I Like Jesus “I like Jesus – but I don’t go to church.”

Bosco Peters has a very good piece on why people stop going to church, but still call themselves Christians, over on his Liturgy blog.  He relates it to the recent Census figures on church attendance, but gives much more (including at least four Post Scripts to his original post).

Here's the opening paragraph....

OK. Anyone who has been paying attention would be concerned. I’ve seen Christian communities I care about, approximately halve in numbers of people participating in the last fifteen years or so (a period in which the country’s population grew by 20%). The NZ Census figures on religious affiliation, released this week, present a similarly sobering reflection.

Read the rest here. 

The values of getting older

Many of us see the second half of life as a process of heading downhill from the 'heights' of our (long) youth - 0-40, roughly.

However, Richard Rohr believes we should look at this differently, and has recently produced a book called, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. It's published byJossey-Bass.

The publishers' blurb says: “In Falling Upward , Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up." Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. What looks like falling down can largely be experienced as "falling upward." In fact, it is not a loss but somehow actually a gain, as we have all seen with elders who have come to their fullness.

Some of the chapter headings sound intriguing:

1. The Two Halves of Life.
2. The Hero and Heroine's Journey.
3. The First Half of Life.
4. The Tragic Sense of Life.
5. Stumbling over the Stumbling Stone.
6. Necessary Suffering.
7. Home and Homesickness.
8. Amnesia and the Big Picture.
9. A Second Simplicity.
10. A Bright Sadness.
11. The Shadowlands.
12. New Problems and New Directions.
13. Falling Upward.

To get a short appreciation of Rohr's viewpoint, you can read an article entitled: The Two Halves of Life: how did we get them so mixed up?

[Thanks for Paul Fromont for alerting us to this book.]

Youth Groups Good/Bad?

David Fitch writes in a recent blog post:

I was quoted in the recent book Hipster Christianity as saying these words “Youth Groups Destroy Children’s Lives.” Putting aside the issues I have with the book itself, I admit I was quoted accurately by the book’s author Brett McCracken. I often use the pedagogical tactic that starts out by saying something provocative and then, after I’ve gotten myself into some trouble, and acquired some people’s attention, I try to explain myself. It’s a bad rhetorical habit. Nonetheless, it works. This time it seems to have attracted some attention so let me take advantage of it and explain what I meant.

Fitch goes on to point out three particular issues he has with youth groups (not with working with youth):

1. Youth Groups foster peer orientation
2. Youth Groups undercut holistic community (he's written 'wholistic' but I think he means what I've spelled.)
3. Youth Groups too often try to attract youth, playing to their worst interests.

Fitch is always provocative, as he says, but he usually has a good reason to be so. Check this post out and see what your thoughts are.

Resources for Youth workers

There's a post on the Sophia Network (written, I think, by Jonny Baker - nope, by Jenny Baker [see the comment below]) which begins: Had a fantastic weekend at Youthwork the Conference where the theme was surrender. It was great to have lots of time to linger and talk to people over the weekend, after sessions and in coffee breaks. And wonderful to see so many gifted women contributing to the programme - Danielle Strickland, Rachel Gardner, Vicky Beeching, Abby Guinness, Helen Millward among others.

Hmm, that's interesting, you say....NOT! But wait, there's more. In the rest of the post 'Jonny' provides various resources for youth on such issues as:


Eating Disorders
Rites of passage for boys (based on the life of Jesus) and some contact names regarding ministering to boys.
Toxic relationships between boys and girls
Body image.


All of these have an underlying mission focus, and are worth following up on.

Supervision Scrapbook

I've just received a copy of the book, Supervision Scrapbook. It's aimed at youth workers in particular - hence the subtitle: kinda mainly for people who work with young people.

The authors are Rod Baxter (National Youth Workers Network Aotearoa) and Trissel Mayor (from NZ Aotearoa Adolescent Health and Development).

The book has been produced in a limited edition of 500 copies (we have number 50) and was published, as far as I can make out, in 2008. However, it appears that it's only been advertised more generally this year. Presbyterian Youth Ministries have got behind it strongly, encouraging all their youth workers to get a copy, and NZAAHD is also promoting it. Price is $10, from PYM, including postage.

