We are family

Sophia is now over a month and we are all getting to know each other. These are such special but tiring times. Daniel decided today that he wanted to wear pants and is doing really well - this is a massive step for all of us, especially as we use reusables and saving the planet one nappy at a time can get a little icky at times.

Youth Ministry 3.0

Feeding Sophia at all times of the day and night is giving me lots of time to think and pray. I keep considering the way we do church and youth ministry in particular. My head is buzzing eith loads of things, partly fuelled by SPring Harvest. In lots and lots of ways, I love it and think it has tackled some relevant and much needed subjects in the last few years. This year focussed on 'The APprentice' the way Jesus taught and we learn. One of the things it highlights to me is the importance of learningin smaller groups and that more often than not, God challenges and shapes us through the act of living and making us vulnerable to those in our community, in places where we have the opportunity to hear and also be heard. It is somewhat ironic when people discuss the need for this kind of set up when leading huge seminars that are basically proven to not be effective places of learning!

In my jumbled head, it links with an excellent article in this month's Youthwork, called Youth Ministry 3.0, which basically asserts that a lot of youth ministry is inefective and needs to change. It verbalised a lot of what I have been thinking. I am just praying that God will show me the way to go and give me the courage to look to Him and move forwards...

Introducing Sophia Amy Roper

Sophia was born on Saturday 7 March at 3.13pm, weighing 7 lb 13.5 oz. It was a water birth and I think I did really well with great support from my wonderful husband and fantastic midwives. Isn't she lovely, Isn't she beautiful?...

Walk This Way

The last few weeks have flown by as we have been getting ready for the baby and trying to sort out a new laptop. I am still working things out, but there has not been much opportunity to post on here. The baby is now 2 days overdue and it is testing my patience - come one little one, we can't wait to meet you! To take my mind off things, I thought I would share some words of Thomas a Kempis. The quotation is an extract from 'Walk this Way 40 days on the road with Jesus', which is the new book from Paternoster/Spring HArvest/Thinking Allowed:

'What use is it to argue cleverly about the Trinity, if you lack humility and so grieve the Trinity? Get this: clever words don't make a saint or even a Christian! No, God is pleased with people who live well. I'd rather feel my sin and shame, not understand it. You might know every word of the Bible, and have degrees and doctorates, but all that gains you precisely nothing without the love and grace of God.'

The book was launched at a training day that I went to a few weeks, also called Walk This Way. It was a good day, looking at the way that Jesus taught and we learn. There was a focus on deep learning, and how this is lacking in our schools and churches. The general consensus was that we all learn best in small groups or 1-1, rather than large conference settings. Ironically we were in a large conference setting... Will post more on this when I find my notes and remember some more details - my pregnancy head means that my brain is a bit of a jumble! I was initially disappointed that the tie-in book doesn't unpack the training content, but is instead 40 days worth of readings. As I have begun reading it, though, it has turned out to be rather good and a great resource for Lent.

Beaches in January

Once more, I shall bore you with tales of my son. Soemtimes I would love to get into the mind of a 2 year old. For a while now, every time he sees a picture of the Fat Controller, he says 'Daddy'. It makes me giggle every time. I, on the other hand, am Peter Pan, apparently.

Also, Daniel is just getting into imaginary play. He needs a bit of encouragement but then there is no stopping him. Last night, we were looking through his photo albums and saw pictures of the beach from holiday. So, at 6.30pm in JAnuary, he declared that he wanted to go to the beach. I tried to explain the impracticalities of this, so he said 'beach later' as if we would be going in the next 10 minutes. Which was when I had a genius mummy moment.

Using 2 blankets, I created a 'beach' in his bedroom. We used sticks and his plastic snooker cue for spades and we were soon having a whale of a time on the beach. He pretended to splash in the water and kept saying 'cold.' This morning, he went on a boat to see some ducks with his grandad, apparently. We even had ice cream (a wooden whistle) which he kept licking and saying chocolate ice cream! He does get quite bossy and demanded that I 'dig castle, mummy.' Every time I stopped I was ordered back to work.

