November 2004 Archives

The danger of Teaching materials, a youth work parable in Cartoon form!

Those of you who know me (Hi) will know that I've been learning German from a book called "German in three Months" .... those who know me well will know that I've been learning German from said book for thirteen years now, as you can perhaps tell from the dog-eared state of it!
I'd love to know more about the youth work/ministry scene in Germany so I was unbelievably chuffed to find someone's been reading Youthblog in German! Check it out!
Bloggable bit though: I really want to take a party of youth workers to the Kirchentag (Massive Christian festival, really massive) and to hook up with some German Youth Ministry. If anyone has any contacts out there could they let me know AND in the hope my German visitor calls again:

Hallo von Herr Youthblog, wilkommen nach mein blog! Konnen wir sprechen bitte?

This is a recurring theme of the youthblog, “Is there a difference between Christian Youth Work and Youth Ministry?”
It’s a debate we keep having and at times I’m tempted to withdraw into an answer drawn from the “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” that knowing the answer precludes understanding the question and conversely, knowing the question rules out having the answer!

A further look at this has been prompted by Sudders who drawing on work by Danny Brierley wonders now if it’s a false dichotomy (the only slight difference possibly being in the concept of incarnation) and by “Betty” (I’m not sure if this is a non de plume?) putting forward this statement: “If I believe I am called by God to minister with young people my “philosophy” and focus should not change depending on the manner in which that calling is expressed!” ( i.e in a Christian or “secular” setting)

So, in essence (I think) both of the above, see Christian youth work and youth ministry as essentially the same. This has been helpful to my thinking and I can see much that makes sense in this approach. Youth work and Social work both recognise that you cannot be neutral in your approach, your beliefs, values and ethics will shape the worker that you are and therefore the work that you deliver.
"Minister" seems only to mean, “One who is authorized to perform religious functions in a Christian church, especially a Protestant church”
Christian youth workers including volunteeers are authorized in the widest sense to perform religious functions in the church, so they do minister!

That all seems quite neat and from a theoretical point of view I feel quite comfortable with
Youth ministry = Christian youth work, QED!
However I think I am still slightly dogged by the wide range of practices that I see. I guess it comes down to what you are defining ministry as, meaning that Youth Ministry and Christian Youth Work can be harmonised or been seen as different. Personally, I am still left wondering whether there is in fact a continuum that starts with Christian Youth work (by mere nature of the practitioner having a faith) and continues on to the far end, to a well developed idea of youth ministry (where ministry is a verb, ministry is an active intergrated part of work with young people). But then again, maybe I don't understand the question?

Am going to blog again on the whole Youth Ministry vs Christian Youthwork thang. Thought it'd be good to pitch in where you can find the occupational standards if you want/haven't got them. If you're not up to reading 160 pages right now, this is the summary page (click to enlarge).

I'm grateful to Richard's blog (Connexions) for pointing me in the direction of the "Hymns Modern & Ancient." site.

Confession time though, I actually really like (as well as finding it funny) "What a mate we have in Jesus!" Maybe it's 'cos I know some really cool Australian Christians, maybe its just cos I remember Christain Choruses from the 1970's

Just been to the opening of THE coolest Anglican Church in the UK (I know I should save Hyperbole for when I really need it!), St Laurence in Reading. Technically it's a re-opening because the shell of the Church has been there a long time but it now houses Church for a vibrant team of youngish volunteers and paid-team who focus on working with young people. I'll probably end up blogging some more about this but they are doing some awesome stuff in their community through all sorts of projects and the like. Spoke to some of the young people who have become involved in the life of the Church there, "Wicked" was one observation! The one I loved though was from a seriously cool guy of about 16 or 17 who wore Gangsta bling stuff and wore it well, he said he really liked the "warm friendly environment!" .... not the phraseology I was expecting, the sentiment however came from the heart.

I said it was seriously cool .. here's a couple of phone snaps I took. Really great fusion of the old and the new as well as being a really versatile space for worship, community and teaching.

