This
address was given at a graduation ceremony at Southwark Cathedral
on
11 October 2005 .
Dave
Wiles, the Chief Executive of the Frontier Youth Trust, was dressed
in an ASBO T-Shirt, baseball cap and hoody as Centre for Youth
Ministry students were presented with their degrees
My
name is Dave Wiles, I work for Frontier Youth Trust and it is
a real honour for me to offer this brief closing reflection. When
I was asked to do this with the option of wearing my academic
gown, I was thrilled to be able to get them back out of the wardrobe!
Let
me explain my dress. Before I became a Christian or had the exalted
title of Chief Executive Officer and even before gaining my own
Master’s qualifications, my major street credibility amongst
young people and youth workers was my familiarity and direct involvement
in violence, crime, drugs, sex and rock and roll – not necessarily
in that order!
My
street cred was that I had been bound over to keep the peace for
6 months, had served two years probation – these were before
the days of Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), - that I’d
been arrested by the police on numerous occasions and that I had
experienced a pretty chequered delinquent history myself. So why
did I choose to wear my former attire today rather than the academic?
Allow me to explain.
First,
I want to say that I know, more than many, just how much you all
deserve to wear the academic cloth. I am involved in CYM in many
ways - I sit on a local management group and I am a director of
CYM - but in terms of knowing how much you have achieved I should
say that I have also tutored a number of students, supervised
and marked dissertations and engaged with many of you as a lecturer.
I have even worked as a youth work volunteer and been managed
(that hardest of all competencies to gain experience in!) by several
CYM students.
Our
course has exceedingly high standards, takes you out of your conceptual,
experiential and theological comfort zones and it is to your credit
– each and every one of you – that you have run the
race, written the journals, done the youth work, submitted the
essays, gained the competencies and even produced the folders.
Make no mistake you richly deserve the honour of wearing those
gowns – even if you feel a bit daft!
However,
I wanted to wear what I’m wearing today as a contrast and
juxtaposition to all that is good about us coming here for the
appropriate pageantry and celebration of your achievements. I
wanted to remind us that we live in times when other young people
are at risk of being stereotyped, labelled and humiliated as ‘mindless
yobs’ or ‘ASBO thugs’ who ought to be made to
wear demeaning uniforms by a system and society that is losing
touch with notions of understanding, compassion and justice.
I
am wearing this as a reminder to myself and to you that as Christians
we serve a God who chose to wear what we wear – our humanity.
He became a slob just like one of us. In fact he went as far as
to wear the form of a servant, so aptly underlined when he put
a towel round His waist to wash His disciples’ feet.
So
today as you celebrate all that is good about your qualification,
as you enjoy the pomp and ceremony (if not the photos), remember
that, when the gown comes off, you return to the high calling
of servanthood alongside young people. Many of those young people
will have words like ‘excluded’ or ‘yob’
applied to them and yet given different circumstances, a different
environment, different chances and resources (as well as personal
choices) they might well have been standing here with us, wearing
gowns of their own to receive similar qualifications and praise.
If God has called you to be a youth worker – don’t
stoop to be royalty! My prayer is that we might go in God’s
power to act justly, to walk humbly and love mercy amongst the
young people He has called us to serve.
Post
Script
As
I travelled to deliver the thoughts above at Southwark Cathedral
I met a group of young men drinking cider on the steps of a church.
One of them had made a joke about my ASBO T-Shirt and we started
a friendly banter about who I was, where I was going and why I
was wearing the T-Shirt. It led to quite a deep conversation about
the Christian faith and the fact that I believed God felt that
labels, like ‘ASBO’ or ‘yob’, were for
jam jars and not people!
One
of the lads looked at me quite shyly and confessed that he had
an ASBO order out against him for being frequently drunk in the
centre of town. I discovered that his ASBO prevented him from
walking up one side of the street in Bath, a city that is so keen
to protect its pristine tourist image.
It
occurred to me that this lad’s story resonated with the
parable of the Good Samaritan – the only difference is that
the Good Samaritan, in this particular case, would have had to
cross the road to minister to this man. Perhaps one of the big
questions for us in our future youth work practise will be –
are we willing to cross the road?
