by tashmcgill | Feb 5, 2013 | Church, Spirituality, Youth Work
Honesty is always the best policy, except for all the occasions on which honesty will cost you almost, if not absolutely everything. This is true in a number of places but mostly true in church. This is surprising, considering the enormous effort we invest in trying to help young people feel confident to “be themselves”.
A week ago, I wrote a couple of very honest blog entries on My Fear Of Failure and Frustration: The Agonizingly Slow Pace of Transformation. I loved the comments, feedback and a dozen or so emails and Facebook messages I received from people sharing their thoughts and stories. One friend said “I just thought, wow, Tash is being really vulnerable.”
That comment both graced me and irked me, as I’ve previously taken pride in my ability to be honest and vulnerable. Yet, on reflection – I remembered another conversation just a couple of weeks ago. In passing, I made a statement that was truthful, but sharp.
Me: “Oh, was that a little too honest? I may have crossed the line.”
Him: “No, it was fine – better it be said and heard, than thought and not spoken.”
Me: “Well, you know me – never one to hold back an opinion if given the opportunity.”
Him: “Maybe a few years ago, but if I was being honest, you haven’t been that honest for a long time.”
When Did I Stop Being Honest?
As soon as I learned how honesty could hurt me and that honesty wasn’t always acceptable. And then I realized that I learned to be dishonest in the Church. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jan 26, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, god ideas
Whether you embrace change, or change is thrust upon you without warning – the process of transformation is long and hard. I have long been a lover of Henri Nouwen’s journal of letters to himself, “The Inner Voice of Love”. If I was to minister to myself; this is what I would remind myself of.
“You need to recognize the difference between change and transformation. You keep expecting that these external circumstances that reflect change around you, will mirror or gauge the change within you. But you don’t change, people can only transform. One thing must become another. You can’t tear out your heart and simply replace it with a new one, much as one relationship cannot be exchanged for another. We must transform. So these external changes you are processing, can transform you internally, if you choose. But you must choose this: it will not simply happen by osmosis. It is too easy to adopt new behaviours and claim newness, when really all you are doing is maintaining a facade. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jan 22, 2010 | Church, Uncategorized, worship, youth ministry
I’m aiming for a short post today. In the buildup to Parachute 2010 and coming out of my season at NYWC, my history with Eastercamp and other events in the spectrum – I’m thinking more and more about gatherings.
The Tipping Point
I loved encouraging, resourcing and inspiring youth workers with my work through Eastercamp – examining different expressions of community participation in experiential worship and story. But a one-off experience isn’t enough to sustain long-term or ongoing change. My tipping point, especially with the rest of the team was the shift we were making in core values. For a long time, the core value was fulfilling the role of resourcing and serving youthworkers. There was a point at which another focus, on numbers and getting bigger and bigger took over. It was based out of a genuine motive – we wanted to be as impacting as possible. But as a leadership team there were two very different ideas as to how to get there.
We had been experiencing consistent growth for about 9 years at this point – every year increasing 7 – 23% of our overall numbers. One idea was to throw everything at strategies that would attract other large denominational numbers and independent churches to join us.
I came to the realization that the best possible strategy long term, was to become a movement of youthworkers and communities, rather than a one-off event. Even though we were denominational in roots and history, we had expanded beyond the sense of connection our denominational ties allowed for, and limited/confused as to how to incorporate other values/practices/flavours into our event. However, a movement has a unique ability to draw diversity into unity, based around common purpose.
We could have greater long term relationship and support with youthworkers if we continued to find ways of expressing, sharing and developing our values (community, gospel, fun, locally connected, financially accessible) throughout 365 days of the year.
(Sidebar: It’s actually incredibly easy for events with the right staff to begin to do this nowadays, because of the influence and emergence of social media tools as methodology for creating personality and energy within a set of ideals, even if that ‘community’ only connects annually, bi-monthly etc.)
Follow some of my semi-chronological thoughts…
1. If you want to gather people together – you need more than a reason. You need a common value, a common love, a common cause. You need something that engages both an intellectual, emotional and spiritual reaction.