The funniest moment came last night when we put him to bed. A couple of minutes after putting him to bed, he poked his head around the door, made a dash for the snooker cue and ran back in his room. Neil went to put him back to bed and he just said, 'more digging!'

It is wonderful to see his imagination and creativity awakening. It is something I want to encourage throughout his childhood and into adulthood as it is such a precious gift. Sometimes God feels very close in these moments. I am pretty sure he likes our beach as much as Daniel.

Love is...

I am still recovering from an excellent but exhausting weekend away at Halls Green. We took away 8 11 and 12 year olds, which I know is some youth worker's worst nightmare, but they are a lovely group. They are really funny with bags of potential and loads of fun to be around. It was VERY cold though. I did ok considering that the baby is due in 6 and a half weeks!

The theme of the weekend was love, focusing on Mt 22:37-40. They got to do their own take on things by putting together a short video on the freak banana man finding love and being accepted, surreal in that special way that 11 and 12 year olds manage. But for me, a really special moment came when we were praying at the end of the weeknd and an 11 year old said something along the lines of 'I know how great your love is God, becasue we have had an ace weekend without any arguments or anything and it shows how special your love is!' A brilliant bit of applied theology and lovely to see God's love having an impact. I love those small, but significant youth work moments.

Merry Christmas... and the Roper Review of the Year

Merry Christmas! I thought that I would save paper again this year by adding our family newsletter as a blog post, so hello if you are reading this as a result of a festive email and hi to those that read the blog anyway (all 3 of you).

So what has been happening for the Ropers in 2008?

Holidays

We have had some great times away as a family this year. Due to Daniel's love of the outdoors, I managed to get Neil camping twice! We were at Spree, a youth camp in July and Greenbelt, a Christian arts festival in August and we had a lovely time at both, despite soem rain and mud.



We also had a lovely time on the Isles of Scilly with Neil's parents. The Scilly Isles were really beautiful and we were really blessed to have the opportunity to go. It was especially exciting for Daniel, as we got to fly in a helicopter there and back! Quite a lot of children cry because of the noise, but Daniel only cried when he realised that he wasn't going back on the 'dopter.'




Normal Life Stuff

Can you believe that we will soon have been in Enfield for 5 years? I am still working at as Youth Worker at Enfield Baptist Church and still enjoy it loads. However, I also missed spending time with Daniel, so I reduced my hours in September and it was wonderful to have the support of the church to allow this to happen. Neil began working part-time at the church as Children's and Families Worker and enjoys this nearly as much as being the primary carer! It's been good for Neil to get to know a number of other dads that are involved in childcare, and for the second year running, his and his friend's presence at a Christmas meal meant that it had to carefully be referred to as the PARENT and toddler meal, rather than mums and tots! Also, for the second year running, Neil and his friend were the only ones to go to the pub after the meal. Neil is also studying part-time for a Degree in Children's and Youth Ministry. He has been working very hard and doing very well, and I am very proud of him.

Daniel!

It is hard to believe that our little boy was 2 at the end of October. At the start of year, he wasn't walking, but now he is running, bouncing and dancing. He is an absolute joy and now he has started talking, it is hard to get him to stop. Like mother, like son. He is also very much into books (I take the credit for that as well) and music (that one is more down to Neil probably.) But we blame his love for drums on church. He just adores them and has got fairly good rhythm. We may be crazy but we brought him a drumkit for his birthday and he loves it. Come to think of it, our neighbours haven't spoken to us for a while, though.



Looking Forward to 2009!

We are very excited about 2009. There is already lots in store, most importantly the arrival of our little girl. The baby is due at the end of February and we are all over the moon. Please pray for a safe delivery and that Neil is around, as he is due to be at college the week before the due date... Photos and news will be on here and Facebook. It will also be exciting to see what is in store for us, as Neil is on a fixed-term contract of one year, so we will have to wait and see what happens with his job. We're not worried though, as we know that God has his hand on our family in the big and little things of life, through good times and bad. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, it is so wonderful to know the truth of Emmanuel - God being with us.

