December 2004 Archives

In what could be seen as an overly self referential exercise, but what I see as an ironic tribute to New Years eve's TV scheduling, here's the best of YOUTHBLOG 2004!

The Heretical nature of Baseball Caps! Maybe I should of called this the "her-hat-ical nature of caps" but hey ho! As a post it not only created some amusement and debate around baseball caps in Church but made it onto the wibsite and you can see it (if you look hard) on a page in Decembers Youthwork magazine!
In at the deep end was a chance to comment on Health and Safety as well as reminisce about the time I had to life-guard a paddling pool. Serious issues but in this case, serious fun!
I have a cunning plan was perhaps a little too audacious but in terms of getting Church involved in young people it was certainly AN idea!
School of Rock was a film that got me thinking, the bit that I was really chuffed about though was there was an actual seminar run this year (in France) that actually took and used my blog idea! weird but cool, but weird!
Caught in posession of a hoody was a good insight into how young people get labelled, tagged and written off. When you're wound up about something being able to blog is good therapy! The fact that some people read it as well is fantastic.

That was looking back, but on New Years day I plan to blog some universally adaptable New Years resolutions for youth workers! I'd love some suggestions in advance!

My lords, ladies & Gentlemen. Unaccustomed, as I am, to public speaking I shall constrain this New Year's eve ramble to expressing my Gratitude to those who make Youthblog what it is, what it was and what it shall be (as it were).
Thanks to special agent K in Berkshire and to Tessa & Sarah who are the official Grammar & spelling advisors to Youthblog. Respect to blog commentators & readers (here's some of you that I know about) Ben, Sudders, Betty, Dave, Si, Roy, Pete B, Richard, Kt, Stu, Barrie & the Rev Doc D. Web Master P and Comms officer Nat, you rock!
Special mention for Pete who is the Scooby Doo consultant and to kevin, my agent in Canada eh! If you've never commented then I have no idea who you are but APPRECITE you all the same. Mr Baker, the spiritual father of blogdom gave me some helpful advice in the early days of youthblog for which I am profoundly grateful. Dave the Wibsite, I raise a glass to you for promoting the Blog and for making me laugh.

Lastly, to everyone who works with young people, I salute you and am so glad that you drop in here from time to time! Here's to youthwork in 2005!

Browsing through the google searches that had lured browsers into Youthblogs gravitational pull I came across this one:

"Snowball fight Christian Song"

How Bizarre is that? Anyone want to write one? Gave me a good laugh though and reminded me of some Calvin n Hobbes. In one of the cartoons Calvin states he only thows consecrated snowballs, I rather liked the accompanying liturgy:

Oh lovely snowball, packed with care
Smack a head that's unaware.
Then with freezing ice to spare
Melt and soak through underwear.
Fly straight and true, hit hard and square,
This, oh snowball, is my prayer.

I wanted to write something about the disaster that's resulted from Sundays earthquake but am struggling to find the words. The extrodinary (and rising) scale of the tragedy plus the heart breaking stories from survivors who have lost loved ones is beyond my ability to write. I'm going to point instead to "Deep Thought" and what Sarah's written AND for the links to organisations that are working out there and can handle donations.

I'd also recomend reading Messy Christian who writes from Malaysia, as ever she writes with great insight and honesty.

Cool Boxing day! In Church this morning teenagers were mentioned in the sermon AND in a positive light with empathy and understanding! Very encouraged by that, so so so few sermons ever seem to include illustrations or applications that relate at all to teens. This afternoon I sat in a Simpsons inflatable Chair (don't ask!) with a glass of Glenmorangie and listened to The Streets CD "Original Pirate Material" very very cool. This will definitely crop up in future blogs as its class in terms of music, communication, honesty and vibe!

Other Christmassy stuff: Finally made it down the skate board ramp on my skateboard (You have to bear in mind that I didn't get a skateboard until I was 34!). Accelerating rapidly down a concrete slope balanced on a small board and careering towards lots more concrete while attempting to do small controlled corrections turns out to be quite an aid to focus! (If anyone from St Nix wondered why I was hobbling on Christmas day? It was from the time I lost focus!)
Utterly defeated the Snowball game by completing the bonus round after level 9, YES!

