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Surprising Tools of Evangelisation
With Mission Sunday coming up on 19th September, Kristina Cooper, shares about an unexpected tool of evangelisation in the inner city
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"The harvest is abundant but the labourers are few so ask the Master of the harvest to send labourers for his harvest." Luke 10:2 Faith we are often reminded is caught not taught. Thus much of evangelisation and mission is not so much about techniques but about deepening our own faith and then being open to the Holy Spirit in the situations we find ourselves in. And the Holy Spirit can often surprise us with the means and the people he uses to spread the gospel. For example I always thought that to reach young people, you surely needed to be young and trendy and have high tech resources at your disposal. While it is important to use whatever resources and expertise we can - Catholic Evangelisation Services are in the process of making an exciting new video series for young people (see page 11) - this doesn't mean that the rest of us are let off the hook, because evangelising young people is the responsibility of all the believing community. One way we can evangelise is simply to live our faith with integrity. Young people are extremely astute. They don't listen to what we say but what we do and how we behave. If we are not living what we preach, they don't have much incentive to either. One of the reasons I believe that they often find Mass boring, is not so much the lack of exciting music or the form and content of the service, but rather the general atmosphere and lack of faith among us, the congregation. One knows from one's own experience how electrifying Mass can be, experienced in a community of faith, be it with smells and bells or with a few people in a house, but also how deadening it can be, when it is obvious that the people who are there would really rather be somewhere else. Adolescence a time of questioning Adolescence is a time of questioning, which can be very painful for
parents as their once obedient children suddenly turn into snarling
rebels, rejecting everything that they previously seemed to have accepted,
whether it is going to church and matters of faith or wearing what
their parents consider appropriate clothing. I would have thought I would be the last person in the world to end up with a ministry to teenagers, particularly inner city boys. I was always a bit of a goodie two shoes myself as a teen, and preferred adult company, to the unpredictability of my hormonal peers, who one minute behaved like little kids and the next like sophisticated trendies. Yet three years ago, when I said my yes to God to get involved in the lives of the people on my housing estate, these were the people who appeared at my door. In the beginning I wasn't sure what they wanted. I don't think they quite knew themselves. I recognised somehow however that God had sent them, so I shouldn't be afraid but trust that the Holy Spirit knew what he was doing. It's been a real learning curve and I still don't really know what I am supposed to be doing. The good thing with this, however, is that I have been forced to pray more and leam to respond to what God seems to be doing rather than initiating things myself. Relationship not activity In the beginning I remember I was quite excited when they first started coming, and asked me about my faith and prayer. Maybe I could channel this interest and start a weekly bible study with them I thought. But it was not to be. Whenever I arranged anything specific for them, be it a video evening or a discussion session, however enthusiastic they might claim to be, on the day they simply didn't show up. There were various reasons for this. One, I had to accept, was simply that the event itself was not that much of a high priority for them because of all the other options they had in their lives. Demonstrated by the fact they always remembered to come for their birthday pizzas! Also, because of the drugs they take and the way they amble around, without much of a routine they easily lose track of time. Thus they just turn up when they feel like it or remember, taking a chance as they do with all their friends as to whether I will be in or not. Food is a great attraction with teenage boys. It seems they'll go anywhere where they are fed and watered. They usually come to me when they have been playing football and need a drink, or they are hungry and want a snack. I seem to have become a kind of auntie figure whom they know they can call on when they need the phone, or the loo, or hang out at when they are bored and the weather is bad. Because of the services I provide them, they are prepared to humour my occasional lectures on their bad behaviour and they will sometimes ask me questions about faith and what I believe about things. But these tend to come up spontaneously, and from them, not from me. All a bit nebulous In the beginning I was a bit disappointed that it was all so nebulous. One tends to think one must have bible studies or some kind of concrete teaching. But I have come to realise what they really want is relationship, rather than activities, however worthy. With my hectic lifestyle, moreover, it turned out to be actually easier to offer more general