Preamble

As a straight up fright machine, paranormal activity 3 does the job. yes it’s not to everyones tastes; yes when viewed as part of an ever-expanding story, it fails miserably; yes its another ‘found footage’ film; but as a standalone film who’s sole purpose is to make you jump; it works.

I saw the film a couple of months ago at a midnight screening in Dunfermline. I was there for a Baptist conference of all things. The main evening session finished at 9.30pm and I began the walk back to the hotel I was staying in. Upon returning to my room, I turned on the TV and faced with the prospect of several hours of mindnumbing reality/game shows, I decided to walk over to the local cinema to see what was on.

I bought my ticket for ‘paranormal activity 3′, took my seat in the empty cinema and for the next hour and a half, jumped, laughed and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. It helped that the rest of the cinema was filled with teenagers who would jump at the mere thought of the word ‘boo’.

Now, I am an avid horror film watcher and I’ll be honest, it takes a lot to make me jump, but let me tell you, this did it. many times.

But I’m not here to tell you about that. I’m here to tell you that many of the young people who work with and interact with will have seen it and so it’s good to have an idea of what it’s about and discussions you can have around it with them.

What’s it about?

Paranormal Activity 3 is (you guessed it) the 3rd film in the increasingly popular ‘found footage’ series that follows Katie and Kristi and the evil that has possessed their family. This film is a prequel to the 2nd film which was in turn a prequel to the first. For a full plot breakdown, click here.

Whenever I want to explore the issues in a film, I start with 3 basic questions:

1)  What the key themes that this film is trying to engage with?

2)   Can you see yourself in any roles / do you identify yourself with any characters?

3)  Are there any background influences from writers/directors that shape the view?

For me, there are a number of themes that the film is trying to engage with but I want to explore a couple briefly.

The home

Where do we feel safe? That’s a big question of PA3. The family get to the stage that they do not feel safe in their own home anymore and (spoiler) go to Kristis’ mums home, which turns out to be the worst decision they could have made. What do you do when your home is no longer a place you feel safe? For many young people this is an experience they face.

As an aside, horror films in general seem to reflect the culture at the time, In the 50s and 60s there was a plethora of films about bodysnatchers etc which were a thinly veiled analogy of communism and the cold war (they look like us but they’re not, they’re evil). Skip forward to the late 90′s and early 00s and we get the ‘torture porn’ or ‘gorno’ films which some argue is all about the abuse of the West in Guantanamo. Now during the recession, where people know longer feel secure in their homes because they might get reposessed because of late payments, we get a whole raft of films about entities coming in and taking away their safety and security. Makes you think eh?

Do your young people feel safe in their home? Do they feel safe with God? Is he the strong tower and refuge of the psalms? What would help them feel like that?

The Supernatural

During the 90s, horror films had moved away from the supernatural. Villains were explained away by science. Zombies were created because of viruses; monsters were created in labs. Horror films reflected the strong hold that modernity still had on culture. What’s interesting is that since the start of the new millennium the West has seen an increase in supernatural films again and the success of The Paranormal Activity series demonstrates that people are believing in this idea again.

What do the young people you work with think of ghosts?

Last week I was speaking in school to a group of 3rd year students who were all happy to admit they believed in ghosts but the idea of a god seemed ridiculous. What do your young people think of the spirit realm and are there ways to bring god in to this type of discussion.

The Characters

The general split between the cast are those who don’t believe it and need physical proof, those who do believe it and want to run away, and those who are far too nosy for their own good. Who do your young people relate to? Is it the same when it comes to thinking about God?

In Conclusion

I’ll leave it at that just now as I could go on and on but I urge you chat to young people about this movie (especially if they’ve seen it) as it is guaranteed to bring up some great discussions.

details below or check out the ICC website here

Reel Faith: Film and Youth Ministry in Conversation

Thursday 1 March 2012

6:30pm

More often than not we only use film in our youth work in order to introduce a concept via a 2 minute clip. But film is so much more than that. As a filmmaker and a Christian youth worker, Steven Mitchell believes that film can be used creatively to challenge and inspire young people but we need to rethink how we use it.

Come along and be part of the conversation.

Steven Mitchell completed the BA in Youth Work with Applied Theology graduating in 2010, since then he has worked as youth worker at South Beach Baptist Church in Saltcoats. He is also an award winning filmmaker who has created a number of short films in a range of genres including Prodigal, which explore questions of love, goodness, and forgiveness through the fallen angel Satan and Speed Date, a silent romantic comedy set in the world of speed dating, which premiered at the Loch Ness Film Festival.

