Just came back from the camp at Tsing Yi, where we talked and talked — between World Cup games — about youth work in our parish. We said that it is a shame more youth (in need of training) did not come, but I guess we all learned and benefited from this camp. If we started to think about new questions, gain insights and learned to look at our situation in different lights, then this was the training camp for us. And here are some thoughts that I gathered and developed throughout these 3 days. (Sorry that this is my favoured mode of expressing my most developed thoughts, instead of expressing them verbally in Chinese…)
Some people have good ideas about the events we can hold in order to maintain the group of youths. I think, though, that it might be better if we take one step back and look at what we want to achieve. (I guess I am a bit obsessed with outcome-based framework since I moved into education.) In terms of process or stages, we have:
- participation
- sense of belonging
- spirituality
- service
In terms of target groups, we have various level of current involvement; in terms of events, we have one-off or continuous; in terms of cohort, we can have static or dynamic entrance and exit. We would do well to identify our goal(s) first. And then plan our strategy and tactics accordingly.
- Paritipation of a well-established service group (善會) could be a goal (goal A);
- as could “be a youth leader” (goal B);
- but so can “To love God and our neighbours” (goal C);
- and “Forming a Christian Family (公教家庭)” (goal D).
“Teen-Teen Gathering (TT)(天teen聚會)” is our one established regular activity. It can serve to recruit some of the youth graduating from Sunday School, can hold a group of youth together for one or more years, could act as a place for talent to be nourished and developed, and ismanageable in terms of our current resources. However, it is not possible to keep people forever in TT as participants. They need to be released in a couple of years.
I do not agree that TT should be stopped just because we have nothing in line for those who would be leaving TT after the couple of years. It is not practical (and maybe not even desirable) for us to hold the hands of our youths forever onwards. Consider our goal(s). If they developed belongingness in TT, that would already be great. Would we prefer another structure like TT for youths “graduating” from TT? It would be great if people developed good spirituality and friendship and can form a cell group of their own. If that is a goal we want to achieve, we could try to work towards that. Not being attached to a formal group in parish is also not a bad thing per se. And I positively think that youths going into University should spend good time living the university lifestyle, participates in university activities, and think about their religious beliefs. I would rather try to maintain their connection to the Parish, instead of asking them to spend a lot of time in the Parish.
No one would disagree that goal C is the ultimate goal. Goals A & B are both worthwhile, but we should not be too obsessed with getting everyone into these. We do not actually fail our mission as a Christian if we do not join a service group. Shall our favoured outcome be to get a certain percentage of youths into service group, one person every few years become a leader, while the rest remains spiritual and go to Mass every week, in this Parish or elsewhere? Explicit goals like this would make it much easier to evaluate a programme or strategy……
So, to our sub-goals, which might be specific to each target group, they could be expressed in terms of the 4 processes/stages I mentioned above. Initiate participation for ALL (i) unattached youths we have no network with, (ii) youths graduating from Sunday School which do not want to go into TT, and (iii) older youths who already retired from the scene could be difficult. Breeding the sense of belongingness might not be difficult, but we need to be realistic about our expected level of physical participation resulted, as we need to compete with other things for people’s time. Spirituality is more difficult to measure; and services might not be for everyone. But if we can state our goal, we can devise a strategy for trying to achieve that goal — it could be through TT, it could be ad hoc events that provide opportunity to recruit unattached youths and for networking in general, it could be better connection with various service groups, it could be opportunity for youths of different gender to mix to increase the chance of them eventually forming a Christian family……
I am personally less interested in planning the tactics, but I know someone would be — how to liaise with Sunday school to facilitate them joining the TT; what one-off activities would attract the youths to participate; how the altar boys can become technically better; where to recruit people to play the organ……
Another level of questions would be about the leaders. Who should be the players? What types of leaders do we want? Just by discussing and going through a terrible talk by a non-professional together, we have new insights and become better planners. One day we might become true leaders.
《A bit of Fry & Laurie》 — 這我想看很多年了，到最近才有機會看。我是從《Blackadder》認識Stephen Fry和Hugh Laurie，但感覺上他們更適合sketch show。特別是他們「扮」回自己，取一個特別的personality，感覺得很然。我連續看了他們頭三個series，覺得第三個series沒有頭兩個的好呢。頭兩個series比較新鮮，有時surreal但clever；第三季有時卻太worked了一點，或是有點無聊。當然，我只是看過一遍罷了。多看幾次或許會有不同的體會。