Many emerging Church conversations have struggled to know how new expressions and the familiar can be bridged. It's great to see one place where a denominational mainstream church is actually the home to a dynamic and active Christian community genuinely missionally involved in its communities. I'm too old/Anglican to use the expression, wicked, I'll have to say, it's ineffably-sublime!

I've got that Friday feeling, the one that says, "Gooooo doooooo youthwork!" but alas I have no youthwork to do today, just college work and admin stuff!
Inevitably that has involved some high level procrastination. (Which is kind of ironic as I had intended to look at some Time-Managment stuff for my college course!). If anyone else wants a meaningless diversion then can I recommend the Badgers and the E-bay song. You can then redeem them as useful work by letting me know how you could use them in a youth work session, ok!

There's been a some Google searches that have found Youthblog through looking for "Youth Group T Shirts" plus a couple of people asked me how they can make them. I've scribbled something down which I hope will be useful! (It's in the Youthblog Resources).

I love any ideas that build ownership and identity in a group!

Don't know what else to say about this, just loved the inherent humour! All credit to Essex for producing a huge laugh in the middle of a tedious journey!

My colleague and I were invited to do an informal session at a conference for Church Leaders last night. We wanted to do something fun but useful, a kind of Thinkertainment (I think I've just invented this term but let me know if I'm wrong!)

We titled the evening, "Film, Church. theology & Popcorn"
and used seven film clips (all great to watch) that resonated with questions about How we do Church and the future of the Church. For each clip we asked an "I wonder?" question.

For example, from a clip of Finding Nemo, when Dory and Marlin get directions and then face the trench, "As we look to the future, whose voices are we listening to AND whose are we ignoring?"

If you want the full list of Films and questions they are in the extended entry, oh and I'll upload a pdf of the Pictures and questions to the Youthblog resources page.

Anyway an interesting experiment, I hope we'll get some feedback. I for one would value more strategic discussions that involve Popcorn!

I read with interest that the Boys Brigade are going to be holding a Ballot on whether or not to allow girls to join. The Girls Brigade were at the Youthwork conference but I heard no mention of them having corresponding plans (if you see what I mean). This sent me off into a whole realm of speculation as to the emergence of the Boys and Girls Brigade and the Girls (Not boys) Brigade. I also then tried to work out what would happen if a Boys Brigade splinter group formed that didn't recognise the results of a yes ballot. "The Boys, Forward in Faith, Brigade" perhaps?

Seriously though! There seems to be a lot less single sex work happening and there is a massive emphasis on co-ed work. Good thing? Bad thing? Youthwork magazine once quoted a Market research company whose teenage focus groups are always composed of young people of identical age and of the same sex. The reason being that otherwise there is less honesty and too much posing and pretending! Interesting eh?

Less seriously though I remember one of my colleagues leading a discussion on the way forward for some young peoples work which was at the time divided into boys groups and girls groups. One lady realised that they may need to have a new approach and asked,
"Would it we be better then if we were bi-sexual?"

I occasionally read "They will know us by our T Shirts" to see what aspect of the Christian Retail business has wound up the author recently ..... especially as I'm also not a fan of the Jesus-Junk that gets sold. This particular rant about a Snowman (Nov 21st) made me laugh.

On the right hand side you should see a new link entitled "Youthblog Resources" The plan is to upload resources and ideas that I mention in the blog. It will have games and the like, session resources and training resources. Those of you who asked for a summary of the "Small groups" discussion and input will find it there!

I've had a really encouraging weekend, been out and about doing some training for volunteer leaders. Saturday on "small groups" for St Albans Diocese, today in Bracknell on "Where do we go from here?"
The reason it was encouraging was meeting so many volunteer leaders who are engaging with young people and very committed! If anyone I've met over the weekend is reading this, Hi and thanks :-)

A few people asked me for the snapshot of "young people today" that I used. I'll put it below but it'll be good to have some comments from the Blogosphere on which of the generalisations you agree/disagree with and whether there is anything missing?
I developed this from a list that appeared in Youthwork magazine some years back (OK, quite a lot of years back!) contrasting 70's teens with 90's teens. It's developed and changed from my experience, my reading and best of all in giving it to young people for their comment and perspective.

