Gosford Australia

Well gang, TMC is no longer requiring that I do fruitage reports for the lectures. They are going to start a new system where lectures can post comments for the public and for one another, but it isn’t up and running yet. In the meantime, I still want to record my thoughts about the lectures so here you are.

Gosford Youth Lecture

This was an experience. John Strang our ride from Sydney handed me the flyer for the Gosford lectures on Friday as we’re driving from Hornsby to Terrigal, where we were staying for the Gosford lectures on Saturday. Imagine my surprise to discover that I was doing a lecture on Decision-making that I didn’t have with me! I wrote the lecture for the Chicago Youth Summit with a target audience of 15-30 yr olds with the upper end dominating. So when we got to Terrigal I printed out what I had on my computer and did a bit of an edit before the lecture prep.

Imagine my further surprise to discover that they were planning for 10-20 year olds for their lecture. Well, my lecture was nowhere near appropriate for 10 year olds. I worked late that night and the next morning and had it ready by 10am when we were picked up for the 11am lecture.

They didn’t have the appropriate white boards, nor any idea how they were going to set up the Sunday School area. They had this vague notion that everyone was going to sit on the floor. When I said this was a proper lecture, there was a bit of resistance. In fact when I walked into the lecture prep Friday night there was a huge amount of resistance. They heard that I was unaware of the lecture they were doing, then I made a comment that the boards they’d gotten weren’t large enough for the adult lecture, etc etc. I discovered later that this church really wasn’t prepared at all for these lectures. They were completely absorbed in planning for Reading Room meetings that had just taken place and another one going to take place. The invitations hadn’t been printed until 2 weeks or less before the lecture. I hadn’t received a draft copy because I was already lecturing in Australia and enormously busy, thus the title surprise. Then the Sunday School was set up with two rows of chairs facing one another. I ended up sitting at the top of this gauntlet facing a group of dour faces. No one cracked a smile and barely participated in the entire lecture prep. Many members didn’t even bother to come to the lecture prep nor the lecture, I found out later.

So after the prep, they asked how I wanted to set the room up for the youth lecture. I gave them a couple choices. One of which was to suggest that they could do a workshop type lecture with tables and chairs. They didn’t see how that would work, but I illustrated with one of their lovely round tables. Soon a couple of the men were rearranging the room. They had an idea of putting their tiny whiteboards over their bulletin board, which would be ok for a white board on the wall, and we set the room that night before going the half hour back to the hotel. When I got to the hotel, I started working again on the lecture and got up early the next morning to edit again and reprint. While I was doing that I asked Dave to do some specific prayerful work. He did.

The lecture went beautifully. About a dozen kids came and a dozen adults. I had the adults participate as well, which some were loathe to do but they got into it. It was very participatory and everyone really enjoyed it. The discussions started out slowly but soon the kids got into it when I had them doing a project at the tables without any interference from the adults or me. By the end of the lecture everyone was enthusing about what a great lecture it was. The adults were coming up to me big smiles saying this was way better than anything they had ever imagined. The kids talked with me and asked personal questions. A couple of the kids decided to come to the adult lecture that afternoon. I understand they had all the kids in their Sunday School come to Sunday School today, because they’d heard about the lecture that some of them had missed. The lecture ideas were the main topic of conversation in the classes as those who were there shared ideas with the others. The impact could be far reaching, I think, as these kids are going to a CS Easter Camp next weekend where there are other lecturers and speakers coming. I think some of them might talk about this youth lecture and share some of the ideas from it with other kids in Australia and New Zealand.

After doing this lecture, I decided that what I need is two different lectures- one for 10-20 year olds and the other for adults. So I edited the lecture again and established language and examples that were appropriate for Sunday School age kids. This one will be called Prayer and Making Decisions. Then I began editing a second lecture for adults that will be a workshop lecture, which we have been told to stay away from, but I think after 4 years there might be an audience and demand. The adult lecture/workshop will be called “Swimming with Sharks: Prayer and Ethics in Today’s World. I’ve purchased website names for both these lectures. Next year we’re going to try to have a website for each lecture. The youth lecture site will be makedecisions.org and swimwithsharks.org

After the successful youth lecture we had a brief interval and then the adult lecture at a community center. 46 people total with about 10 newcomers. A group of CSists came from a town an hour away and talked with me for 15 minutes afterward. They wanted to know more about being a chaplain and interaction with the community.

A member whose husband has passed recently brought her adult son. He wanted to talk about why his dad died. That people’s thoughts made a difference made sense to him. Then the mother, who had been noticeably uninvolved at the lecture prep apologized saying that she had just put down her favorite horse and had been disturbed about it at the prep, but that after the prep and the lecture she felt she had had a healing of the distress.

Others wanted to talk about personal challenges. The turn around was noticeable. All smiles after the lectures, all positive comments. In fact two people came to hear the lecture again today at Hornsby and one brought a friend from Perth who had just arrived.

I also heard that 5 new people came to the church service. Although they were not the visitors from the lecture, I pointed out to the lecture chair that this was the result of the lecture. They seem to have an odd idea that the work for the lecture is in a vacuum, when in fact, the prayer and view of everyone in the community being spiritually-minded is ongoing and continues to have a healing effect. That new people came to the service is a direct result of the prayer involved in the lecture.