from DAVE FAGG, Course Co-ordinator, Praxis Victoria,
Ascot Vale 3032
Dave Fagg lives around Long Gully, Bendigo, Victoria and
has started working on a
new THINK YOUTH website
Dave Fagg's page/blog - Thinking my way through
Dave's experiment with sacrifice
Praxis National
Praxis Victoria
History is really fascinating, isn't it???
It is particularly so when people have sunk hearts and souls, minds and bodies into non-profit causes. Sadly, too many young people - products of affluent, visual, time-precious, hedonistic times - think that history started the day they were born.
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from https://www.facebook.com/dfagg 23 September AD2013
Please feel free to Comment - see at end of Dave's article
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Blackburn Community Network
I added a "life event" about this and it got a few likes, so here is an extended version. It's not a definitive history by any means - feel free to comment on my inaccuracies.
It existed to support people who wanted to follow Jesus in more radical ways than were viable in the mainstream churches we were a part of.
1. Kevin Avenue
I would mark its inception from the time Greg and Rose Gow, and Grant and Debbie Finlay, bought a house together in Kevin Avenue and moved in. At the time, Greg Gow was youth pastor at Blackburn North UC, and Grant was the assistant minister. Over the next decade or so, "Kevin Ave" became the scene of community living: meals, young people living in, early morning prayer, late night parties, jelly-wrestling, a treasured dog being sprayed with paint, police raids - and those are just my recollections.
The Gows and Finlays were inspired by Australian Christian communities like the House of the Gentle Bunyip and the Waiters Union. In turn, they inspired a bunch of youth leaders at Blackburn North UC to do the same, and to reach out to young people and others beyond the boundaries of eastern suburban church culture. The "Bullshak" drop-in centre was one manifestation. It was also the trigger for a mass defection.
2. Move to St Alfred's
The vibrant and counter-cultural youth ministry at Blackburn North UC, lead by people mentored by the Gows and Finlays, came into conflict with their church over the young people who were coming to the "Bullshak".
Having already made contact with Peter Aggarwal (now MacPherson), and conducted some joint events, they decided to move en masse to St Alfred's in 1993-1994, taking some not-so-young people with them. St Alfred's, which up until then was a 'family church' that had discouraged 'youth ministry', now had a booming youth ministry. The youth leaders at this time were people such as Marcus Curnow, Liz Dodds, Marty Richards, Greg Hewson and others.
Youth Ministry and St Alfred's
1. Youth Ministry
The BCN always existed on the fringes of St Alfred's, never really owned by the church, but its members made up a strong contingent of the leaders of the youth ministry at the church. Being part of the youth ministry of St Alfred's was very important for the BCN, in a couple of ways:
2. Being part of the church
The BCN acted as an alternative grouping to St Alfred's, allowing youth leaders to think up, and experiment with, different forms of youth ministry and mission. For the church's part, in retrospect I think the leadership generally did a good job of allowing us the space to experiment (barring some egregious efforts at control).
We also had some fantastic advocates within St Alfred's who gave us some breathing space: I'm forever grateful to people like Bill Walker, Dave and Cate Lewis and Bill Murcutt. Feel free to name others! These advocates convinced me that this is a role that is essential for any alternative form of church and mission, or anything alternative at all.
One form of youth ministry that St Alfred's never owned, however, were the community houses.
To the outside eye, the community houses were nothing more than share houses of young adults, with their fair share of late night parties, pranks, noise, fights etc. And they were that, but more.
They usually had a vision statement, house meetings, visitor's nights, political action, and a sharp focus on including young people and others who needed refuge. Most often, they had a young person who was homeless staying with them, and a strong connection with YFC Melbourne facilitated this. They were also places for Christian young people to experience, in an embodied way, what a "discipleship community" could look like.
For those who lived in them, they were pretty unforgettable - for good and bad reasons!
This was all done by people who were between the ages of 18-23.
There turned out to be implicit membership and leadership, of course, and the fact that we never named this or worked out a good way of 'doing' these things was a factor in our difficulties. We never had the leadership nous to work effectively with the fuzziness. On the other hand, the fuzziness enabled a bunch of very interesting people to get involved.
People have gone on to live and work in many different locations and roles, like any group of young adults.
In the "Christian" world, many have been members, and often played key roles, in organisations like:
Background
The Blackburn Community Network (BCN) existed from about 1990 until about 2002. It consisted of youth leaders and others from the Blackburn North Uniting Church and St Alfred's Anglican Church, in the eastern suburbs "Bible Belt" of Melbourne, Australia.It existed to support people who wanted to follow Jesus in more radical ways than were viable in the mainstream churches we were a part of.
1. Kevin Avenue
I would mark its inception from the time Greg and Rose Gow, and Grant and Debbie Finlay, bought a house together in Kevin Avenue and moved in. At the time, Greg Gow was youth pastor at Blackburn North UC, and Grant was the assistant minister. Over the next decade or so, "Kevin Ave" became the scene of community living: meals, young people living in, early morning prayer, late night parties, jelly-wrestling, a treasured dog being sprayed with paint, police raids - and those are just my recollections.
The Gows and Finlays were inspired by Australian Christian communities like the House of the Gentle Bunyip and the Waiters Union. In turn, they inspired a bunch of youth leaders at Blackburn North UC to do the same, and to reach out to young people and others beyond the boundaries of eastern suburban church culture. The "Bullshak" drop-in centre was one manifestation. It was also the trigger for a mass defection.
2. Move to St Alfred's
The vibrant and counter-cultural youth ministry at Blackburn North UC, lead by people mentored by the Gows and Finlays, came into conflict with their church over the young people who were coming to the "Bullshak".