It probably doesn't work completely as just a list as I normally unpack them as themes quite a lot. But your reflections please ...

The Church of England Youth Council are meeting this weekend, they're a great bunch by all accounts. Have a look at the web site.

"Our Vision

It is a vision of a place where young people will feel encouraged, enabled and confident to inspire change, and of a council that has an impact, takes action, and is able to challenge itself, the church, and our society"

I pray they have the courage to speak
Even more I pray that we have the courage to truly listen

Had a great chat with a youth worker this morning and we talked a little bit about how much we learn through our mistakes (something which I have invested heavily in). Was still thinking about this when I was catching up with various posts on the Blog-Roll, Hutchinson this morning has a fab post, entitled "The greatest lesson!" you have to read it! He also adds a great miscellaneous, "Other lessons learned" and I felt prompted to write a list of my own:

1. When you put young people in Charge of organising the tents for Soul Survivor it pays to check that they've packed the correct canvas for the frame.
2. You can never win a water fight
3. Park minibuses away from any other cars in the car park (it didn't occur to me that they would leap out SAS style and cause £1000 worth of damage to a car)
4. If you've stopped at a service station, all cans of coke should be opened in the car park, not the bus.
5. Letting people have a go on your unicycle is a bad idea

It would be great to have some more accrued but bizarre wisdom from the strange world of youth work, over to you.

Without wishing to sound like Scrooge, Christmas does my head in! Not the Jesus's birth bit, it's the unleashing of the commercial exploitative monster that is the Crass-mass we've allowed ourselves to be shoe horned into. Humbug, Humbug, Humbug!
Apologies for even mentioning Christmas in November, however the "buy nothing" site has some resources that could be great to do with a youth group if you are planning your December programme. It's also worth checking out some ideas at the "Tame the Monster" site too.

Bloggy Thinky bit: (I apply this to me too!) In what way is the Christmas we model to our young people different to the post-christian consumptive orgy that we see all around us?

Some things about being British are very weird, especially, I think, our levels of reserve and cliched conversation. To learn English you'd really only need certain key (negative) comments about the weather and you be eighty per cent there. You'd also need to know that the response to,
"How are you?" is automatically, "fine!"
I'm so conditioned into this that even if I go to my Doctor and he asks, I say, "Fine ................... er no, I'm ill!"

Where's all this going? Well it's funny you should ask. I think the way we communicate is a really good thing to unpack with young people and Pip Wilson (one of my youth work heroes) provides a great way of doing just that.

If you haven't got "Pip Wilsons Spectacular Stinking Rolling Magazine Book" then you need to buy it, NOW!

In it (p25) he explores 5 levels of conversation. These are really great to work through with young people particularly on a residential. The Five levels are:
1. Cliche
2. Facts
3. Opinion
4. Feelings
5. Total Openness
It's great to get people in pairs and get them to converse for a minute only using Cliches, then facts and then opinions. Then exploring who we are real with and what that involves. It's awesome to see young people reflecting on how much banter is a cover and exploring when/how we can be more real.

Great fun on one of our residentials when this led to great conversation pre-fixes, the teens would say, "Can I be level 4 with you for a moment?"

Why is Internet Spam called Spam? Why do Online casinos, Viagra sellers and the like think that spamming Youthblog will help them in anyway at all? AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

As I'm a member of a redemptive organisation, can I say that Spam is far better re-claimed for its comedic properties! Download file

How do you see if a youth ministry is "Healthy?" I guess there'd be a hundred different answers starting from the classics,
"a whole evening without someone setting off the fire alarms!" or
"being able to go on a night hike without losing anyone!" then working onwards and upwards.
Evalu8 is now on the market (£11.70 seems quite reasonable to me) as a self assesment tool, I still need to run some scenarios through it to be able to comment effectively. But what generally are we looking for?

