Is short-term mission like Strictly Come Dancing?

There is a clear parallel here

If you think this question is faintly ridiculous, don’t change your mind in a hurry. However, indulge me to convince you otherwise.

Application

There is an arduous application. On SCD it is a celebrity career – becoming famous. For STM it is writing out the forms, getting the interview, undergoing the medical.

Orientation

Obviously, when young people go out on short-term mission trips, suitable organisations give appropriate orientation. Likewise, on SCD celebrities get extensive briefing on culturally appropiate clothing, on use of language (before 9pm), how to stand, what to say, use of social media etc. It’s not so very different.

Placement

In both activities two (or more) people who don’t know each other are put together and asked to work together for a concentrated period of time. In both cases, the participants fumble around thinking they know what they are doing, but actually being steered by the hand by their more experienced partner. They have to ‘perform’ for a public who realise they don’t belong in that location but whom they have to do their best to impress, either with dancing, or being like Jesus. Or maybe both.

Journey

Hopefully, over the course of the experience participants get better. They become better dancers, or they act more appropriately as cross-cultural workers. In very rare cases, to the untrained eye, it is hard to tell who is the novice and who is the expert.

Scrutiny

On SCD, the judges suggest improvements, point out shortfalls, and generally critique the efforts of the celebrities. After a mission, trippers go to debrief, are quizzed and questionned, and, in some cases, feedback is sent to home churches. Normally, without hip gyrations.AftermathAfter ‘the best experience of my life’ it is up to the participant to go home and make the most of it. For some it is life-changing, and they will forever think of themselves as ‘the one who did the great paso doble’ or ‘the one who led that Thai guy to Jesus’. For others, the experience is forgotten and lain dormant, at least until the Christmas Special.

Reward

Strictly Come Dancing has a glitterball and increased celebrity, Short-term mission leaves a dent in the bank balance and a smile on the face of Jesus. Perhaps the similarities end here.

Social change, youth and the church

Here are six characteristics of the undefined young. The speaker, Nancy Lublin, who was speaking on Radio Four’s Four Thought programme, was, I assume, talking about 15-25 year olds. Or something like that. And commenting on how social change takes place. She runs campaigns that engage teens plus. Here are some of her observations.

Choice – How do you take your coffee?

Young people these days are overwhelmed by choice. Be it the cereal they eat in the morning to the kind of coffee they have (skinny decaff double shot latte with a shot of caramel). They are used to, and comfortable with choice. Even within education, much of their learning is self-directed.

Customisation – How will you personalise the song?

Not only do we have choice, but we can actually customise what we do with that choice. Not only do young people no longer buy music allbums, when they buy individual songs, they download them, and then re-mix them. We make our own screensavers and wallpaper, we make our apps look how we want, we put our own spin on things.

Followers Matter – Leading from middle

Twitter doesn’t work unless people follow. Otherwise it’s just a crazy individual pouting nonsense with no one listening. The day of the charismatic leader is not over, but it’s rare. Nowadays, if you catch the right zeitgeist or use the right hashtag you can have an audience of several thousand within minutes. Think Egypt. Think Syria. Where leaders of movements are denied broadcasting access, the people who share their views can gather a mob within minutes, from a Blackberry.

Speed – The six-week lifespan.

The pace of everything happens very quickly. Advertising campaigns have a very short duration. Also, there is no point putting the marketing out there and not being ready to respond immediately.

Cost – Free advertising is everywhere.

Lublin used this example: The Today Programme has two million viewers in the USA. Walmart has 25 million likes on Facebook. Where will they more effectively market? Duh! This is not to say that Walmart do Facebook for free, but there is plenty of stuff they can do for nothing. Don’t do campaigns which cost money. Campaigns which cost something have already wasted money.

Wired – Multiple information streams

Young people live on multiple devices. They can beo n two or three screens at a time of which this could include 9-11 information streams at once (SMS, Facebook chat, Twitter, TV, Comments page, etc). Older guys (25+)  struggle with four to five information streams.

So if this is what young people are like, how do they approach church?

Choice –How do you like your worship?

In a town of any significant size, there is a choice of church. In some the preaching is good, in some the community is good, others have great music. Young people, if they are keen on church, are happy to choose. Partially based on branding, but more based on which elements please them.

Customisation – Having an influence

If a church does not allow its young people to tweak and modify who church is and what church does, that young person will inevitably feel disempowered and disengaged.

Followers Matter – It’s not the main man

To be honest, the Senior Pastor is not the most important figure for young people in church. It is the youth leader, the worship leader, the guys who tweet and blog. It may even be that the young person is accessing Bible teaching from a completely different country. The pyramid of church leadership does not apply how it used to.

Speed – Don’t be a drudge

Because church is diverse, and often elderly, the speed of change is limacine. This won’t help young people. We need to be fresh, agile, mobile, proactive (and responsive). Let’s face it, if we try something for six weeks and it doesn’t work. Move on, try something else. Change is good for our young people. Conversely, the elderly eschew the idea of the different. Tradition is a moveable feast. We create and make new traditions all the time. Let’s make some new ones. Again and again and again.

Cost – The major obstacle

Churches are short of cash. But so much of what we do costs nothing at all. Of course, many churches are tied into maintaining elderly buildings unsuitable for task. But if we embrace social media, we can run all kinds of excellent campaigns at practically no cost.

Wired – Get in the Wifi

If young people are constantly on their devices, and able to perform perfectly well, let’s get Wifi into church and trust them to use their devices appropriately. Livetweet the sermon. It’s only risky if it’s rubbish.

 

 

Why I Kicked a Panda

This is not the one I kicked. Probably.

Shhh! Don’t tell the Chinese authorities. But I am outing myself. I did it. I kicked a panda. Not the soft toy variety (because who hasn’t done that), but one of those creatures who look as cute and cuddly as a woolly-warm winter scarf, but are actually as vicious and carnivorous as a ravenous lion. There was a reason that I did it. It wasn’t out of malice, but rather heroism. The story goes like this:

It was a somewhat damp spring morning in the Sichuan countryside when four of us wandered out of a leech-ridden hostel, where the choice had been to use the raggedy, tobacco-reeked blanket, or struggle to conquer the all-pervading cold. We strolled from the hostel to Wolong Panda Breeding Research Centre. This is plenty of years ago. Pre-earthquake and pre-posh facilities. Without any effort you could go right up to the panda enclosure, peer over, or even, if you were foolish enough, dip your hand in and give a panda a soft stroke.

In one cage, there was a playful panda practising somersaults. Aaah! We all went, until in a series of gymnastic movements, the terrifying beast had rolled right up to the bars of his cage, extended his claws, and dug them right into my friend’s shoe. This could have been worse, but fortunately, he had only found the space to which the toes did not extend. In that split second, my friend had a choice, sacrifice the shoe to the panda and hop around for the rest of the day, or seek to keep the shoe by pulling it away as hard as it could.

She chose the latter option. But failed. And at this point had a mild panic as the panda tried to get his head through the bars of her cage. I sprung into action. Without thinking, I grabbed my friend’s shoulder and pulled, and in the lower half, stamped on the panda’s leg with all my force. With a yelp, the panda leaped backwards, and foot, shoe and friend lost their balance collapsing into my heroic arms.

So yes, I kicked a panda. I valued my friend’s shoe over the panda’s squeal of pained surprise. Is this an arrestable offence in China. Possibly. Please don’t tell them.

This story is essentially true, but please forgive the mild exaggeration that twelve years distance allows me in the re-telling.