Let God Grow
I'm in one of those periods of time where there is much that needs to be done but it's not the stuff I want to do. I don't know if there's anyone else that gets like that. I have a mass of loose ends to tie up and a bit of prep to do but the thing I want to focus on is the creative and from my perspective more fun stuff.
The fun idea is a discipleship course called Let God Grow that was the brain child of Dave Steell when we worked together at SBC. When we first launched it back in 2001 it was a phenomenal success. The basic principle is to link an experience with a Christian principle or theme.
What would happen was that the group would meet at a mini bus one evening a week. The people on the 8 week course would have no idea where they were going but we would introduce the theme for the evening, for example faith. We would then go on to drive them to a place such as the tallest building in Luton where we got access to the roof and took the group up there (don't worry it was quite safe) to look over the town. Whilst up there we would get the group thinking about how being on top of this tall building reminds us about faith. We would then let the discussion develop before heading home. On the way back we gave each of the group something to remind them of the experience and the theme (for example something like a small piece of concrete might have been used in this example). We would do this for 8 weeks thinking about a variety of themes
Faith - Tall building
Journeying - motorway service station.
Guidance - Luton Airport
Aim - Driving Range
Spirituality - Church Ruin
Christ - St Alban's Cathedral
Well the idea that I am hoping to develop is to use this idea around the Easter story during Holy Week.
My plan is to get a small group of young people and to help them to journey through the Easter story in the week leading up to Easter Sunday by looking at a particular part of the story each day and by linking this to an experience and to something that they can take away with them each day.
I have developed some ideas that I think will work for it and am excited about the opportunity to be creative. I'm taking along our Pastor for the week as well as we think about whether this is something that we could do with adults in the future.
If anyone wants the full Easter Course drop me a comment and I'm happy to share it with you if you have people you might like to do this with.
2 comments:
Sounds really interesting and just the sort of thing I'd be really interested in sharing with you? I think that those spiritual encounters that are linked with experiences are often the most profound and memorable. Would be interested in hearing from you about this idea and also any more about the journeys one too ... great creative stuff.
And yes I get well bored, quite easily by the mundane and want to let the creativity go and do that sort of thing ... part of our make up as youth workers I think :)
Thanks for the comment claire, if you r interested in what i'm going to do, send me an email or your address and i'll send you the plan which you could develop and fit to your group.
Post a Comment