The seven marks of a healthy church (Jerry Lepine) are given as:

1. A Life-Giving Spirituality
2. Engagement in God's Mission
3. Building up the Christian Community
4. Expectation of New Christians
5. Faith development of Children and Young People
6. Leadership that enables Lay Ministry and Witness
7. An openness to Change

This seems a pretty good discussion starting point for marks of a healthy youth ministry. I reckon there could be a massive variety of answers but the important thing is that we do evaluate beyond "do at least some young people turn up?" what would your criteria be?

The Wibsite, bookmark it!

Hey, if you've logged on for the first time from the link in Youthwork magazine, WELCOME! Over the course of the blog entries you'll find funny stuff, links, discussions and recomendations, all of them coming from a youth work heart. You can either read through the archive or use the search facility. Youthblog is updated nearly every day so there's usually something new to read. It's always great to have comments or e-mails (click where it says) and I hope you'll find stuff that make you:

Laugh
Think
Say "Hey I could use that!"

I'm fortunate enough to have quite a few Youthblog Agents around the web who send me links, ideas and stories. Recruits welcome!

Great site on Ministry & Spirituality, check it out. Links in with the Soul Shaper book I blogged about.

Let me have any other useful spirituality and youth ministry links please.

I'm still thinking about the article in the Times that drew a distinction between Spirituality and Christian Religion. I blogged at the time that I was sad that we should have ended up in a position where Spirituality and Christianity are seen as seperate arenas. When I'm running training on "understanding young people" for Churches I have to tell them the Good news, that this generation of young people are more spiritual than the generation before. But I also have to tell them the bad news though that young people don't, on the whole, see the Church as spiritual.

I though it would be interesting though to go with this polarisation and look at the contrasts between cultural ideas of religion and spirituality. This is something that we do in our Youthwork Essentials training (this list probably needs creditting to lots of sources but I'm unsure what they are):

I realise this is an extreme polarisation but it may be useful to reflect on where a youth programme oozes Christian Spirituality and where it defaults to Religion in the starkest sense.

Blogging live from the conference, OK I'm just around the corner in Weatherspoons but there seems to be loads of other delegates here too!
I'm still reflecting on the whole discipleship and growth issue and have had chance to chat this through with a few of the one thousand four hundred delegates, but I'm still not even sure what the correct question is!

Relevently though, Duffy Robbins was awesome this morning on the Character of a Youth worker. He basically looked at Philipians 3 and the single minded pursuit of Christ. Good quote from him about not being double minded and introducing too many "buts" into the equation:

"Too many "buts" and you'll fall on your butt!"

Corny I know but it's a good line in what was a passionate and honest call that boiled down to "It's not about a fast start, it's about a strong finish"

Phi 3:12 I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize.
Phi 3:13 My friends, I don't feel that I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead.
Phi 3:14 I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven. This is the prize that God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done.
Phi 3:15 All of us who are mature should think in this same way. And if any of you think differently, God will make it clear to you.
Phi 3:16 But we must keep going in the direction that we are now headed.

I have to confess I'm all seminarred out at the moment and have instead, enjoyed some great chats on the Crusaders, CPAS, Merseyfest and Moorlands exhibition stands.

Thanks for the wisdom, Please continue to comment to the previous entry .... I've added something too. What is coming out through the comments though, is:

it's not about numbers it's about discipleship! (I agree)

That then begs the question what needs to be there for discipleship to genuinely happen? And will this involve growth?

As I mentioned, I’m running a couple of seminars next week at a training day for volunteer youth leaders. The day is structured around “Seven myths of youth ministry” and I’m looking at Small Groups and linking it in loosely with Myth 2 in the book, “Size isn’t Important!”

I’m definitely not into the numbers game HOWEVER I am convinced that this, “it’s not about the numbers,” approach can (emphasis on can) be an excuse that leads to groups that are defeatist, introspective, exclusive and lacking discipleship. So it’ll be an interesting seminar to lead. I really-really want to encourage volunteer leaders and celebrate the awesome commitment and energy they invest in young people, I do however also want to provoke some useful thinking and reflection.

