lpoolcath
Originally uploaded by Pip Wilson.
.
......... terrible journey back from a wondrous experience ........
When I was a battered untrained enthusiastic evangelical passionate big-time youth worker running a big youth project with many Hells Angels types of humans .......... I needed to work out my faith and failures alongside the humming and buzzing youth club which was also our family home.
A giant of a man, as I heard described today, was doing the same sort of stuff in East London AND reflecting and writing about it. He asked me to submit and article to a cheaply copied magazine called 'Christians in Industrial Areas' - funkie eh?
I did that as my first item on my work - the work I was leading. I must dig it out share it with you.
Today I was among 3,000 others in Liverpool Cathedral to celebrate and remember the life of David Sheppard. He was best know for being the Captain of England at cricket while at the same time standing up against apartheid and still holding a job in the Inner City. His leadership of a community of us doing this sort of work 'on the frontiers' - as it was said, was fundamental for me as I tried to work out this road less travelled by most Christians who seemed to be caught up in something called 'Church'!
We called on John on the way and he was the Sheppard to get us to a great parking spot - and he reflects so beautifully today in his blog.
I wanted to go to this event as I am full of respect for the man. I came away disturbed and encouraged in all this justice, team work, participatory leadership and vulnerability stuff that ................ I am committed again to the journey.
I could say more from my soul but I am still in recovery from the horrible journey back and our holidays - not at all horrible!
When David died I did a reflection about him .......
.... when Joan and I run a Hells Angels type youth club some er ..... 35 years ago ....... Ann was born when we lived there above the club, I know about this Cricketer called David Sheppard - a right posh bloke who had gone to live in a tough Inner City and was doing the same sorta stuff as us. He published journals out of it. I contribute some reflections too - but learned so much from the thinking and frontier work which came out of this place called The Mayflower Family Centre in the East End of London.
That was the same place that I was called to some thirty years ago. Joan me and the kids spent ten years there - the toughest job I have ever done. Well tried. I gave all I had as Senior Youth Worker to about forty youth workers and thousands of kids over that periods. The book, my first book, Gutter Feelings came out of that experience. David and his wife Grace both contributed the foreword to it.
He died yesterday.
He had suffered long with cancer.
I could write sooo much about this man. Take a glance at some of the words in the press and on websites over the coming days. A great man. He was a major influence on me before I knew him and a beautiful human when we met over the years.
He said in his most recent book, and in other works, that the toughest job he ever did was the youth work job. See my comment above. The toughest for me physically emotionally and spiritually.
At the age of 46, he became the youngest ever diocesan bishop when he moved to Liverpool.
Lord Sheppard never sought to avoid controversy. Protesting against apartheid as a cricketer, he refused to play against the South African team in 1960, and opposed the sending of a team to that country in 1968.
The outspoken bishop later called for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
He was equally critical of the British Government during the 1980s."
He ................ Championed the poor ...........
.
