2 Youth Ministry Jobs

There are two good jobs for awesome people (you're reading my blog ipso facto you are awesome)

Job 1: Is in North West Tasmania. Youth and Childrens Minister and Regional Coordinator

Job 2: Is at my old church (and is kinda like my old job only bigger) - Youth and Young Adult Minister

Both are full-time. Both are in Tasmania. Both have great bosses.

What's not to love?

UPDATE: Links are now correct!

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The Hobart church

Luke (and again here) and Will both make some interesting comments about protestant churches in Hobart and their concentration in middle to upper class areas.

Not that I can add anything to this as I lived my entire Hobart life in the more prestigious Hobart suburbs and hardly ever ventured north of the flannel curtain (aka Creek Road).

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Tasmanian Synod says YES to Youth Ministry

When I left Tasmania, it was not long after a special Synod had been called to put through the required funding for Bishop John's vision for mission in the church, The Imagine Project. I felt at the time that this project did not spell good news for the Youth Ministry funding and proposal which I had been working on with others for a good 18 months or so prior to this project being announced and approved. I was especially worried because I knew I was going, and I was unsure who would step into the role that had fallen on me as being the spokesman and face of youth ministry in the diocese. It was not that I didn't think we could do youth ministry and other mission, but rather the fact that youth ministry was so bad (3 Anglican churches in the whole state reaching 10 or more young people) that I felt we really needed to drop everything and make this a lot better.

Anyway, in God's goodness, after I left to move to Melbourne to study, the youth ministry ball was not dropped. The councils of the church kept working on a way forward and at the Tasmanian Synod last weekend a proposal with monetary figures was passed. I'm actually kinda sad I wasn't there for it. See this quote from John Harrower's blog

The Youth Ministry Development Strategy was approved in which the Diocese will spend about $130,000 per year over coming years to seed fund new youth programs and develop existing ones. The parish based strategy will include local church youth groups, camps, schools and other ministries. See Youth Ministry Papers in the Reports Booklet pages 30-32, Bowditch Report, Youth Taskforce report 2007 and Hawkins Report.

It is very weird and flattering having my name given to a report that is mentioned in the same breath as Tim Hawkins, but aside from that, I'm just so very pleased that money is being set aside to be spent on a strategy for reaching the young people of Tasmania. Now we just need to pray for the right people to fill the available jobs.

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A great preacher

Mikey posted links to two sermons preached by a guy named Pete Woodcock at a Tassie MTS conference I was at a few years back.

They were really great. Engaging, funny, truth telling, faithful. I remember one of them went for just over an hour and I didn't want him to stop. That's saying something!

If you like them, you can find a heap more of his sermons here

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Sexting

John Harrower (Bishop of Tasmania) blogs about the new phenomenon amongst teenagers... It's called 'sexting' and it is terrible!

It's getting harder and harder to be a teenager, and more and more important for the church to step up and challenge these issues, and promote Godly sexuality.

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Bishop of Tasmania blogs

See it here.

Not so sure about the URL, 'imaginarydiocese.org/bishopjohn', My first thought was that he was Bishop of his own made up land!

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The Tasmanian Anglican Church...

...Has just put a preaching page on their website.

See it here. I think that's a great thing for a diocesan website to do!
(Thanks to Mikey who pointed it out)

On a similar but slightly different note, on the front page you can see that the Synod papers for their Synod this year. They contain the Bowditch Report, which I'm pretty sure it's never been called before, but is basically a report I wrote back in 2006 about the horrid state of Youth Ministry in the Diocese at that time. It's slowly getting better, and definitely still something I am passionate about (even though I'm am Melbourne boy at the moment). Seems like Synod is going to be making some big decisions about the future of Youth Ministry in Tassie! I'll be praying!

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Wellspring blog

My former church in Tassie (was BayWest, now known as Wellspring) has recently started up a blog.

I thought I'd give them a plug.

Check it out here

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Beginning the final week

When I wake up tomorrow, it will be exactly one week until Ellisa and I are both in Hobart. (If you don't know who Ellisa is see here or here.) I'm looking forward to this a lot more than I thought I was going to when she left a couple of weeks ago!

Currently she is a on a two night hike on the Freyceinet Peninsula. This is a really beautiful part of my old state!

As well as missing Ellisa, I miss the hills and beautiful water and trees of Tasmania. There is something peaceful about living somewhere were you can see God's beautiful creation everyday without having to drive anywhere... Not just the endless sprawl of man-made suburbia and city! I'm looking forward to getting back there for a couple of weeks!

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Confused...

So i stumbled my way onto one of the local Anglican churches websites here in Hobart today and was bemused by many things i read.

This is how they had branded their church

"All Saints...Anglican Worship in the Catholic tradition"

Now i could be misunderstanding their meaning, but I'm not exactly certain how you can have "Anglican Worship in the Catholic tradition"!

For starters (and i'm by no means an expert) i thought that the Anglican church was founded because the catholic tradition in the 1600s was corrupt, unbiblical and irrelevant (still in latin, even though no one in England spoke it). So i'm unsure as to why this is a claim to be proud of.

Secondly, i'm not sure a church is meant to exist purely, or even primarily, for the purpose of worship. Worship to me is an all of life thing. A person who only worships God on a Sunday and doesn't not "offer their body as a living sacrifice" surely does not please God. The church i think is meant to equip us for a life devoted to God and the gospel.

However, that is merely a secondary point. I am just struck by the bizareness of the statement, ""All Saints...Anglican Worship in the Catholic tradition", it seems to me something like saying "McDonalds...healthy eating in the unhealthly tradition". It just makes no sense. You might as well just be honest and say, "McDonalds... its unhealthy". Perhaps this church should say "All Saints Anglican Church...we are actually Catholics".

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