So how big does a group NEED to be? I reckon this will vary with situation but realistically unless you’ve got a core of at least eight I wonder whether it can grow and develop. (I’m happy to be disagreed with).

I also know that if a group is too big it becomes dysfunctional.

What are the factors that can limit the growth of a group? My current menu of possibilities is along the lines of:

Trying to cover too large an age range
Lack of vision
Fear that we don’t know what we are doing so we only want Churchy young people
Lack of Strategic thinking and Prayer
Client-Provider approach. Youth ministry is done to young people not with them
Leaders who also do loads of other stuff in the Church (even more time poor)
Not stopping to re-evaluate
Leaders pushed into the role without resourcing or training.

If I can be a little bit Martin Luther King about this:

I have a dream where the youth leaders are recognised as ministers in the Church, resourced, supported and encouraged.
I have a dream where the words “holding onto” are never used and where I start to hear “our ministry to the young people in our community!”
I have a dream where ministry to young people is taken to be a whole church ministry
I have a dream that the youth budget would be bigger than the flower budget
I have a dream that the congregations response to seeing a young person wearing a baseball cap in Church would be to say, “Cool cap!” (Ok, now I’m getting silly!)

Captains log supplemental: Does the youth fellowship model just mirror the Church, i.e best at the in-house stuff and emphasising teaching? How do volunteers develop a missional mindset worshipping in a maintenance model?

Your reflections please:

Now entering Phase 3 (Green zone) and looking forward very much to the conference starting. For those who are interested in the Youthblog tour here's the Bridgetesque run-down:

Number of miles driven: 480 (The MG I've borrowed is a blast)
Number of tea shops visited: 3
Number of blank expressions when enquiring about wi-fi: 7
Humber of times I got lost: 2 (quite good I thought)
Interesting theological discussions 2.5 (so far)

Went to the C.U at St Martins college with Hyperbolic Man on Thursday night, really cool to hear a 21 year old preaching! This morning took in a lecture on personal spirituality at my old Bible School which was great. (Thought the students looked very young .... zoiks, I am offically old!)

Phase 2 complete and I had a blast up in the orange zone! Walked up to 484 metres (according to Cris though, it doesn't count if you didn't start from the beach) and got a great, if a little misty, view over hills, lakes and dales! Not very high but it was pointless going higher as I wouldn't have seen a thing .... amusingly too, my Expedition qualification is only valid up to 400m, but as I hadn't got young people with me though I could recklessly ascend another 84 metres!

Will blog properly tomorrow, haven't had much access to the web today. They'd not heard of Wi-fi in Ambleside (true) and then Carnforth only had access to the internet in the Library, which is closed on a Thursday!

Blog thinking ready for a training day next Saturday,
How small is too small for a youth "group" and what factors keep it small?
Need your input! I've been thinking about this on my stroll, will Post some stuff tomorrow!

Phase 1 is going well ... am blogging via wi-fi from a service station in Zone Purple! 200 miles driven so far.

Here's a great quote, from a teenager, that I read recently,

“I feel like Alice in Wonderland …. I have stumbled into a world where the rules have changed and I never feel quite the right size to fit”

Hey it's time for an adventure .... a mini uk tour, Wednesday til Sunday. It's going to be a blast, time to reflect, talk, walk, meet people, learn some stuff, pray and be. The tour will involve some cool people, awesome scenery and Oases where coffee and wi-fi converge! I've borrowed bruv-in-laws MG Rover TZ, I have the Youthblog T shirt(s) to wear and I've sorted out places to stay, SORTED!

I'm off to Youthwork the conference (green zone) but before that I have an all day meeting (red)then a meal with a PhD theologian and a Moose collecting Mathmetician (purple). Wake up in Carnforth (black) and head up to The Lakes for a days Hiking (Orange) before catching up with "Hyperbolic Man," a former member/superhero of the youth group. Friday morning I'll visit my old Bible School (black) before heading off to the conference. Looking forward to catching up with Youth work peers and chatting with loads of new folk. Sunday lunch in Birmingham (yellow) before getting back to the blue blue circle of home. You probably didn't want to know all that but hey, hope to see some of you at the conference!