 Cost: £5 (including light refreshments)

Where to find us:

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Buchan Bus Station is 10 minutes walk from the college. The nearest railway stations are Queen Street (15 mins walk) and High Street (10 mins walk). Buchanan Street is the nearest Underground Station.

Buses 11, 12, 38, 42, 56 all come along Cathedral Street and stop just a few minutes walk from the college.

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We moved house recently to be closer to the church I work for. We own a house so we wanted to rent that out and move into a rental property close to the church. As the weeks went by, and each prospective tenant came and went, my heart sank. Yes I believed in my head that God could provide but in my heart, it was a different story.

This is what the speaker at the Assembly was on about. Get your heart to match up with your head.

But I don’t think that’s possible. i think that’s a myth.

In his new book, “insurrection”, Peter Rollins says this:

“our outer world [our actions/ heart] is not something that needs to be brought into line with our inner world [our thoughts/beliefs] but is an expression of it“.

What our heart believes is what we truly believe. In other words our actions express what we truly believe. It’s not right to tell someone to get their heart in line with their head. They are not two separate entities. Here’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“the heart in the biblical sense is not the inner life, but the whole man in relation to God”

How we act shows our beliefs. I think this is part of what Paul was saying in the famous love section in his letter to the Corinthians. We can say all the right things and believe what we’re meant to but it means nothing if our actions express something differently.

There have been many heated arguments over the faith based/ works based salvation. I’m starting to believe that they are one in the same. Our works are an expression of our faith so in essence, those works do save us because they project what we believe.

What do your actions tell others about what you truly believe?

Image via Wikipedia

The Wordlive reading for this morning was Psalm 1. It’s a beautiful (and famous) poem.

¹ Blessed is the one
   who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
   or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

 ⁴ Not so the wicked!
   They are like chaff
   that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

 ⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

This week I watched the programme, “I’ve never seen Star Wars” where guests are invited to try new experiences. During the episode, Stephen Fry talked about how he is like a tree. By this he meant that he was stuck in his ways and didn’t like trying new things.

But that’s not what a tree is like.Well, that’s not the whole picture of a tree.

Trees are rigid (the trunk) yet flexible (the crown of branches, twigs and leaves). It is this combination of rigidity and flexibility that plays a part in helping trees withstand in the wind.

So Stephen Fry is right when he is talking about the base of the tree. As we get older, our core belief, worldview or principles (in theory) get stronger and more defined but if we are truly to be like a tree, we must still have openness or flexibility in our thoughts and actions.

This, I believe, is a biblical understanding of being like a tree.

Here’s an example.

I don’t enjoy listening to dub step. I just don’t get it. But that shouldn’t mean I am never open to the possibility of liking it.

So this new year, I want to be more like the biblical definition of a tree.

Keep me open God. Open to new thoughts, new behaviours and new understandings.

May we all strive to be like trees in 2012.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

But enough gabbing, here’s the list:

1) Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2) We need to talk about Kevin

3) True Grit

4) Drive

5) X-men: First Class

6) Black Swan

7) The Inbetweeners

8) The Kings Speech

9) Red, White and Blue

10) 50/50

The films that almost made it:

The Guard, Warrior, Crazy Stupid Love, Paranormal Activity 3, Stakeland, Jackass 3D and Source Code

And films that I didn’t get to see this year but might be on next years list:

Hugo, , the Artist.

So, what do you think? What’s your top 10 of the year?

On Wednesday 2nd November I attended the “how to get your kids through church without them hating God” tour organised by Rob Parsons and ‘Care for the Family’.

Read part 1 here

Read part 2 here

In the final session of the evening, Rob spoke about the three disappointments that we need to prepare young people for in order that they don’t give up on their faith and walk away from God.

1) with others

2) with themselves

3) with God

the first two are self explanatory. sometimes we can be guilty of painting a false and idealistic picture of Christianity. None of us are perfect. People will let us down and we will let ourselves down. we won’t always get it right as following Christ is not easy. We need to help young people be ready for when the inevitable happens: when other Christians hurt them. Talk about grace. Talk about God’s grace for us and the grace we need to show others.

The 3rd one is more tricky. I compared a Q&A session with our youth fellowship earlier this year. The young people had the opportunity to ask a panel of ‘mature’ christians (2 of the YF leadership and 2 deacons) a series of awkward questions about faith. One of the questions was, “does God always answer prayer?”. Without hesitation, they all answered “yes” with “but sometimes not in the way we want”.

