On the first day of Lent ...

As today is the first day of Lent I've decided to 'take up' something for the next 40 days. Usually I give up something (generally chocolate and something else) but this year I've committed to writing in my journal each day over lent. This decision to 'start' instead of 'end' is partially because I haven't thought of anything to give up! Actually it's about focusing on developing new habits rather than the bad habits.

Journalling and blogging has been a habit I've fallen out of recently and I regret that. For me thinking things through and 'writing it out' is very helpful for me to understand myself, my experience and my reactions.

There might be many posts here or I might end up writing things straight in to the my journalling book - depending on whether I or not I feel the need to 'own' what I write for anyone to see!

Our evening service this Sunday night is asking people to give or take something up for Lent. I wonder if anyone else decides to make the most of the opportunity and how they go.

One day down ... 39 (plus Sundays) to go.

The other side of the door

I've never been afraid to admit that I'm a Christian. Okay maybe 'never' is too big a statement but to my recollection I haven't been worried or embarrassed to admit that 'I go to church' or I believe all this 'God stuff'. Particularly recently. When people ask you what you do telling them that you work for a church or are studying a Bachelor and Arts/Bachelor of Theology... well it kinda gives it away. So it was really challenging for me to experience that kind of embarrassment during my Mission Immersion during NCYC.

Mission Immersions were a time for us to experience what mission opportunities there are. It was a look at a practical way to become an 'agent of change'. (The theme of NCYC '07.) So on the Friday of convention two or three small groups were joined together and we headed out around Perth for our Mission Immersion experience.

Activities varied. Some groups heard about refugees, learnt about the Micah Challenge, visited a women's prison, visited nursing homes or hospitals. My group hopped on a bus and after a half and hour hot and stuffy bus ride arrived at a community centre in the Perth suburbs.

We walked in and sat down (in the sun!) for our 'briefing'. I use the term lightly because it soon became apparent that although NCYC hadn't told us what we would be doing the Community Centre expected that we knew what they were talking about. We figured out that our task was to door knock.

My initial reaction to the was "No way! I am not knocking on random house doors and asking 'Do you know Jesus'?" I am not comfortable with that at all. To me that confrontational approach isn't the best way to invite people into a relationship with God/Jesus. (This is my blog, that's my opinion, you have the right to disagree!) This was complicated by the fact that I was a Community Leader and CLs had been told that we would have some leadership role during MIs. So I was facing doing something that I was totally uncomfortable with but having to lead by example if nothing else and encourage other to participate or talk to the Chaplain if they were confused.

Luckily it turned out while we were being asked to door knock, we were to ask people about the needs of the community so that the community centre could try to provide for those needs. Although I was still uncomfortable with the door knocking I felt a lot more comfortable asking those kind of questions.

We all headed out in our groups with a representative from the centre to accompany us. We were armed with sheets to fill in the answer to the questions, fliers to put in letter boxes of the people who weren't home and a spiel to explain who we were, what we were doing and more importantly a little about the community centre.

We were door knocking for about 2-3 hours and the reactions we got were pretty negative. There were some really nice people in the mix but it turns out that this community has people from churches and religious institutions at their doors up to twice a week. You can understand that some people weren't too patient with us! There was one particular person - a lady I think, who shut the door on us very decidedly when we got to the part of the spiel about belonging to a community centre that was being run by the Uniting Church. Similar things happened at many houses.

I can absolutely understand their reaction. Like anyone I'm usually on the receiving end of the 'great special', 'new idea', 'opportunity of a lifetime' when someone comes to the door with information. So it was really challenging to be in that 'pushy' position and not with a whole lot of choice on my side. What bothered me the most was that it was the 'church' bit that bothered people. I began to avoid saying that the church was run by the Uniting Church.

That reluctance to talk about the church really made me uncomfortable. It was quite a interesting situation for me. I'm still not sure what to do with this revelation. I think it was good for me to feel uncomfortable, hopefully I can understand a little more the people who do feel this reluctance. I guess if nothing else, that's a good thing to take from this experience.

And the winner is ... Converge!

It's been awhile since I last posted. I don't think anyone has really been that worried about it but I have fallen out of the habit of blogging/journaling. As I need to keep journaling for my Period of Discernment I will have to get into the habit again. So I thought I could start by updating here.

NCYC '09 has now been officially launched at the final rally of NCYC '07. I hope to write some more on that another time but for now check out the fantabulous '09 website for details.

http://ncyc.org.au