One of the really geeky things I can do with my blog is discover how people got to it, looking at the Google searches that led to a youthblog encounter is fascinating. Late last night someone googled Looking for "Finding Nemo youth sermon series" and found me from my review of "Sharks Tale"
A whole Semon series on Nemo ..... now there's a challenge! What about,

Breaking free of fear
The journey is important
Breaking free of the aquarium
Salvation is a leap of faith
We're called to make a difference

(I'll flesh it out a bit in the extended entry)

I love "Finding Nemo" I thought it was a fabulous film. It's childlike but totally adult at the same time, its full of wonder, relationship and redemption but doesn't shy away from the realities of life. Its uplifting but honest ..... did you notice how murky the water was once they were in the harbour? A great film.
But most of all I love the turtles. I think they'd be funny anyway but I was at Bible School with two Californian Surf dudes (Dusty and Ryan, where are you now?) and the turtles reminded me SO MUCH of them.

Blogworthy recollection: Dusty and Ryan belonged to an organisation, if memory serves me correctly, called the North Atlantic Christian Surf Federation and had with them some of their surfing "tracts!" One of them had a picture of Jesus on the front and he was, obviously, surfing (and clearly enjoying the experience). One of the more pious of our international student body said to Ryan,
"Isn't that a little bit irreverant?"
Ryan looked at him (and here you'll have to have the voice of Crush the turtle in your head) and said,
"He made the waves ... dude!"

Of all the stuff I get asked about as a Youth work Adviser probably the most recurrent is Health & Safety! There's a lot of confusion about what you can or can't/should or shouldn't do, some groups haven't grappled enough with the whole subject yet, some have gone so overboard that I expect to have to approve a Risk assessment on Risk assessing any day soon! Taffy at Parish Pump made me laugh with this cartoon which he very kindly said could appear on Youthblog.

One of the reasons I found it so funny was that I had a not dissimilar experience in the summer, I was asked to Lifeguard for a youth group end-of-term Pool party and said that would be fine (I am fully qualified for this). I duly turned up in full uniform, with appropriate medi and rescue kit. As a pool lifeguard you need to inspect the pool and surround before anyone uses it and read the Normal operating procedures and Emergency Action Plan, so I asked to be shown the pool and equipment!
Walking round the corner I creased up with laughter as I encountered what was not much more than a paddling pool. Great fun though and easy to lifeguard .... I ended up riding round the pool on a kids mountain bike and blowing the whistle for such offence as not smiling!

I'm all for the stuff we do with young people being the best, safest and most well organised it can possibly be but it's good to encounter the funny side occasionally. If you fancy a swot up on the subject, I highly recommend our "Better Safe than Sorry" document which combines Child Protection and Health and Safety! Download file

Sudders sent me this rather bizzare "advert" for the Church, which in light of the previous two days debate seemed quite funny!

Never one to not pursue an idea I then logged on to Random Slogan Generator!
It takes the word that you put in and randomly attaches it to a slogan. Inputting "Church" gave me:

The Church for all ages
Just do Church
Change Your Whole Church!

and the most interesting missiologically,

Feel the raw naked Church of the road

I wandered what creative strap-lines you could come up with my blog buddies, over to you!

Still thinking quite a bit about youth ministry and the church, our mission in light of OR in spite of the Church. The Times on Thursday had an interesting article that said "Christianity will be eclipsed by Spirituality in 30 years!" What saddened me most was that Christianity and spirituality were seen as opposing perspectives, boy have we made a mess of being Church, the place that should ooze spirituality, mystery, silence, community and renewal.
Couple more quotes from the article:

"Christianity now is very verbose. You don't get chance to be your silent self"

"I don't want to be preached at any more!"