But that doesn’t cut it for me. And clearly it doesn’t for Rob Parsons either. When I prayed that my gran wouldn’t die of cancer, God didn’t deliver. How ever you wrap that up, the prayer wasn’t successful. God will disappoint young people.

Yes we can say, “well it wasn’t God’s will” or we can talk about “sin” and “spiritual forces” but at the end of the day young people will be disappointed when they pray for something and it doesn’t happen. Rob calls these the “what if not?” moments.

“What if they don’t get healed?”

“What if this never happens?”

I know I’m guilty of not preparing young people for this (and myself if I’m honest). Too often we paint a rose tinted picture of Christianity and its this that mostly destroys the faith of our young people.

It was a great night and it left me with so much to think about? What about you? Has any of these thoughts struck you/ challenged you?

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On Wednesday 2nd November I attended the “how to get your kids through church without them hating God” tour organised by Rob Parsons and ‘Care for the Family’.

Read part 1 here

In part 2, Rob Parsons shared, what he considered to be, the five killers of young people’s faith.

1) over busyness

I remember trying to organise a meeting about a drama service that would be happening in the church in a few months time. Half the battle was trying to find a date that everyone could make. Each possible date was shot down because someone either had house groups or music practices, or women’s meetings or prayer groups or youth clubs or deacons meetings or…well you get the picture.

The same is true for our young people. each week they can attend church services, youth fellowship, badminton clubs, running clubs, house groups and music practices. How  they manage to fit in socialising and school into that packed timetable is anyone’s guess.

And there in lies the problem. The church is too busy. There are too many meetings and activities that people can attend. Do we really need them all? Is that what being a Christian is about? Meetings.

Instead of spending our week going out to our neighbours and friends, we spend our time coming to things inside the church. The great commission tell us to go, not come. We want to fill up our young peoples nights with all sorts of church activities so that they aren’t out mixing with questionable young people. But that’s the point. I know a number of young people who have left the church youth work because they just can’t be bothered feeling guilty about not being able to make all the meetings.

I overheard a conversation between two parents complaining that other members of the church let their children go to football on a Sunday morning rather than come to church. What they didn’t mention is that these boys still come to youth fellowship on a sunday evening and house group on a wednesday evening! Let’s stop forcing our young people to attend every meeting in the church just because that’s what we do.

Being busy isn’t always a good thing.

2) hypocrisy (public holiness)

Jesus called a group of religious leaders ‘white washed tombs’. nice and clean and white on the outside but rotting and decaying on the inside. Harsh words eh? But true.

On one occasion whilst having dinner at a Pharisee’s house, he talked about cups and bowls. He spoke about how they (the jewish people) have all these rituals for washing that gives the appearance of cleanliness but on the inside, it’s a different story.

How do our young people see us? Do we put on ‘holiness’ when we go to church? Are we simply actors in a play? And then when we get home we remove the costumes and become ourselves again.

The church needs authenticity. I need authenticity. Young people need to see people who are authentic. Following Jesus isn’t about pretending everything is okay and that you are really holy. It’s about bringing what you have (your doubts, your pain, yourself) to the table before God.

3) Judgementalism

I attended the Scottish Baptist Assembly a few weeks ago (i’ll hopefully get around to blogging about it before the next one) and was struck by what one of the speakers said. As Christians we spend too much time attending ‘anti’ protest rallies when we should be spending more time at ‘pro’ rallies.

Too often Christians are known by what they disagree with rather than what they agree with. We speak out frequently about the things we think are wrong instead of things things we think are right.

We should be a ‘pro’ people. Let us celebrate rather than condemn. Let’s spend more time talking to our young people about what we love rather than what we hate.

4) Cynicism

I can be a very cynical person. I’ll be honest about that. I try not to be but it’s hard. Cynicism is all around us. It’s talked about in our families, our friends, our churches, the media and our workplace.

“they’ll never change”.

“what’s the point in doing anything, this is just how it is”.

“there’s nothing new under the sun”.

Now I’m not naive. I know life can, and often is, harsh and cruel. And that should be embraced. We should not run away from that. But that should not mean that our lives are governed by those understandings.

I want hope. I want to believe that people can change. I want to believe that we are all created in the image of God and are not born corrupt. I want to believe that new things are waiting to be created. I want to believe that we can change things and I want to believe that God is a universalist.

