Sarah Shares...

Sarah shares…………

 

Hi, I’m Sarah and I’m doing a uni placement at MBC until May. As Emily has said in the previous blog, I’m working with Steve leading the Romance Academy which is going really well. I’m also involved in Crus 2, one of the youth clubs that runs mid-week and on a Sunday morning. I love being a part of this because it provides a great opportunity to have conversations with the young people about what’s going on in their lives. I also love Sunday mornings with Crus 2 because it is a chance to have a group discussion about a general topic which is inspired from the Bible, and it’s an opportunity to hear the young peoples take on it. This week the topic was greed.

 

Last Friday I’m sure we all noticed the country coming together and raising a whopping £58m for those in desperate need in Africa and in our own country through Comic Relief, and seeing our country giving so generously even in the middle of a financial crisis is something to be admired. However, in our everyday lives, when we’re not reminded by the media every second of the day, do we think in the same way? In Crus 2, we looked at our lives as articulated by Lily Allen’s new song:

 

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and I want loads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them.

 

We decided that we can want that new pair of jeans or need those gorgeous new shoes to add to the collection, and have them without a thought to the people who made them, or even just those people living on the streets of our city who want just an evening meal, and yet however much we buy, there will always be more that we want.

 

We talked about our greed in Crus 2, and realised that actually we will never have all the material possessions we want, and actually we shouldn’t have them because so many people go to bed hungry every night around the world. God on the other hand, can satisfy our every need, and that goes for everyone around the world, whether living in riches or absolute poverty. No, He isn’t going to suddenly put the brand new convertible VW Beetle on my drive that I’ve wanted for such a long time, but he will show me his love and his grace which is so much more important and amazing than our material wants. God knows what we need better than we do ourselves, and so can satisfy us more than anything we can buy. I guess the challenge set before us is rejecting greed in our greedy society, and making it a habit to think about what really matters, and discovering what it is we really need.

 

 

 

 

 

It's good to talk

 

I’m in the mood for dancing, romancing……

 

Well it’s not officially February 14^th and Valentines is well and truly over for those of us who care to celebrate or be celebrated on that day!

 

But here at MBC romance is very much in the air as Romance Academy II hits Plymouth! The hosts for this years exciting 10 week project are Steve and Sarah and last night the first session went off with a bang!

 

For those of you who think that we are setting up some dodgy dating agency let me enlighten you. During the summer of 2004, in light of the rising number of teenage pregnancies and STI’s amongst young people in Britain, the BBC piloted a project that would look to reverse this decline. As such ‘No sex please, we’re teenagers’ was broadcast over a number of weeks in the autumn on BBC2. This documentary followed the journey of 2 youth workers who worked for 5 months alongside 12 young people in what became known as the Romance Academy.

 

Romance Academy www.romanceacademy.org now runs projects across the UK to support young people in the area of sex and relationships through a programme of creating positive community, mentoring and challenge. It seeks to be a holistic sex education package in providing young people with both the information they need to make healthy choices and a ‘positive’ peer community within which they can explore their own identity, decision making, and the true value of sex within loving and committed relationships.

 

For me, the highlights from the first one we ran in 2007 are the weekend away and graduation ceremony which marks the end of the project. We wrap up the project as a celebration of the young people and their commitment to take seriously the choices they make around sex and relationships.

 

So, expect lots of updates! I for one am so passionate (!) about this whole area. I think that in so many ways we have done our young people a disservice in opening up the world of sex and the exploration of it with so little care or regard for the choices they make now and how these can impact their future.

 

When it comes to sex and relationships BT are right when they say ‘it’s good to talk’.