As a Church based youth worker/leader you tend to be at the listening end of young people's frustration with the church, often too, the Churches frustration with young people. It's difficult not to get dragged down, even more difficult to know where the life of the Church and our ministry to young people meaningfully connects.

I seemed to have wandered down a bit of a negative cul-de-sac here and it's not where I mean to be. I don't believe for a moment that God has given up on THE Church but our mission has to be more than re-arranging the chairs on the decks of the Titanic. I wish I'd listened a bit more in Church History lectures now (I would like to say that our lecturer made it dead boring though) and could better grasp the way that the reformation went on to impact the Catholic church or how Methodism impacted the mainstream churches, then I could maybe see how the emerging church experiments might eventually help re-shape and inform the established Church.

There's the old joke about asking for directions to somewhere and hearing the reply, "well, erm .... I wouldn't start from here!"

But we have to start from here my fellow Ministers!

I read a brilliant article on Post-Relational Youth Ministry from the Youthworker, you should read it! It charts a history of Youth Ministry, Programme to Relational and asks the question whether this is too individualistic an approach and if we need to re-discover the whole-church approach to Youth Ministry.

"The church is the radical alternative community that is the presence of Christ on this earth. As we minister to teenagers, we believe we must settle for nothing less than this as our purpose. The church isn't the entertaining youth program that makes God fun. Nor is it the really cool adult with whom to have a relationship. It's a people movement. It's a community of belonging. It's a transformative force on our culture and in our world. It's a place to belong and be changed into the likeness of Almighty God"

This comes at the same time as an interesting article by Pete on the teaching of Paul and the life of Jesus, wondering if currently we are re-looking so closely at Jesus as a pattern for ministry that we overlook major Pauline sections of the new testament. Conrad Gempf has responded to this article as he is proposing a book called (and I like the title) "How to like Paul again"

This raises some interesting questions for me, a lot of our youth ministry happens in a way that is isolated from the main church, volunteers and employed workers are encouraged to go away and do it. However even if we disagree with this as a model, it's a very pragmatic approach given that Church really isn't where young people are at. We're back to my old battle cry of "getting church more involved in young people and young people more involved in Church"

I'm left with a bit of a chicken and an egg conundrum though: Until young people are really involved in Church its not going to change but until it changes young people are not going to enagage with it.

Any thoughts on a Whole Church approach to youth ministry? ....

It always amazes me when you see the first edition of a magazine that "somehow" contains a letters or problem page! You don't have to be a genius to figure out they must have made up the questions!
I'm just in the middle of doing a big update on my Diocesan web pages and one of the new pages will be an FAQ (frequently asked questions) which I think/hope will be useful. I've stored a few up from e-mail about references, car insurance, minibuses and the like but I need more: the real, the absurd, the profound and the difficult, especially questions from a volunteers perspective. So over to you please Blog-buddies!

Logging onto your own blog and finding no-comments is a bit like biting into a jam doughnut and there being no jam! I'm relying on you.
"Dear youthblog ......"

I'm always keen to explore something different in terms of youth groups trips, this one could be really different!

The advert appeared in the Denmark Post and sounds great fun. I can, however, see a real problem though. If you took a youth group back in time they'd be going to a time that was technically before the permission slip was signed! It would be a real shame if "Health and Safety" regulations negated time travelling for youth groups eh?

Was at an AGM last night of a West Berkshire based organisation called PALS (Partners for Active Leisure). They run activities for special needs young people or provide volunteers for those young people to help them take part in mainstream activities. PALS recruit volunteers (most of them teenagers), train them and they then deliver the service alongside the two paid co-ordinators. It was an encouraging AGM and presentation, PALS has built great links with several schools locally both for volunteer recruitment and a couple of Private schools where the younger pupils help host events at their schools. Millenium volunteers in West Berkshire have also been actively promoting volunteering with the scheme.

Blogable bit is this: I'm not aware of any of the committee having a youth work background or there being any direct youthwork input, however there's some fantastic youth work happening. It seemed to me that some very good youth work practice has evolved quite naturally out of a young person centred approach.