As to the book itself, it's very readable, laid out in a typical youth-focused fashion, short (about 44 pages), with worksheets and a very solid bibliography. I've just skimmed through it, and it has material in it that every supervisor and supervisee would find worth checking out, or being reminded of. It also keeps the cultural aspects of Maori (and occasionally other ethnicities) in focus. (In fact, the NZAAHD site is advertising it as a taonga, ie, a treasure.)

Keeping stats safe

I've mentioned Bradley Wright on this blog before. He's an American sociologist who has done some writing on making sure stats are interpreted more accurately - he writes about this in his book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You've Been Told.

He's recently been interviewed by Ted Olsen in Christianity Today. A couple of quotes from the article:

...we have to make sense of statistics for ourselves, applying our own experience. If I went to a group of Christians and made some sort of outlandish theological or political statement, they would question it. But if I put it in numbers, people would tend to accept it without discernment.

and....

Rather than picking which statistics we agree with, we should be a little more agnostic about all of them. You don't have to believe them. Christians are called to accept and love people unconditionally. That doesn't apply to statistics. We should be cranky and judgmental.

There's another article on the subject on the CT site, by Ed Setzer. This one comes from earlier this year, and is entitled Curing Christians' Stats Abuse. He deals nicely with some typical 'myths':

"Christianity will die out in this generation unless we do something now."

"Only 4 percent of this generation is Christian."

"Ninety-four percent of teenagers drop out of church, never to return again."

Ten going on sixteen

Ten Going On Sixteen is a profile of young New Zealanders in the transition years put out by the Ministry of Youth Development.   The data was collected by Victoria University’s Youth Connectedness Project from 2006 to 2008.

"The research was designed to test the hypothesis that “connectedness” – to family, peers, school and community – is predictive of subsequent health and wellbeing of young people. The hypothesis was confirmed, with “connectedness to family and school” most strongly predictive of subsequent happiness, self sense of identity. "

While the report online is not particularly detailed (the spirituality section is very skimpy) is does highlight some interesting factors about young people, things that it might be useful for youth group leaders to know about. 

It shows that in general most children are happy with their parents and friends - boys in particular say they get on well with their families.   Girls tend to be happier when they're in the younger age range and grow less happy from the time they're 12.  Boys for the most part stay happy.  

In regard to the girls' decrease in happiness, this is mostly put down to the onset of puberty.  "Given that the average age that girls have their first period is 12-13, the explanation is likely to lie in the interaction between pubertal stage and social and cultural expectations.  The onset of puberty has already been linked to increase in depression and increased rates of self harm among adolescent girls.  In societies where expectations of girls are high, the levels of stress and anxiety among young women seem also to be higher."

There are a small group in both sexes who say they are sad most of the time around the time they're ten years old.   However, the report doesn't show whether these particular children had specific reasons to be sad.   Broken family relationships barely come into the report. 

It was a slight surprise to me to see how early many of the children are starting to drink alcohol. 

• Drinking becomes a normal behaviour for young people between the ages of 10 and 16.
• Between the ages of 12 and 14, the percentage of boys who say they drink alcohol on one or two days a month or more doubles - from 16 percent at age 12 to 35 per cent at age 14. 
• For girls the increase is even higher, from 13 per cent at age 12 to 44 per cent at age 14.
• At age 14, more girls than boys report drinking, but by age 16, the boys have caught up.
• At age 15, over half of the young people in the survey say that they drink alcohol on one or two days a month or more.
• At age 16, 71 per cent of boys and 66 per cent of girls say they drink alcohol one or two days a month or more.
• Around three per cent of the young people in this survey are ‘serious’drinkers, drinking on ten days a month or more.

The question has to be asked: where do they get the alcohol from?   

The survey was taken from around 50% European children, 30% Maori, and 20% of other ethnicities. 

The Internet generation isn't what you thought

Spiegel Online International has an interesting three page article by Manfred Dworschak about young people online which I'd suggest all those who are interested in how young people use the Net should read.  

It seems that while the current generation uses social media a good deal it doesn't regard being online as a top priority.   Meeting friends face-to-face is at least as important, if not more so - and much of what they do online is the same as they do off.   The Internet is no big deal to them: it's always been there, so they don't have any sense of excitement about it.

This is a bit of a surprise to many educators - and media pundits - who'd claimed that this generation would be the ones most savvy about the Net.   As it turns out, they're not particularly savvy at all (though of course there are exceptions).   Given a task to do on Google, many secondary students don't actually know how to use it well to find information.   They go for a scattershot approach and often miss the very things they're looking for.