Christianity is catergorised by hope but it looks like we’ve lost it. Let’s stop being cynical. Let’s believe in something better. Let’s believe in hope, faith and love.

5) Familiarity

“have we taken holy things for granted? Have we lost the wonder?”

This was tough and challenging to here.

I was recently told of an older member of the congregation, when on entering the church, complained that she doesn’t know what to expect when she comes in because we keep doing things differently. Isn’t that a good thing? Why is is that our default position is that of rigid routines and traditions?

Shouldn’t we be amazed when we come to church? Shouldn’t we expect God to show up?

I think we’ve misunderstood the concept that God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. That doesn’t mean that God is static and unchanging. God changes his mind. God shakes things up. God changes. And so should we. So should our services. But not just for the sake of it.

The biggest question for me when session 2 finished was how to we shape our services (and our youth work) to allow space for wonder without becoming too familiar?

What do you think?

So the song goes. And you know what, I’m not a robot.

So after a full on youth fellowship weekend away with tantrums, headaches, insecurity and outdoor actitivites, I decided to take most of this week off to spend time with the family. Or as those who attended #yws11: “slow club”.

It gave me a chance to chillout and indulge in one of my other passions: photography. So on an afternoon walk to the park with my wee boy, I decided take a few snaps on the iphone 4s and with a little help from instagram, here are the results.

Take some time this week to sing to yourself: “Guess what, I’m not a robot”.

It’ll do you the world of good.

On Wednesday 2nd November I attended the “how to get your kids through church without them hating God” tour organised by Rob Parsons and ‘Care for the Family’.

It was an excellent evening with lots of thought-provoking ideas. As an aside, one thing I really enjoyed what that they encouraged people to tweet comments using #GYKTC tag and it was great to interact with others in attendance and hear what they were being challenged with. A few of the older people I was with glanced at me a couple of times because I was typing away on my phone. They probably thought I was being rude but I was REALLY interacting with the talks through twitter.

I’d love to see my speakers in church using twitter to allow people to comment or ask questions during their sermons. Although, I have to wonder, how many of the church congregation i am part of have ever heard of twitter.

Anyway, let me get one with actually discussing the event.

The evening was split into three sections and each section consisted of a short video, drama and then a talk by Rob Parsons. Phatfish already provided worship at the start and the end of the evening. In this blog, I will explore section 1.

Section 1

Rob explained the four steps of faith for ‘churched’ young people:

1) experienced faith (what they see from their parents)

2) affiliated faith (from their church and peer group)

3) searching faith (where they graps the ability to question their faith and ask difficult questions)

4) owned faith (a faith they accept and own for themselves)

Rob said an interesting thing in that although we don’t think our children/ young people are listening to us, they are in fact hearing everything we have to say. A simple yet profound misunderstanding.

I wonder if you’re anything like me and you’re standing talking to a group of young people about an event coming up or something you’re asking them to do and then a few minutes later they have completely forgotten. It’s like you’re banging your head against a brick wall.  In many cases it is clear to me that they are not listening to me. By listening, I mean taking in the facts that I am presenting to them. But what they are doing is ‘hearing’ how I’m saying things. They pick up on the aggression and the frustration. They pick up on the times I am gossiping or slagging someone off and this will have a profound impact on their faith. As leaders, we need to be aware that young people are always ‘hearing’ even when they’re not listening and how we interact with them and others will shape what they think of Christianity.

Something else, he said, that struck me is that we sometimes confuse “spirituality with personality“. We assume that a christian looks and sounds like ‘this or that’. We have a fixed ‘jelly mould’ that we expect Christians to be like and when they don’t fit that mould we assume their faith isn’t growing/ isn’t strong/ isn’t there. In fact what we are looking at is their personality. All Christians are not and should not be the same and we need to get rid of the ‘christian young people’ moulds that we have in our heads. Just because a young person isn’t acting how we think a christian should does not mean they are not a christian.

This idea has profound implications for how we measure ‘christian growth’. How do we know the young people we work with are becoming more like Jesus? More Christ-like? I know I have been guilty of thinking that only those who are actively engaging at youth house groups or are volunteering to be upfront at the youth services are the ones who are ‘spiritually’ growing. But that’s just not the case!

Instead of a ‘one size fits all’ discipleship measuring tool, we need to look at each young person individually and see how each one is changing. We may see that a young person is smoking (and drinking) and think that the are not becoming more like Jesus when in actual fact they are out helping people and praying loads. We cannot measure all young people’s spiritual growth in the same way.

What do you think?