UCA Cross Cultural Youth Praise and Worship

We had a great night on August 15th at Bankstown Uniting with a cross cultural mix of drama, music, dance and reflection around the theme "Living Water: Thirsty Land" taken from our national Assembly theme. Since being asked to deliver the 'reflection' months ago I knew straight away I'd be showing the Twist "Woman at the Well" dramatised performance as an opening clip and asking questions from there. I knew I wanted to speak about being honest about doubts, questions, disappointments and the struggles of being someone on the edge of community... despite the confident, celebratory and somewhat triumphal feel of most 'dance and music' group items at such events!! My other contemporary example [to remind us that in the face of struggles, Jesus greets us with compassion, grace and love... not judgement and condemnation] was Jamal and the teacher Erin Gruewell from the film "Freedom Writers". Erin enters this south LA School a little naively and yet qucikly adapts to the challenge of reaching the so called 'no hopers class'. She invited them to journal and if they placed the journal in the set cupboard she agreed to reda them as recognition she did not 'know their stories' but wanted to. Jamal wrote of feeling invisible in his family with a drunk mum and criminally involved older brother. Erin fronts him about his self assessed 'F' in an assignment and makes it clear "I see you, do you understand me... I see you and you are not failing...." I lifted that clip from a behind the scenes doco rather than the film itself... My point was in our honest moments, in the space between the lyrics of our songs and the moments at home alone, we can be honest BUT will also find a Jesus honest with us... in grace, comapssion and love!! Highlights for me included the mix of groups: Bankstown; West Epping; Sydney Korean; Armenian; Wagga Wagga; Garuda Indonesian; Tamil; Peteli Tongans; and more. One performance struck me for the honesty of the rap about being in church asleep and unsure why you're there, wearing black, looking cool but how it was all a bit false.... very powerful honest statements!
This is drawn from the encounter of 'the woman at the well' whose name we don't know but who engages in spirited conversation in the heat of the day at 'Jacob's Well' and has a theological question to ask. Jesus doesn't name her relationship history as a moral judgement, but simply to begin with honesty and have a deep conversation, not a superficial laugh and moving on...