A very small percentage will blog (the Internet is awash with abandoned blogs, many of which barely survive the first post), but it's not regarded as something they do.

They appear to be online a good deal, but in fact when they are online, they're often doing other things as well - like texting. 

Dworschak's article covers a lot of other ground, considers a number of studies that have been done on the subject, and questions the way we've thought about the Net and young people.    We may have to rethink the strategies!

Get ready Church!

In the most recent North & South magazine (August 2010) Mike White presents some interesting statistics and projections regarding New Zealand's population. Every one of these stats affects how we do church. Remember that Israelite king who knew that something bad would happen to his children's generation and basically said, why should I care? We need not to be like that.

Currently 4,369,977 according to NZ Stats today (19.7.10)
By 2027 our population could be up to five million
Another person is added every 20 minutes.
Some 700,000 NZeders live overseas.

In the year to March 2010, the population grew by 56,300, the fastest growth rate since 2004.
It wasn't the result primarily of migration.
In 2009 there were 62,543 births and 28,964 deaths with a net gain of 33,579.
Net migration only added 21,253.

An argument for increased population is that if we want to maintain our lifestyle without excessive cost, we will need more people. Our infrastructure at the moment is costing more than we can afford given how ‘few’ we are.

Auckland Regional Council estimated the region is growing by more than 50 people a day, requiring 21 new homes, and resulting in 35 extra cars on the road.

Auckland is predicted to grow by 570,000 by 2031, reaching two million (the equivalent of adding all of Wellington and Dunedin to Auckland).

Auckland needs to consider and fund several major transport projects:
• Second harbour crossing at $4 billion
• Underground CBD rail loop at $1.5 billion
• Rapid-rail link with the airport at $1 billion
• Completion of SH20 at $2 billion.

There's too much talk of migration making the difference to the population – bringing people in with money and then being able to charge them for living here – compared with making sure that young people stay here in the country rather than t go off overseas and not return.

In 2009 one in eight NZeders was over 65.
By 2061 it’s predicted that one in four will be - some 1.44 million people.
Life expectancy for men will be 85.6 and women 88.7 in 2061.

The median age in 1971 was 25. Currently it’s 37. In 2061 it’ll be 43.

In the late 1960s, children made up 33 percent of the population. in 2061 they’ll be just 17%.

Currently 67% of the population is working age; in 2061 it’ll be just 58%.

Hopelessness

Binge-drinking is a major canker on NZ society's skin. All manner of reasons have been put forward to explain its rise in the last decade. In an opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times, David Seymour, a policy analyst in Saskatchewan, Canada, and an expatriate New Zealander, focuses on a word which is implied rather than use in his article: hopelessness.

"The result is thousands of youth in education devoid of real meaning."

"[youth] come to believe that our way of life is unsustainable, even immoral, and any success they have in it will be nullified by environmental costs"

"The only real long-term solution to youth alcohol abuse is to attack its root cause; the diminishing ability of youth to make a difference in their own lives."

You can read the complete article here.

Volunteer!

I'm a bit late in mentioning this, but this week is Volunteer Week in New Zealand.

New Zealand is a leading nation in contribution made by volunteers. A 2008 study of the New Zealand non-profit sector estimated that volunteers make up 67% of the non-profit workforce. This is equal to 133,799 paid positions, a higher proportion than in any of the other forty world countries participating in the research project on volunteering.

Volunteer rates between different ethnic groups in the country don't differ greatly:

34.8% of Pacific people
34.5% of Pakeha
34% non NZ-born Europeans
33.4% Asians
33.2% Maori.

More women volunteer than men, but in the retirement age groups, men do more unpaid work outside the home than women.

Most volunteers are in the 30-49 age group but young people are active as volunteers. The average young person aged between 12 and 24 does over 708 hours of unpaid work outside the home a year, with young Maori giving significantly more of their time in unpaid roles than other young people.

Volunteers keep people safe by being unpaid fire fighters, St John ambulance officers, Red Cross volunteers, community patrollers, surf lifesavers, coastguards and search and rescue volunteers.

Over 820,000 people do volunteer work in sports compared to 41,000 who get paid.

These are just a few stats from Volunteering New Zealand and Office for Community and Voluntary Sector.

