Learning from the Streets

Its not often that I’m inspired by what the Amercians are doing in their youth ministry practice that I think could be replicated in the UK. Often its too programmed or packaged, and the context of american evangelicals needs a severe critical scrutiny, however, In a conversation with youth worker Chuck Mellor from University of California UCLA, he was describing to me the concept of Communique and why it was revolutionising his youth work practice in the communities of San Diego.

I wasn’t initially convinced, but the more he spoke I realised he had hit on something.

Communique he said is like communicating with young people, but trying to connect with their inner French romantic side.

I asked him to explain.

He said it was like imagining that every young person, and every person, has a romantic French person inside them

You mean, there isn’t a ‘God shaped hole’ after all?

No, he said,

‘Its more like a French dude (I know there are still some places that say dude, even in 2021), on a bike that wants to write poetry and sing to his lover.’

hmmm, each one of us has a ‘French dude living inside us’ – is this what we have to do as youth workers?

Yes.

So, I continued to ask, what does this mean for your youth ministry?

He went on, I was intrigued;

Gone are the games, we don’t invoke competition any more, we realised that If God is love, then we have to invoke the love that is inside of each of the young people, and so imagining that there’s a French romantic inside them, their core, then we get the young people to write poetry, bake baguettes and look at butterflies instead

(Chuck Mellor, 2021)

He went on

Even the boys, we thought they would never buy it, but they we realised that they didnt have to buy it, reducing basketball for butterflies, and that’s where Communique comes in

So, what is this magical ‘Communique’?

It would take me a while to explain it, as over Zoom Chuck led me through diagrams, various art forms, and the history of Communique through the ages, starting from Witches, the early French explorers, traversing through Europe using Communique to acquire goods and services, though it never worked in battles, it was the art of looking into the eyes of people and connecting with their French romantic side, speaking slowly, deeply and mystically. It was a forgotten art form a way of communicating that went deep.

I had never heard of it, and yet, as he spoke I felt as though he was connecting with my inner French romantic. I was beginning to see the butterflies in my mind, and smell garlic (though maybe I had just cooked a chilli)

Chuck went on to tell me that one of the only known recent proponents of Communique was the French Band Le Deire Straites, and their lead singer Marc Knopfleur, who in their second album gave away the mystical communication form, back in 1980. He said that the communique purists went mad that it went mainstream. But now, Chuck said, it was time for a revival, or a revivale, of this. The groups had overcame their differences and realised the importance of communique. Time to revive it.

He said that he discovered it personally on a skiing trip in the alps, when he googled the word.

Yet he spoke, I felt peace, love and stillness, and realised that I had been in the presence of true communique.

This was going to transform youth groups all over the world I thought. Its like being in a loving trance with the faint whiff of champagne.

And that, he said, was Communique, was that, taking young people to that place, speaking to them in way that enables their inner French dude can thrive.

I struggled as I spoke to Chuck to ask a question, I was so relaxed, but I wanted to know what happens next?

For now, we’re only in the third year of developing Communique, but its been enough for us to already develop communique youth ministries as a brand, and we’ll be writing books soon, in fact theres already one being written, due to publish in 2022, this will change Youth ministry forever, its like we’ve taken it all back to our French basics, its authentic, its like we’ve discovered something real in youth ministry for decades, everything else before seems like fluff and games. We cannot wait to share more.

What happened to the youth group after three years Chuck, after all its results we need?

He told me that the young people began to wake up, and awaken themselves to their true French dude, as their loving self was nurtured through youth ministry, through baking baguettes , art, and discovering beauty, they changed. But their parents hated it, so did the schools. But we kept on going, knowing that the path of communique was a true path.

We had complaints, there always is, when people don’t understand, or they are jealous that all they had in youth group was chubby bunnies and a residential, kids were going home full of peace, contentment and joy, turning off their TVs and reading books, parents who had just bought a three year TV subscription were going ape. Schools couldn’t find new jobs for their bullying champions, as they were transformed into loving zones of learning, cultivated joy by young people.

It sounds blissful, amazing. And this was all down to Communique?

It sure was.

Communique it is then,

Already I can see it in Job descriptions for the future youthworkers, who will now need Communique skills as well as enthusiasm, passion and innovation, or should I say enthuse, passione, and innovatione, and fortunately in the UK, we have closer ties to our French counterparts, and the residual history of communique is closer to our grasp. I looked up the French band Chuck was telling me about, and so I end this piece with a few words from the controversial song, for us to start our path into the communique.

They want to get a statement for jesus’ sake

It’s like a talking to the wall

He’s incommunicado no comment to make

He’s saying nothing at all

(Dire Straits, 1980)

Lets ponder this a while, saying less, saying nothing, and speaking directly to the French romantic inside each young person. Thats the way forward.

Communique, the lost art of communication, about to revolutionise youth ministry.

Taking youth ministry deeper might mean going deep inside to the French dude inside each of us.

Instead of talking to young people as if they have lack, a hole and are sinful beings waiting for us to rescue them, lets rediscover communique and awaken the dormant French romantic hiding deep inside.

Le April fool..

or

is it?