The Young people themselves play a part in the decision about what activities are run, in the group sessions that they do there is a considerable amount of ownership and involvment, for e.g some of the PALS had asked to do some cookery so were then involved in menu planning, shopping and obviously the actual cooking. (Most encouraged by this because I still see a lot of client-provider youth work where planning, delivery and evaluation rests largely with the leaders).
In terms of the volunteers too, really good youth work. The volunteers have a compulsory training programme before they can be involved but then have real responsibility, they can also grow into being a senior volunteer with additional training and responsibility as well as then having a mentoring role for the new volunteers. They meet regularly without the young people in order to discuss, get feedback and build team. The volunteers gain an enormous amount from all aspects of involvment, not least working with a group of young people they may not even have come into contact with otherwise. The volunteers are highly motivated, confident and obviously enjoy what they do. As is always evident in good work with young people, there was a good level of humour. Having been on one of their outings I know why. If you've not ice skated at a rate of knots around a rink while pushing someone in a wheelchair with both of you whooping with delight and exhileration, you've missed an important experience!

Really good Justice site with loads of links, check it out! Tame the Monster.

Wahooooo, I'm back on Broadband at home! Phew, this is a huge cyber-relief after having 10 days of dial-up with speeds dipping to 14kps! Blogging in slo-mo!

We had Gio Internet for a while but I had a whole catalogue of problems like bills being put up without notice, unreliable and unavailable service, no answer on the help line, parts of the service not working, misleading advice from the call-centre in India and my personal least favourite ..... frequently being on hold for 10 minutes and then been cut off when you reached the head of the queue. Arggggggggggggggggggggghhhhh .... and all from the company that claim to be "the leading supplier" and with "reliability second to none"
Gio have also added insult to injury by charging me 3 months line fee for breach of contract in leaving .... when I rang up to complain there was an answer phone message saying,

"we are experiencing problems with our phone system, please phone back at another time"
I was beginning to feel more and more as if Victor Meldrew was not a comic creation but a folk hero for our time.

Have discovered Force 9 and I now have a 1mb (wooosh) connection for £14.99 a month, set up has gone smoothly, the help-line is available at ALL times and isn't a premium rate number. Thumbs up from Youthblog
I hope you'll forgive the rant but you never know it may be a useful warning to someone in the UK corner of Blogsville and it's certainly helped me to let off steam!
The other reason this is great is, I can work from home! The car is Kaput so cycle and trains to work today, which I wouldn't mind but it's a 4 hour round trip by public transport (Car is half an hour each way).

Fascinating article from the BBC back in March looking at a Poll of some two thousand teens in Britain and Mainland Europe. The Coverage asserts that: "Teenagers are among the most politically active and socially aware ever." ... That's fascinating given the level of cycnicism around National Politics.
Interestingly they had some very definite views on the Bush administration.

85% said US President George W. Bush was a real and present threat to world peace and stability
89% said he was a threat to the environment

I wonder how that compares with U.S teens, both in their concerns and in their resultant political attitude? I'd love some thoughts from Youthblogs' American readers.

Profound respect to Jim wallis and the Sojourners crew for their
"God's not a Republican OR a Democrat" campaign and how they have promoted real debate and thinking Christianity ... not single issue reactionism.

I've just found out that it's National Youth Work week here in the UK, I thought you should know! When you've finished reading this you have to go and do something youth-workish! There's a whole load of stuff listed by the NYA including a sponsored exercise-bike marathon, but I can't see that going anywhere!

I was initially quite excited about the importance of there being a Youth work week but then I found this link that includes all the other days/weeks. I fear that youth work week may pale into insignificance alongside:

Biodeiversity Month (How come they get a month?)
Be nice to nettles week
National Moth Night & (my favourite)
International Bog day

I figure it's useless competing, you have to go one step further, so please sign my petition for a "Galactic Youth Work Millenium"
In the mean time, I salute all Youthblog readers for whom every week is Youth Work Week!