Older people at work

The graph above comes from the Department of Labour's fact sheet on older workers in the NZ labour market. Apart from the fact that the first box should read working-age population 55 years and older (and not 15 years and older) this is an interesting graph to ponder on when you're thinking about church and older people. (As I always seem to be doing - must be something to do with now being a superannuitant!)

Notice that there's a good percentage of people in the work force compared to those out of it, but that within those who are employable or wanting to be employed, only 2.8% are out of work. By contrast, have a look at the youth graph.


There are about three times as many youth in the 15-19 age bracket, yet there are ten times as many unemployed. This presumably isn't counting those who are studying or at school - it's those who want to be employed and are not.

What questions does this raise in terms of church? Does it say that older workers won't be as readily available to do volunteer work? Does it say there's a big need for youth programmes that assist them into employment. How can the church help? What other questions does it ask?

Unemployment in NZ

In the latest Vulnerability Report from the NZ Council of Christian Social Services shows that the current unemployment rate is 7.3%.

This is even more alarming when it’s broken down into who is most affected: youth, Maori and Pacific peoples and benefit dependent households are bearing the brunt.

The unemployment rate for youth aged 15-19 years is a staggering 23% and the unemployment rate for Maori aged between 15-24 years is nearly 26%.

Also of concern is the longer term impact of financial deprivation on our youngest citizens. A wealth of research indicates that now is the time to build up investment in our children and young people.

The Report covers a great deal more material in its seven pages, and is well worth reading for anyone who wants to know what's happening to the poor and disadvantaged in our society.

Focus on children

On the CWM website, there is a post about Jill Kayser and her work with Kids Friendly.

She says"A new year prompts one to take stock of the past year and plan for the future. Our church is undergoing change. The formation of new 'super presbyteries' creates opportunities for identifying new ways of being."

Ms Kayser said the launch of the Kaimai Presbytery in September included a range of workshops to promote mission - including mission relating to children.

She said: "When the Rev Lance Thomas invited me to contribute to the launch, he explained that the church wanted to start off as it plans to carry on and that mission with young people is key to the success of their churches.

He said we should make 2010 the time to 'do whatever it takes' to reach and serve young people and incorporate them into our communities of faith."

On top of their work with individual churches, the Kids Friendly team have also been encouraging churches within the presbytery to watch their "Next Generation" DVD - a film that features children challenging churches to make a difference to their youth programme.

You don't have to believe these, but...

The latest demographic trends are out now, with a focus on 2009. It's wise to remember that these are projections - some may prove accurate, some not. (The NZ birth rate took a surprising leap forward in the last year or two, for instance, something that wasn't expected.) I've italicized some of the more interesting points:

New Zealand’s population is projected to reach five million in the mid-2020s, according to the mid-range scenario (series 5) of the 2009-base projections.

The population growth rate will slow steadily, because of the narrowing gap between births and deaths. By 2061, natural increase (births minus deaths) is projected to be 5,000, down from over 30,000 in 2009.

The age structure of the population will continue to undergo gradual but significant changes, resulting in more older people and further ageing of the population.

Half of New Zealand’s population will be aged 43 years and older by 2061, compared with a median age of 37 years in 2009.

The population aged 65 years and over will surpass one million by the late-2020s, compared with 550,000 in 2009.

Between 2006 and 2026, the broad Asian, Pacific, and Māori ethnic populations are all projected to grow faster than the New Zealand population overall.

The numbers of families and households will grow faster than the population between 2006 and 2031, reflecting the trend towards smaller average household size.

The average size of households will decrease from 2.6 people in 2006 to 2.4 people in 2031.

One-person households are projected to increase by an average of 2.2 percent a year, from 363,000 in 2006 to 619,000 in 2031.

Most of the growth in families will be in ‘couple without children’ families, as the large number of people born during the 1950s to early-1970s reach ages 50 years and over.

New Zealand's labour force is projected to keep increasing from an estimated 2.24 million in 2006 to 2.65 million in 2031, and 2.79 million in 2061.

Half the New Zealand labour force will be older than 42 years in 2031, compared with a median age of 40 years in 2006, and 36 years in 1991.

There are a number of important points here - some we've mentioned more than once on this blog. How significant is the increase in non-European peoples for the nation as a whole? What about all those people living alone in their own little houses - there's a whole ministry in that area alone for many churches. Will we as Christians be ready for the increase in older people - or will we continue to focus mostly on the young (important as that is)?

