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The Trouble With Paris by Mark Sayers and Room3

May 12, 2008 By 1 Comment

I’ve only just completed facilitating a 4 week small group course that asks it’s participants to think critically about the culture in which they live and the messages they are receiving either indirectly or directly from the media around them, their friends or their family.

The course also invites participants to reflect upon their own lives, the reality in which they live, what makes them happy, how they are shaped by influences like television and magazines, what their visioned future is and how they are planning to live the next many years of their lives.

And finally the course allows the participants to think about God’s dream for their lives, and for the future of the world by opening up the scriptures and asking questions about God’s reality for us.

Of course, the small group course I’m talking about is “The Trouble With Paris” by Mark Sayers of Uber and produced by Room3 of Australia.

I’m always keen to use Australian resources, particularly because that’s where I live and minister, and resources from Australia speak to our culture, style, communication techniques, theology, thinking and media which many resources from the US don’t. The second reason is that I love seeing new stuff being published here, it doesn’t happen too regularly in my church circles…

The Course:

The course goes for a period of four weeks, each session would probably take an hour to an hour and a half including discussion, our discussions went for a bit longer than some, and we went on an average of 1.5 hours each week.

Quotes used in the course of the series come from people like Juliet Schor, Krishan Kumar, Alan Storkey, Zygmunt Bauman, Henri Nouwen and Paris Hilton so you’re in for a bit of a ride as you dismantle the world, culture, media and the messages they send, the illusions they propagate and the faith it encourages.

Mark has a lot of thinking and research behind him, he reads too much and watches too much television (which ironically is why I like him) and the reading he does is possibly not the standard reading list for the traditional youth worker, there are no quotes from Yancey, Fields or Warren in this course, and what he chooses to use may just blow your mind.

Based upon a series of lectures Mark has given for Forge and in many other places this course has been tested, thought through and designed really well.

The four weeks will explore (in brief):

  • Week One The Pursuit of Happiness
    • The world in which we live
    • Introduction to Hyper-Reality
    • Consumerism
    • Stripping some of the layers off of the messages that the media sends us and the illusions we have about what may make us happy.
  • Week Two Fame, Fortune and other Fables
    • Continuing to explore Hyper-Reality
    • The consumption of experience and the purchasing of experience to enhance meaning and status.
    • Youth culture, marketing and the fear of getting old.
    • Our fixation with celebrity and our expectation that we could be famous
    • Individualism, the individual and me…
  • Week Three Reality Bites
    • Hyper-Reality… yes, but that’s not where we really live
    • Real life is boring.
    • What would you like to change about yourself?
    • The search for meaning.
    • How do we deal with injustice?
    • Life is painful.
    • How do we deal with death?
  • Week Four Finding God’s Reality
    • Heaven is a place on earth
    • What do you understand heaven to be?
    • What is the biblical understanding of heaven?
    • What is God’s dream for the world?
    • How did Jesus live out God’s dream?
    • Where do we fit in with God’s dream?

The DVD:

This is stunningly designed, one of my major beefs (other than theoretical and theological content) is the way in which many of the dvd material is designed, many series have facilitators talking to a camera with no thought of aesthetics.

Room3 have managed to put together a great sound and design suit for the subject, and its use of colour, animation, image and video footage is well thought through and used. The series is visually interesting as well as full of good content.

The Book and Guide:

I’ve not checked the book out as yet, it seems as if both are not released as yet and are due out in June, so more might come after I check them out.

That being said, if it’s as well put together as the dvd and series, and has more of the content from his lecture series then it’ll be a great read for youth workers, and even better read for students and young people to help them think about life, culture, media and their spirituality and mission.

The Verdict:

Why are you still reading this? Why are you not purchasing or ordering it for your resource library, and why aren’t you already putting it on your youth ministry calendar?

Seriously, this is a great course, would suit young people aged 16 and up as far as 30.

Group sizes would depend on what you’re able to host, it would work well as a small scale study with groups of 4 – 10 or as a large group study of 20 up with a few small group leaders trained and versed with the course and content.

This would also be a great training dvd for new leaders wanting to start thinking about how culture and faith connects, and also to begin thinking about how they live out the dream of God in today’s world.

Purchase “The Trouble With Paris” from these sellers:

Other Links:

Participants Guide:

I put together a pdf file as a participants guide to help us run the course here.

The guide is a pdf file and contains the quotes, questions for discussion and scripture readings for people following the dvd.

I’ve also added extra homework for reflection and a few questions to start each session. None of it will make much sense without the dvd, so go and grab a copy (either immediately from Room3 or pre-order from Amazon)

I’m more than happy to send a copy to people if they’re running the course and want something as a handout to go along with it, but I see that they’re about to release a participants guide on Amazon.com to go with the dvd and book. Just send an email my way if you’re keen to check it out. I might upload it here for free download if Mark tells me it’s ok :)

I’ve got some more resources by Mark on my list to review, in two weeks we’ll be kicking off Ignition with the same group that just finished Paris, during which I’ll post some thoughts on the course…

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  1. Mark Sayers is Blogging Again | Youth Ministry Blog says:
    May 20, 2008 at 5:01 am

    [...] the author of the previously mentioned Ignition and Trouble With Paris as well as a number of other resources, including a fantastic dvd lecture series on Generation Y [...]

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