availability when I was around rather than to allocate them a specific day of the week, which I would have to stick to too. With my experience of prayer groups, I thought spontaneous prayer would be the way to go. But it didn't work. They were too embarrassed. At that age too, I realised, peer pressure is so strong that many don't want to expose themselves by saying anything too personal or revealing which they could be teased about or bullied about later on. What they do like, strangely are more formal rituals, like lighting candles, grace before meals and blessings. One boy came in very distressed that a teacher he had had an altercation with the previous day had died suddenly of a heart attack. He obviously felt guilty and didn't know what to do about it. "You could tell him in your heart that you are sorry," I said, "and say a prayer for him." I said a prayer for him and I could see he mentally joined in, leaving very relieved. Comfortable with more formal prayer I am amazed at how comfortable they are with formal public prayer. One group, for example, invited me to come and watch them play football, hoping that I might supply some half time refreshments (food again!). When I hesitated - worried what people might think of a middle aged woman on her own turning up to watch a crowd of teenage boys, who weren't her sons or her school children. The team captain tried to encourage me. "You could say a prayer before the match" he said. "Surely you wouldn't want me to pray publicly like that" I countered, astonished. "Na it's all right... I'd get the lads in a huddle, and you could say the words," he said, more comfortable than me with prayers on the pitch. Likewise although I do say the rosary, I have never really thought of it as an evangelistic tool. God, however, has a way of turning our ideas upside down. Symbols and logos and brand names are really important among teenagers as they are a way of showing that you belong to a particular group or tribe. Among church goers those who wear rosaries round their necks might be considered a bit on the pious side. On my estate, however, it means you are really hard. This is because rosaries are very popular in prison, and to have a rosary is to imply that you must have been inside or know someone who has. Added to this is the fashion factor, with rosaries adorning the chests of celebrities such as Madonna and Posh and Becks. All these cultural factors have made rosaries, at the moment to be the epitome of cool. The fact that I have a product in such demand gives me a certain kudos and power in the community. Rosaries for tough guys The fad actually began a couple of years ago when the hardest boy
on the estate turned up on my door asking if I knew where to get beads
from. Others got to hear of this and I found myself unable to keep
up with the demand. Church children suddenly had street cred The fad died down again and I thought it had finished. But then a couple of weeks ago it flared up again. It began when a small black lad approached me in the street. He had never been to the house, but I knew him by sight and I suppose he knew me by reputation, as the woman with the beads. I told him the usual contract. Like many Afro-Caribbean children he came from a church going family and knew the Our Father perfectly and proceeded to rattle it off there and then in the street. After collecting his reward, he must have gone round and told his network of friends, who were also semi-churched young people, because a few days later a host of them appeared at my door, all demanding beads, and all reciting Our Fathers and Hail Marys. I couldn't help but smile at their glee and preening over their less fortunate friends, who didn't know these special prayers. For once their church background had given them the edge in their social set. One of these lads, bigger than the others, asked me if I could remind him how the rosary went? Before I knew it a couple of them were in listening to rosary rubrics, even down the pope's intentions, which somehow fascinated them. It was all a bit surreal. I stressed the importance of the power of prayer and added a few of my own experiences which I thought might impress them. They were particularly taken with my drunken Chelsea football supporters story, when the Holy Spirit came to my aid. Later on that evening the same boy returned. This time with some more friends, asking if I would explain to them about the rosary, and tell them about the Chelsea supporters too. I could feel the working of grace in the room. They could too. "I don't go to church anymore," one of them said. "But listening to all this makes me want to go again." This idea that God was alive and active in real life situations in someone they knew obviously carried a lot of weight with them. They were keen to have a rosary session that Friday. Would things be different this time I wondered? But they weren't. They didn't show on the Friday but part of the group turned up on Sunday afternoon, where they drank coke and wrote religious raps to earn some more precious beads. Who would have thought that rosaries would be the key to connecting with them. We'll just see howlong it lasts and what the next thing might be that God will use to help communicate the gospel. I'm sure I'll be surprised!
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