Sorry it has been so long again, the summer as been a busy one and I seem to have hardly been in the office which has been great, would have been even better still of more of that time had been spent with young people but one thing I did do and had a great time was soul survivor B. We had a group of 60 including leaders which was great fun. I have to say though I was disappointed by one session I went to called Im the only Christian in the village although aimed at young people rather than youth leaders I felt as a rural based youth worker it might have some interesting comments. Now dont get me wrong I have nothing against the two youth workers leading the session they as far as I am aware good youth workers but they are from HTB, they had a few of their young people talking about their experiences in their boarding school where the amount of Christians was low, my problem is, at the weekend these young people went to their youth group at HTB, they have no real idea of what it is like to be the only Christian in the village and I felt that the resources behind these young people was way out of reach for many young people living in villages today, lets get real Soul Survivor, if you want to do a session on feeling alone in your faith, get people from villages to talk about it not people from probably one of the largest churches in the country with resources in abundance. In my work I cover an area of 160 square miles, over 30 churches, approx 13,000 people (about 9,000 of whom live within 2 communities) there are villages with less than 500 people, I cover this on a part time basis, if I had the resources available to me that HTB has Im sure I could do a lot more, but lets be realistic it isnt going to happen. When is the church going to wake up that villages are here, (sorry Im getting on my hobby horse now) there has been such a focus on Urban Priority Areas and I know there are real needs in these areas but the needs are just as real in the villages but the resources arent there, lets look at the broader picture here.
Im going to stop now or else I will go on for hours but let me know your thoughts, I would be interested to here vies from anyone involved in Soul Survivor or HTB if you know anyone to point in this direction.