We look forward to being in touch with you soon, whether we see you often or not and hope that 2009 brings you much joy!

MP3 Magic!

It was my birthday last week and I have finally got an MP3 player. After a false start, it arrived yesterday and I am very excited at owning my Creative Zen. I buy lots less music than I used to, mainly because I have less disposable income and I am trying nto to own so many possessions. However, as I pile through the CDs to add them to my player, I realise that I do have a fair few.

For one reason or another, I have got some new(ish) music recently, as well as getting hold of a couple of classics. We picked up Nevermind - Nirvana on a beautiful picture disc vinyl in Canterbury the other week, along with the Stone Roses' first album on orange vinyl. It matches my copy of Fools Gold on gold vinyl, which is one of my favourite songs.

I also picked up Arcade Fire's Neon Bible and The Last Shadow Puppets' the Age of the Understatement at a record fair. I am really enjoying both of these, and keep meaning to look into some of Arcade Fire's lyrics, which I am finding quite intriguing.

Then, someone bought me The Cream of the Beautiful South and Condensed House Martins for my birthday, which I am lovign as well, although was slightly shocked as I had never heard the album version of DOn't Marry Her before...

Finally, I am going to order the new Spiritualized album with some birthday money, so looking forward to listening to that. Anyone else got any recommendations from the past year, or re-discovered a classic album recently?

Passing on advice - a dilemma

Following on from a bit of a false start caused by a lovely sickness bug, I ended up getting to Youthwork the conference a day late. I had a great time though, and despite my endeavours to take it easy as I was both recovering from illness and I am now 6 months pregnant, I seemed to fit in quite a lot. One of the sessions I went to was on reflective listening. It was excellent, with great content and presentation. However, something was mentioned that keeps cropping up and I am not sure what I think. It was the idea that our role as youth workers is not to give advice. In fact, with regards to relfective listening, it is a big no-no.

I went to the session as I know that I do not always listen well enough and I am too quick to offer my opinion, whether in relation to youth work or chatting with friends. And I am well aware of the dangers of youth workers having an undue, unhealthy influence on the young people that they work, albeit intentionally or not. It is also very dodgy when people feel the need to tell others what to do when they do not really know them, or the other person doesn't trust them. It is absolutely right that young people are given the space and time to make up their own minds about things and do not feel pressured into certain ideologies or decisions as a result of the youth peer group or youth leader. And vulnerable young people are at risk of becoming co-dependent, which youth workers need to be aware of.

However, at the same time I think there is space to offer and accept advice in all areas of life, including when working with young people. I am worried that to shy away from offering advice puts too much pressure on the individual. Do we really have all of the answers within? This may be an unfair representation of reflective listening, but the idea is that by listening and reflecting back to a young person, they can think through their own situation and come up with their own way forward. But in my own life, I am not sure that this is always the case. I need other people, not just to listen to me, but I want to learn from their experience and hear their perspective. I certainly don't act upon every bit of advice I am given, but there are some people that I really trust and I want - need their input.

I think it goes deeper than this. I think God calls for us to be together, to learn together, to support one another, to be in community and need each other. This is part of why Christians are called to be church; true church is about vulnerability, honesty and a move away from self-reliance and reliance not just on God but each other. In Proverbs 27:17, it says, 'as iron sharpens iron, one man [sic] sharpens another.' Sometimes when we are in a relationship that is based on mutual trust and respect, we need to say and hear challenging things. We need to think of things from a new angle. We need to admit we don't have all of the answers and talk things through with someone else that doesn't have all of them either, but can help us see things differently. We need to hear things we don't like.

And this is risky and at times dangerous. The things we say can be taken the worng way. We may mis-read a situation. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it, adn I think that this applies to youth work as well.

I am still thinking through this, but this is where my thoughts are at the moment. I would really value any thoughts or feedback.