Youthblog

Loving the Aim Lower site that is exploring and encouraging engagement with children and young people.

Someone from the community of Youthblog readers has become a Sea Scout Leader. Very cool!

He does though have to come up with a new name for himself though as each leader is known as the Aquatic animal they have elected to be called. Even funnier is the fact he has asked for some help in arriving at his Maritime alter-ego.

A bit of googling and my suggestions are

'Whitemargin Stargazer' (something of the mystic about that I think)

Other suggestions via the comments I'm sure will be appreciated

(another thought occurs: In terms of full disclosure I'm hoping the leadership 'nom de plume' appears in the CRB/DBS job title documentation, it would be much more fun to be countersigning for the role of Shovelnose Guitarfish)

"If you look at something 999 times one is perfectly safe, if however one looks for the 1000th time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time" GKC

Really enjoyed an afternoon with the curates exploring mission and attempting to take a "thousandth glance" at church engagement with young people, community and culture.

If anyone is calling in from the session then please accept my thanks for the level of engagement and for the humour/fun. If you are looking for some notes or links.
We looked at:

Vincent Donavan Christianity Rediscovered
Bishop Lesslie Newbiggin (whose work I failed to even come close to doing justice to)
Mark Yaconellis work detailed in the book Contemplative Youth Ministry
Richard Passmore (see FYT)

I'll upload the slides as handouts. Any other things we talked about can probably be found via the Search function (top right) or by e-mailing me

Downloady gumph: mission course 2013 Curates.pdf

First attempt to carry the Kayak on the new car this weekend, it's a smaller car than the Astra ... but hopefully not producing this effect:

Not related at all BUT reminded me of a story from back in the day. At the wonderful Crusader camp "Stoke Fleming" there was a tradition of the activities for the day being advertised so that the teens' knew what was available to sign up for. The 'adverts' tended to become more and more visual, creative and funny as the week progressed. I have a very fond memory of one of these promotional endeavours.
Picture if you will everyone munching away on their cereal in the Marquee when there is the sound of a car engine and the honking of a horn. A Ford Fiesta is driven into the Marquee to promote the kayaking trip that day. How so? Well the car had two kayaks strapped to the roof with kayakists in, kitted out with helmets, buoyancy aids and spray decks ... in fact the full gear, with paddles. Then, whilst being sprayed with the hose (that was used to fill the urns), they delivered a challenge to join them on the water that day!
Now that's what I call doing the notices!

I had a couple of meetings at CYM ( the knights who were until recently called the 'Centre for Youth Ministry'*) and so ended up having lunch with the students, always an interesting/fun thing (They are an awesome bunch).
One of them was musing about Olives and postulated a theory that maybe everyone at some stage has an 'Olive conversion', that is ... they go from not liking them to liking them.

There was not universal acceptance of this thereom but it then turned into a quasi theological reflection as we strayed into the whole topic of conversion, but very much still on the topic of Olives. The conversation ruminated on those who stumbled onto Olives having not known of their existence (or their need for them) before, and a very middle class experience of never knowing a time when their weren't Olives!

I'm really hoping someone develops a journal out of the conversation!!!
(With 156 verses in the Bible mentioning Olives, the potential is huge methinks)

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* No longer CYM but now iCYM or maybe ICYm or even IC ym!, but technically now called the "Institute for Children, Youth and Mission"

It was great to hear from these two teens, Luke and Sam, about the website they run called For Christian Teens. Well worth putting your youth group in contact with.
A very cool couple of teens who more than coped with speaking to 1200 people, they were funny, passionate and articulate. Impressive!

What a day the Youth Work Summit was!

Fantastic

Twelve hundred Youth ministers gathered together for a day of inspiration, information, fun, coffee and chat. A very slick day (in the best sense) with a wonderful array of people stretching our understanding, faith and imagination.
The 'speakers' each had around 10 minutes of TED style opportunity, and there were around 5 in each band before a break and chance to discuss. The format worked well and it meant that contributors had to really focus on what it was that needed to be shared, and how best to do that. Some awesome AV from some of the guests, and young people co-presenting too (as well as a whole stream just from young people).

I was definitely inspired and challenged by so much that was shared. Some of the 'talks' were heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measure. I was especially struck by Camilla Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company talking about the long term effects of neglect, but the healing power of love, and by Captain Dave reflecting on the need for love and the need for Father figures in his community work in Toxteth.

All the info on YWS 14 is already up on the t'internet for May 17th in Manchester.

I am passionate about Mentoring as a tool that makes a phenomenal difference to young people. There seems to be a lot of energy going into mentoring as an 'inhouse' Discipleship tool at the moment, which is great BUT for me the biggest opportunity to be good news for young people is in the mentoring of marginalized young people. I have seen the difference this has made to the life chances of young people.

I'm really excited then that XLP are making their experience/training/framework available for churches to use across the country. You can access the hdetails here

EU fuel consumption figures have to be taken with a pinch of salt given the way that motor manufacturers can prep a car specifically to max on the test. As a dedicated 'hyper-miler' though I do pride myself on getting within spitting distance of the the headline figures.

Haddons Toyota Yaris Hybrid is a bit disappointing in this respect. The brochure figure gives both the combined and the extra Urban at 76.1mpg. With careful driving we are averaging around 54mpg. That's still pretty good for an Automatic but 22.1 mpg lower than that claimed. (An independent test available online averaged only 51mpg)

I'm sure Toyota would say that this is down to driving style. This may be true but the Skoda (manual gearbox) claims an extra Urban mpg of 70mpg whereas I drove the 30 miles home tonight at 74.1mpg!

Musing on when a figure can be claimed only to be a guideline and when it becomes misleading?

Skoda though emerge with their credibility and trustworthiness more than re-enforced in this arena.

Making me smile: