As an oldie I have increasingly been wowed by young people. I have often been annoyed with you media people for really not being fair. You write banner headline stories about young people who go wrong. You hardly ever write stories about the many, many young people who do fantastic things. I just say, what is amazing is not that some young people go off the rails, make wrong decisions; what is so amazing is that not more of them in fact do that.

Just think now how young people can access the internet and I'm told there are some very, very 'interesting' things on there. They can access anything, and to find that we have young people who can still be so wholesome. I think of young people who could very well have stayed in their countries living comfortably. I've been to quite a number of poor countries and your breath is taken away completely by the number of young people who leave their homes and go and work in these poverty stricken places.

Now here we have a programme (Xplore) that says it wants to prepare young people to become what God wants them to be, because as you know we have a God who is extraordinarily partial to young people, using a Joseph, a David to fight Goliath, a Jeremiah, Mary the mother of Jesus. God constantly using young people.

When we were fighting against apartheid, the people who supported us most of all, not exclusively, but the people who supported us mainly were young people, the students at universities, and it's been so ever since.

You think of the Bonos and all of those people who say: 'Let us make poverty history.' Young people have been passionate in the support of that campaign. Young people are passionate in their support of a world that knows war no more. And here we have a fantastic programme that wants to prepare young people for exposing to their contemporaries the fact that God loves them, that they are very special to God, that God loves each one of them as if they were the only person on earth. Isn't that fantastic?

And these young people, and all of the others who are going to be part of this programme, are saying: 'For us it's not just a gap year where you go off and do something and return to do what you had already decided you were going to do. For us, it's a year that may turn our world upside down.' In fact, many of those who have gone on this programme return totally changed and want to do things they had never believed they would have wanted to do. So turning the world upside down for God is what Xplore says.

So we want you to know too that God gives up on no one. There isn't for God a hopeless case. No one is a hopeless case. No situation is irredeemable. Most people would have thought that South Africa before with apartheid was a totally lost cause. Well, it produced Nelson Mandela and did some very strange things. And look at Northern Ireland. Who would have believed that you would have seen Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley talking together on television.

So we say to these young people and to all of the others who are going to be part of this programme: go on dreaming. Go on being idealistic. Don't allow yourselves to be infected by the cynicism of oldies like us. We've made a mess of the world, and we're leaving it to you and know that you are going to help change it.

Click here to read more about Archbishop Desmond Tutu's visit to Sheffield and to download an mp3 of his full talk at the press conference. To find out more about Church Army's Xplore programme for young people, click here and here.

Encounters on the Edge (no. 42: Across a Threshold)

I was struck by the roles played across the whole Threshold history by doctors. Since Paul White's books in the Jungle Doctor series, we have been used to the pivotal role of the overseas medical missionary.

Up till now, I have also imagined that St Paul made tents because he needed to eat. I now wonder if I have misunderstood all this.

Could it be that Paul made tents because it put him in the market place? He met people in a neutral space but also produced something of value to them.

In today's cross-cultural mission at home, could the tent makers of tomorrow be doctors and nurses, solicitors offering legal aid, hairdressers, coffee-shop staff even plumbers and electricians – anyone who meets people in a neutral environment and offers something of value to them, including a listening ear in an environment of trust?

If they were also church planters and leaders, it would mean the forms of church grown would have to be simple and with the work shared across the people of God because they would not have the time or calling to be full-time pastors.

Is this a possible vision for the new pioneer ministers?

George Lings is the director of The Sheffield Centre, Church Army's Research Unit. He specialises in church planting and fresh expressions, and Anglican ecclesiology. He writes the quarterly publication, Encounters on the Edge, which can be ordered here.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

One cannot deny that most of our congregations are largely made up of older people - that is, people over the age of 55. It is also true that large amounts of resources are invested in maintaining the status quo - time, money and dedicated pastoral care by professional ministers and lay people. The fact that our congregations are mostly made up of older people is often perceived by church leaders and mission strategists as a problem rather than a challenge.

Of course it raises concerns about the future of tomorrow's church. But equally our aged congregations should not cause us to overlook their spiritual needs as they are today's church, not tomorrow's church. What is often not understood or seen is that our aged congregations are an untapped resource for mission in reaching not only their own peer group, but also the younger generation.

In this sense, older churched people feel that they have become invisible, both in terms of their faith-sharing skills and their non-involvement in the decision making processes related to mission strategy. It can often be assumed by younger church leaders that they know what older people want and desire to help their spiritual development. There is a great desire for older people (often returning to church with a Sunday School knowledge of the Christian faith) to want to go deeper and to be disciples.