2. In order to gather people together again and again – you need more than a cause, you need a movement.
3. The best movements are chapters in the story of a Tribe, a community of people connected in some way that share commonality of values and/or expression of those values and within the history of a Tribe there may be several movements. Similarly there may be movements shared by multiple Tribes..
4. One-off events make history & “do you remember when” stories in the history of Tribes. They are great moments that inspire the future but in of themselves, they are not the future. They are turning point gatherings, or reconciliation gatherings, or healing gatherings..
5. The future is carried forward by life-giving movements that gather for the sake of gathering, because when they are together, the story continues. Movements are embodied by a set of values or principles.
6. The most sustainable business model for those communities that wish to be Gatherers, is to build movements, rather than events. Creating a movement is about shaping leaders, people, listening to the ongoing expressions and finding ways of broadcasting that to the rest of the Tribe, sharing it with the rest of the movement. One-off events connect people to a place and time, but a movement invites people into an ongoing story – in essence, a shift between “I heard x & y at z?” to “I am talking with x & y. Simplified but it works.
7. Movements find their health in other places than numbers. They still need to make their budgets, but often values of a movement overtake the values of an individual or justification. Multiple not-for-profits demonstrate this, when a commitment to getting dollars to the field, overtakes the desire for clever and aesthetically pleasing marketing materials.
8. Of course, if the movements are shaped by leaders, voices, prophets, etc – then the most interesting question becomes.. how do you build a Tribe? A tribe has to be sustaining.. in other words, there must be space in the natural order for the young to be constantly arriving and growing. This is an incredible challenge withing our culture.
The shift from being an event to a movement changes loyalty, ownership and expectation on the part of the organization as well as the customer/client. However, the long term benefits outweigh the bumps in the road. Movements can exist equally well in micro and macro climates – because they can operate by different rules than one time events. Similarly, you can’t simply duplicate a one time event model and think you’ve created a movement. The rules of Movement are clear – commonality in purpose/values/cause and connectedness.
More later… what do you think so far?
by tashmcgill | Oct 28, 2009 | forgiveness, Uncategorized, youth ministry
There are lots of things going on at the moment .. and lots of things I’d love to write about it, but the timing isn’t quite right and the barometer is unsettled. I’m looking forward to time passing enough to be able to write about these things with the benefit of hindsight and discovery.
However, I can write a few, momentary reflections on some things seen and heard lately…that may or may not speak to things current, cos you know me so well.
1. Dave Matthews Band is still amazing live. And there is no more powerful witness in the world to any cause or movement, than a group of friends that stand together to honour one of their own. There are seasons of turmoil, grief and loss – when someone like LeRoi is suddenly gone… and there is a story left behind to be told by those who know him so well, that honours the music, the very being and core of his life, to love on the family of which we are all part, continuing on in the cause we are all living and believing in.
2. It’s someone else’s quote but it’s true “that which has the power to create an over or under reaction in us, usually has control over us, and will force that reaction from us”. If you know me so well, you know that I believe some of the essence of life is learning what to hold on to, what to let go of. There are some things though, that still hold on to me.. by their persistent ability to provoke an unwelcome response in me, because I’m still waiting for the freedom that truth brings. I realised that in some instances, I have laid down my right to write those truths, telling those stories.. because I fear the response. But the response in my spirit to not telling these things.. is much too much.
3. The adventurer in me is not dead, not the creative spark buried under sadness for a time. Cos you know me so well, I can speak to you of high desert plains, mountains, rocks, dry heat and long concrete & asphalt paths carved out just so that I can stand in the middle of nothingness. Stand there and realise how much I loved the unbeaten path, the unfolding day, the clarity of time and space. I am adventure-bound, ready for the wilderness of life again. The spark in me is rising up again, beating and warm within me.
4. Justice and compassion belong together. Cos you know me so well, you probably know that tears come more often now, more easily. The injustice of elderly couples treated with disdain, kids climbing out of the gutters towards the future, that which is lost…. So may my sense of justice not lead me towards rage, and may my sense of compassion still operate with discernment to the way forward.
