, held by a collective of people who hold a spectrum of time, ideas and voices in valuable tension.