Watch it all and here is a challenge for blog readers. I think every youth ministry in whatever parish where you worship should be challenged to discuss this issue whether through this report or another. Contact your youth minister or youth leaders and see if it has happened and if it hasn’t ask why not–KSH.

Caught this one on the morning run. Take the time to watch it all. Those of you with connections to youth ministry, this video is the kind of thing all youth groups needs to be challenged to watch and discuss.

A remembrance service took place on 27 November 2008 at Southwark Cathedral for Damilola Taylor and all young people lost to violent crime. The date marks eight years since the murder of Damilola. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who chaired the inquiry into the 11-year-old’s murder investigation, delivered the sermon during the service.

This is holy ground ”“ we should take off our shoes. We are here for Damilola Taylor, and for the families still grieving for their young ones murdered on our streets for the past eight years. We are treading on the holy ground of human grief, of love wounded by violence.

And yet on this holy ground, where we must tread so gently, there are voices we must hear, and things we must learn. For we stand also at the foot of the cross, where I believe God took upon himself our sorrows and our love turned in on itself, so that we may return from our self-imposed exile to our true home of love.

Read it all.

I will be speaking at a seminar at this major event this morning which draws hundreds of youth from throughout the diocese. Please pray for the gathering, the speakers, Bishop Lawrence, and especially the participants. if you have a moment, check out the homepage of the youth minstry in the diocese of South Carolina. They do fantastic work–KSH.

Too few people know about this wonderful ministry. They held their recent summit in South Carolina and kindly asked me to preach. I went early and had dinner with them and listened to their first session and was completely blown away by the deidcation, spiritual seriousness, and energy of these young leaders. We do not deserve them, they shouldn’t be there, but God is raising them up any way–KSH.

“If I died right this minute, I would be able to say, ‘God, what a ride! What a ride!'”

and

“If I were to die today, I would be nervous about what people would say at my funeral. I would be happy if they said things like ‘He was a nice guy’ or ‘He was occasionally decent’ or ‘Mike wasn’t as bad as a lot of people.’ Unfortunately, eulogies are delivered by people who know the deceased. I know what the consensus would be. ‘Mike was a mess.'”

— Michael Yaconelli (1942-2003), whom we sorely miss

Update: A Christianity Today article on him and his death is here.

A stimulating response to a David Brooks piece I was going to link to anyway, so read both it and the Brooks please.

What I would have liked to have seen, however, was a reference to key thinker Zygmunt Bauman in this area. It is something with which we will all have to contend: what Bauman calls liquidity as one of the central aspects of modern life–KSH.