Having already made contact with Peter Aggarwal (now MacPherson), and conducted some joint events, they decided to move en masse to St Alfred's in 1993-1994, taking some not-so-young people with them. St Alfred's, which up until then was a 'family church' that had discouraged 'youth ministry', now had a booming youth ministry. The youth leaders at this time were people such as Marcus Curnow, Liz Dodds, Marty Richards, Greg Hewson and others.
Youth Ministry and St Alfred's
To describe the St Alfred's youth ministry over the next 8-9 years (1993-2001) is a task for someone else, but it is enough to say that its youth leaders were passionate about discipleship, mission amongst those on the fringe of respectability, alternative forms of worship that young people controlled, and social justice.
1. Youth Ministry
The BCN always existed on the fringes of St Alfred's, never really owned by the church, but its members made up a strong contingent of the leaders of the youth ministry at the church. Being part of the youth ministry of St Alfred's was very important for the BCN, in a couple of ways:
- discipling Christian middle-class young people
- being forced to articulate our 'way' of discipleship and theology, rather than retreating into ourselves
- seeing that what we were doing was part of the 'body' of the church, rather than a sectarian effort
- youth groups that were deliberately not entertainment-based, but about learning how to follow Jesus, and learn about political and social issues
- youth community meals, with a focus on young people who were not part of the church
- outreach to the local high school, with no expectation of a 'bums on seats' return
- the 'MANIC' drop-in centre
- youth-focussed and controlled worship service
- youth ministry board to shape youth ministry policy for the church
2. Being part of the church
The BCN acted as an alternative grouping to St Alfred's, allowing youth leaders to think up, and experiment with, different forms of youth ministry and mission. For the church's part, in retrospect I think the leadership generally did a good job of allowing us the space to experiment (barring some egregious efforts at control).
We also had some fantastic advocates within St Alfred's who gave us some breathing space: I'm forever grateful to people like Bill Walker, Dave and Cate Lewis and Bill Murcutt. Feel free to name others! These advocates convinced me that this is a role that is essential for any alternative form of church and mission, or anything alternative at all.
One form of youth ministry that St Alfred's never owned, however, were the community houses.
Community Houses
Winifred St, Marchiori Rd, London Ct, Schafer Rd, Kevin Ave, Thames St - these were the names of the community houses that made up the BCN (I might have missed some).To the outside eye, the community houses were nothing more than share houses of young adults, with their fair share of late night parties, pranks, noise, fights etc. And they were that, but more.
They usually had a vision statement, house meetings, visitor's nights, political action, and a sharp focus on including young people and others who needed refuge. Most often, they had a young person who was homeless staying with them, and a strong connection with YFC Melbourne facilitated this. They were also places for Christian young people to experience, in an embodied way, what a "discipleship community" could look like.
For those who lived in them, they were pretty unforgettable - for good and bad reasons!
This was all done by people who were between the ages of 18-23.
Membership and Leadership
The BCN never had a membership structure - it was deliberately open, and people participated by participating. It never had named leadership either. We were pretty passionate about 'consensus' - but in an unreflective way.There turned out to be implicit membership and leadership, of course, and the fact that we never named this or worked out a good way of 'doing' these things was a factor in our difficulties. We never had the leadership nous to work effectively with the fuzziness. On the other hand, the fuzziness enabled a bunch of very interesting people to get involved.
Decline and End
Most of the passionate people in the BCN wanted to move out of middle-class Blackburn to somewhere more disadvantaged, and they did. In my opinion, this was what killed off the BCN - it had no older leaders to effectively disciple others into it.Effects
It's hard to say what the effects of the BCN were, even 10-15 years after its end. Here are some possibilities:- formation of Christian leaders who were articulate and passionate about faith, mission, creative worship, contemplative prayer and social justice as an integrated whole
- creative youth ministry
- young people cared for and shown a Christianity that was real
Post-BCN
Most of its "members" (pretty loose membership) moved on to follow Jesus in marginal neighbourhoods around Victoria and interstate. In the end, this was probably one of the main reasons for its decline, as there were no "elders" who were around long enough to develop leadership.People have gone on to live and work in many different locations and roles, like any group of young adults.
In the "Christian" world, many have been members, and often played key roles, in organisations like:
- TEAR Australia
- Urban Seed
- UNOH
- Frontier Servants
- Praxis Victoria
- Waiters Union
- Seeds Network
- Community of the Transfiguration
- Youth For Christ Melbourne
Anyway, that's a brief intro to an interesting bunch of people in an interesting time.
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Facebook 'Likes' (as at June AD2014)
Jarrod Saul McKenna, Rebecca Monson, Barb Totterdell,
Ange M Graystone, Judy Minh, Talitha Fraser, Michael Wilkerson and Nicholas
Wight.
Facebook Comments
Chris Lacey Yeah, the ETRA things was big I reckon. Maybe some of the St. Alfs groups as well? Manic Youth? What was the name of the older young adults group that met at Kevin Ave?
Dave Fagg Found some old newsletters - ones that I had typed up, but would be great to find some hard copies
- Carol Owen Thank you Dave Fagg for the brief history I have heard snippets of history of the group and it still is a good model for developing young peoples engagement in church as a place in community not just on Sundays.
Barb Totterdell I'd also note the significant impact that it all had on people who were a step or two removed from it all too - the impact of the experience and reflection that was happening and has happening because of it has marked so many people in so many circles ...
Marcus Edwin Curnow This is posting in various threads at present. I would add Scripture Union and UNOH in the orgs list. East Timorese Relief Assoc was a big political awakening and first lessons in solidarity for many of us. Local meeting and newsletter was meaningful pre social media. Great to celebrate there was important radical discipleship formation happening in the 90's post strong melbourne based 70-80's counter culture boomers scene... Interested in discussing what this means for today... What dynamics are same & different?25 September 2013 · Like · 2
