This week I have had two appointments specifically thinking about the strategy of youth work.
I have sat through these listening to people's opinions, considering the issues at stake and developing ideas that could address such issues.
As I sat in one such meeting this morning I wanted to blurt out 'can we not just let young people be young people!'
Young people are young people, passionate beings seeking care, fulfillment, safety in this world. They push boundaries, trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong, trying to understand how far is too far and so there development continues.
They can be dangerously aggressive when they choose the wrong avenues for their energies, yet dangerously exciting when they direct themselves to wholesome living.
Young people are young people, inevitably some will commit crime, inevitably circumstances, and life style will have an impact on them as they mould into the person they are becoming.
Being strategic is good, don't get me wrong, but lets not confine them to a wobbly tightrope life where the slightest error is magnified, but rather let's free our young people to make mistakes, to experience the fullness of life with all it's facets.
And above all, lets be the face, hands, feet and essence of Jesus saying 'come'
1 comment:
Amen to that! Strikes me there are too many people trying to turn our young people into clones of themselves. Let's recognise their individuality and celebrate their differences, talents and simply who each one of them is....
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