Reaching older people is often focused on visiting the elderly frail in care homes (who only represent about 4% of our elderly population) and running luncheon clubs mostly catering for women over the age of 75. Although this is highly commendable and provides a much needed service, it does not cater for the thousands of isolated frail and disabled older people living alone at home. What about their spiritual needs?

It does not cater for the invisible sons and daughters of the '60s, now aging, and the up-and-coming boomer generation with no experience of the church. They will not be coming back to church because they were not there in the first place!

What about the many recently retired non-churched men who are bored out their skulls? They are not too keen in joining luncheon clubs for the elderly frail. What can the church offer them? Is this not a challenge for fresh expressions of church?

Mike Collyer CA is a member of The Sheffield Centre team. He explores evangelism, spiritual needs and fresh expressions of church for older people, which has resulted in the publication of a series of papers entitled Discovering Faith in Later Life, and he also produces an information bulletin giving details of courses, books and resources, which is available to people via email distribution (more information here).

Mike Collyer and Claire Dalpra have co-written a page on Share called: Fresh expressions for older people.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

Here are just three of the headings from my reflections, with principles learned. I share them as they may be helpful to you.

• Risk and support - There were elements of risk on all parties. It felt very 'on the edge' of the safety of the church, where 'ministry' and how to do it had been ingrained and learned through experience and training. Forming a good level of support was vital, for accountability to the wider church, and for a sense of connection and place to reflect with various levels of leadership.

  Principle: form strong links with those who have an interest in the ministry, with regular meetings and reports

• Church - It felt difficult to maintain the link with the local parish and with church in general. This was probably due to time constraints, but also reflects a sense of feeling 'dislocated' from inherited church and its models of worship and ministry. I felt stretched in two distinct directions: church and 'the edge'. I felt called to minister on the edge, so had to let go of the other to some extent, whilst maintaining a healthy spirituality and discipleship.

  Principle: learn to live with the paradox of being of the church, but (often) not physically in it

• Unknown - Although not attending congregational church, God was very much with me (and everyone) in Yorkshire ArtSpace – the place of mission. Prayer was key, asking for the Spirit's leading every day and for encounters with people there. Conversations happened through openness – a deliberate (although I was led to it) attitude of remaining open to the different people and what God might be doing in their lives. I would silently ask 'what are you doing in this person's life Lord, and how might you want me to join in?'

  Principle: Be open to being a 'catalyst' to the Spirit in every encounter

Colin Brown is currently working in Cornwall, as 'Creative Arts Evangelist' amongst the artistic community in and around Falmouth.

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.

Institutional ageism, whether we like it or not, exists within the church. For instance, look at the disproportionate resources that are poured into ministry and mission for the younger generation compared with the older. Within the climate of pioneering ministries and fresh expressions of church, how often is attention focused towards older people and their interests? In this sense, older people can be described as a mission blind spot.

So, what about a mission-shaped church for older people - a generation that increasingly feels invisible, undervalued, isolated, an object of fun and whose spiritual needs are often overlooked.

Church Army, in partnership with the Leveson Centre, has produced a training resource entitled A Mission-shaped Church for Older People facing this challenge, which was very successfully launched last November at a day conference of the same name for which over 100 people registered.

To celebrate the success of this event, we are running a duplicate one day conference by popular request in London (St Michael's, Chester Square) on 29th October and wish to send people with responsibility for mission and evangelism (trainers/pioneers) a personal invitation to attend. Bishop Graham Cray will be present, and keynote speakers will be CEO of Church Army Mark Russell and Rev Dr James Woodward, former director of the Leveson Centre and now Residentiary Canon of St George's Chapel, Windsor.

Please let Mrs Claire Dalpra know if you or your colleagues would like to receive a personal invitation from The Sheffield Centre - Church Army's research unit - by email to c.dalpra@sheffieldcentre.org.uk.

This is a unique opportunity to engage with the issues and to take mission with older people seriously.

Mike Collyer CA is a member of The Sheffield Centre team. He explores evangelism, spiritual needs and fresh expressions of church for older people, which has resulted in the publication of a series of papers entitled Discovering Faith in Later Life, and he also produces an information bulletin giving details of courses, books and resources, which is available to people via email distribution (more information here).

If you have something burning to say and want to contribute to the Share weekly guest blog, please contact Andrew Wooding.