Re: Streetpaper - Volunteer of the year

James Stacey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:12:45 +0000

Good old Rune. A quiet hero.

Re: Revival Fires

James Stacey — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:47:52 +0000

Why's that?

Re: Streetpaper - Teenage Radicals

James Stacey — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:51:18 +0000

And they're all still going strong 4 years on...

Re: Streetpaper

James Stacey — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:15:49 +0000

Good to read this and know that Fabio is still following Jesus 6 years on...

Re: Streetpaper

James Stacey — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:11:48 +0000

The great thing about this is that as far as I know these guys are all still following Jesus 5 years on...

Re: Apps for Smartphones

qr code generator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:57:22 +0000

Love this applications. I have using android smartphone and these apps seems interesting and want to download for my cell phone. Thanks for sharing.

Jesus is real God in the World...?

Samuelgill44 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:15:48 +0000

Jesus is real God in the World...?

Re: F*** you, I’m for me!

James Stacey — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:34:34 +0000

Micah, you make a good point.
In fact, this piece first appeared in Jesus Army Streetpaper alongside a
companion piece that made a similar point to you, as well as other
points. We'll make sure we blog that, too. Thanks for commenting.

Re: F*** you, I’m for me!

Micah Campbell — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:28:17 +0000

OK Matt: I could not disagree with you more.

I am a youth worker based in Manchester, I spend much time with many of these youths you seem to know so much about. And yes, I know several who were involved in the summer riots. Firstly let me just clear this blatant warping of reality, most of them were NOT affiliated to gangs nor were manipulated by ORGANISED criminals.. I would love to know where you acquired these facts? The Daily Mail by any chance?

Most of these kids were from similar areas, with similar life prospects, with similar issues; it begs the question; how can this NOT be seen as a social issue!? If it had been any other group it would be seen as such. surely if it was simply the manifestation of sin there would have been a much broader mix of society; yet they were nearly all YOUNG and POOR!
Secondly your assertions about Jesus taking an issue with this perspective, is in my humble opinion, a complete disregard for his teachings and his life. Jesus loved the SINNER; that was his primary, defining purpose for coming down to Earth. Love means to look past the SIN.. Simply put; the SINNER comes before the SIN.

What you have done is seen a group of people, specifically poor, unrepresented youths, for their criminality and SIN. You have left very little manoeuvrability for empathy, for reaching out to them, seeing past their SIN and seeing them as sons and daughters of God.

Empathy and Love are synonymous, they can not be separate. Not to empathise is to disregard their humanity, their pain, their insecurity, their abuse etc. Therefore not to empathise means you can not be truly LOVING them as Jesus ordained us to do.
Many of these youths are deeply insecure about how people and society perceive them, their apparently ‘arrogant’ actions and mannerisms are actually a manifestation of this insecurity, a defence mechanism if you like. They want to be loved and to be noticed and to be respected – much like every other human on Planet Earth! They search for these things and find them in the wrong places primarily because nobody else gives them the opportunity. Think about it; The media hates on them, politicians hate on them, they are NOT represented at all in either of these entities, their parents potentially have issues with them, their teachers disregard them, SOCIETY DISREGARDS THEM! They have to go looking for respect and inclusion, sometimes in places which may lead them down a path of criminality.

Through my job as a youth worker I refuse to be part of this obvious problem, I aim to see all of them, good and bad, and to give them a fair chance to be themselves! And they open up to me as real, living breathing, insecure, interesting, multi dimensional human beings. Not just ‘feral thugs’ as the vast majority dismiss them as.

Chris: You speak of respect being something that is earned, on that basis how can WE earn the respect of these youths, if we show them none ourselves? You say they “are incapable of normal English speech” I’m not going to beat around the bush;- I believe this to be an extremely bigoted perspective! Should we judge a Polish man on his limited grasping of the English language???! They have a dialect which reflects their culture and yes swearing is part of that ‘culture’ but let me ask you this bro…

Would Jesus have disregarded these youths?? Would he have simply thought “they swear, they steal, they show no respect, I think I shall visit the Scholars today as they shall provide me with much more nourishing and enlightening chit chat”..

Personally, I don’t remember that part of the Bible!!

Respect is learned, it comes from people seeing past your faults and flaws and appreciating your weaknesses and strengths, it comes from an understanding of what makes a person, a person! As the adults of society, the impetus is ours to show and teach respect so that the next generation do not grow up without having ever experienced it in the true sense.
As Christians it is our duty to be the ones that make them feel welcome in a world which otherwise makes them feel unwelcome!

That means not just seeing the SIN but also the SINNER.
By the way the great Christian activist Martin Luther King once said “A riot is the language of the unheard”.. A man who appreciated how society devalues, dehumanises and then blames a people group for not acting ‘correctly’..

Re: F*** you, I’m for me!

Matt — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:53:01 +0000

"
The Bible calls this “sin”. A dusty, old-hat, outmoded idea? Think about it: “sin” has ‘I’ in the middle. It is “self” running amok."

Don't mean to sound flippant but also thought it worth saying that the sin having an I in the middle is a bit of a lame comment. For example, "Faith" also has an I in the middle! So does "Alive", "White", "Bride" and hundreds of other words. Following the same logic, why is there no "I" in "Lust", "Adultery" or "Theft"??

I also wanted to know if the nature and causes of Sin were different in Non- English speaking countries where their word contains no "I" and "I" isn't a word in any case??

Further, as the word "Sin" was spelled "Synn" in English up until the Ninth Century, was there a significant shift in the nature of Man around that time???

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Re: F*** you, I’m for me!