Stats picture by roel

Young New Zealand

Throughout New Zealand, there are Presbyterian churches, elders and ministers who focus much of their time on ways to be in touch with the young people around them. Some churches are more successful than others, often because the right kind of person is in the role of youth leader, or because there is a good team of people reaching out to young people.

Having information about young people is one way in which to improve your ability to work with them. This may be information that's primarily local, or it may be anecdotal or word of mouth.

The Ministry of Youth Development has recently improved their website and one of the pages contains youth statistics for New Zealand. Statistics may not be everyone's cup of tea (particularly not youth leaders at the coal face) but they can give interesting overviews of an area or of trends in relation to a particular subject.

As an example: In the 2006 Census,
19.5 percent of young people aged 12 to 24 identified as Mäori,
9.3 percent as Pacific,
13.1 percent Asian
and 1.2 percent as Other ethnicities.
These figures are all significantly higher than the proportion of the total population that identifies with each of these ethnic groups. In other words each of these people groups has more young people than old. The only exception are the Europeans.

You can see a graph showing these stats more clearly on the web, and further down the page a table comparing where the different ethnicities predominate.

In another section, the wellbeing of young New Zealanders is discussed.

Take a few minutes to check the site out. It may prove more valuable than you'd expect.

The old are taking over

The issues of Ageing - or Aging, as blogger insists it's spelt - are often a topic of posts on this blog, and I've just come across an article in the Guardian in which ageing is discussed (partly in a tongue-in-cheek style) by Zoe Williams. She blames election time on the 'sudden interest' in the topic, but that aside, there are some points to note in her piece that are relevant to the NZ scene - election time or no. Some quotes:

....it is an unarguable fact that the population is getting older; the impact is already being felt in dementia cases, which at 822,000 are 17% higher than previously estimated.

It is assumed that over-65s live in some condition of infirmity, when the most recent Health Survey for ­England ­suggests that the opposite is the case – the most commonly declared state of health, in any of the five age groups between 65 and death, is "no reported problems" (and that includes men!). So, as life expectancy rises and health improves at the early stages of ­pensionable age, ever more people will be ­working well into their 60s – ­transforming the equation of who's a burden and who isn't.

...a) there are more over-65s in this country than there are under-18s; and b) pensioners, for all their rude health, do cost more on account of their pensions – in 2005/06, £15,024 was spent on the average pensioner, £9,454 on the average child and £6,469 on the average person of working age.

Changing Face of Church?

In a short(ish) piece, Todd Rhoades and Dave Travis outline what they think is the changing face of today's church.

Some of their suggestions may be temporary - multi-site churches, for instance, seem to be a fairly controversial approach in some quarters, and may not outlast the idea that church is local. (See David Fitch, for example, on the topic.)

The widespread adoption of social media - not necessarily in church, as in using tweets to tell the preacher what you're thinking - but in the culture at large.

Internet campuses, online giving, the use of iPhones, more multi-racial churches....and the list goes on. I'm sure there are other trends we should be keeping an eye on - Rhoades and Travis don't make any mention of the Saga Generation, though of course they talk about young people (who apparently are 'flooding' non-institutional churches).

What's your take on the changes?

Intergenerational

It's the 16-year-old that has relationships with 66 year olds and 6 year olds who is more likely to stay involved in a faith community after [he or] she graduates.

Kara Powell writes on the Out of Ur blog that it's now been statistically shown that children and teenagers who are continually segregated off from 'adult church' during their growing years aren't likely to get attached to the church as they become young adults. They tend to slide away and lose their contact altogether.

Powell writes that: In the 1940s and post World War II, there was a real burst in parachurch organizations focused on ministry to teenagers and young adults, such as Young Life, InterVarsity, and Youth for Christ. In many ways, they led the way for the church in realizing that we need to focus on specialized discipleship and teaching for teenagers.

In spite of great results, the result was age-related segregation. And with many young people only going to youth group and not to church, there's no link to the adult church community.

Powell sees the future as intergenerational youth ministry.

I'm not entirely sure what intergenerational youth ministry actually is; wouldn't the better phrase be intergenerational ministry? Not to forget the youth, but to integrate them.

Getting back on the feet

You've probably heard these snippets of biography before in other places, but they're worth repeating. This is a brief video on failure, and getting back on your feet again.




Worth showing to your youth group, or your Saga Generation group (the oldies, in other words) or the kids...maybe everyone.