Having managed in excess of a "post" a day since August I think I'll chill a bit over the next few days. There may be a new post but most likely not. On New Years eve though I'm going to take a leaf out of TV's book (there's a weird metaphor for the medium I'm describing) and posting "The Best of Youthblog 2004!" Yes I'm serious, or at least vaguely so. I also plan to post the Youthblog awards ... kind of a thank you to some of the youthblog contrubutors.

And after that? I've got loads more stuff I want to write about youth work, youth leadership and youth ministry in 2005!

In the meantime Blog-buddies, I raise a glass of single malt to you. Here's wishing you all the best of Christmas; love, joy, laughter, peace and hope!

"How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in"

Made it to level 7 but then (as you can see) got TOTALLY annihilated!
Giving up now and going to do something more useful!
Can it count as a core skill of youthwork being able to play computer games? I hope so because I'm better at virtual games than actual ones (I got trounced at Pool by a teenager last week!)

If like me you're struggling with the consumeristic orgy that is "Christmas", this may be a little bit of an antidote! It's a song by Sarah McLachlan and the accompanying video. The cool thing is though that rather than spending the usual $150,000 on the video they gave it away instead. Watch the video and see where the money would have normally been spent and what it achieved instead! Cool, very cool!

I know it's been around for a while but this snowball fight game is fantastic. If you've got a moment (and you've got Flash installed) it's worth a click. Tip from Youthblog .... keep moving! I'll go back to trying to complete level 4 which is proving tricky with a laptop trackpad!

What do you do with an ever increasing mountain of Youthwork magazines? This evolving mass of youthwork wisdom has been keeping me company in my various roles since 1992. Well today is a grand day! Valerie the wonder secretary has sorted them all into box files AND produced a spreadsheet so I can find the articles I'm looking for. Result or what?

I love Christmas! The romantic in me struggles that there isn't snow on the ground but otherwise it's great. I love catching up with friends, getting cards, being family, drinking red wine and the excitement that Christmas is a pivotal moment in time and in our own lives, Emmanuel, God with us!
Those of you who know me will acknowledge that God didn't see fit to give me a singing voice (One lady remarked to me, "You know I admire you Ian, during that last Hymn you picked a note and you stuck to it!") but I love singing Carols (providing there's sufficient volume to drown me out). I was going to write about some of the profound lines from Carols, but I keep thinking about the re-editted versions the youth group come up with. So instead here's an awesome lyric from Bruce Cockburn,

"Like a rock on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe"

and the last verse of the narrative reads,

"There are others who know about this miracle birth
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth
For it isn't to the palace that the Christ child comes
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums
And the message is clear if you've got ears to hear
That forgiveness is given for your guilt and your fear
It's a Christmas gift you don't have to buy
There's a future shining in a baby's eyes"

And you thought the bears were bad?

I am at least encouraged that the child in the picture does not seem to be taking it entirely seriously!

Went to see "The Incredibles" yesterday and it is, in fact, incredible! Pixar have done it again and come up with a truly original story that would stand up regardless of the animation which just happens to be jaw-droppingly awesome!
This is animation that has truly come of age, it's not a kids film at all (long, complex and with lots of relationship development) but it is Childlike in the best sense. It has the best screen villian EVER and has wit, pathos and humour in great measures. I really loved this film. It'll be well worth getting the DVD but you should see it at the cinema!

(I spoke to one female youth worker this morning who thought it might be more of a blokes film? So I'd love some more female perspectives on this!)

Watching it in a Youth worker sort of a way, I loved Violet's part in the film, her move from adolescent awkwardness to a greater self awareness and confidence was great!

Sarah jokingly blogged that she could see no theological justification for Christmas Crackers. I felt compelled to respond!

No theological justification for Crackers? To me the Bible resonates with pointers to these as one of the most central symbolic celebrations of Christ's Birth!

The Cracker comes as a pre-wrapped package, the contents known yet unknown! A clear pointer to the Coming Prophet, Priest and King of the old testament but the mystery, only known in part, still to be revealed!
Opening this package happens with a small explosion, can this be anything other than a dramatic pointer to the fact that the gospel is the "power" of God [Romans 1:16], in the Greek "Dunamis" ... literally Dynamite!
The mysterious contents are thus revealed, partly guessed and yet still a suprise. The crown to recognise the coming King. The gift to celebrate the presenting to the Christ of Gold, Frankinsense and Myrrh (it is no accident that cracker gifts are quite obscure I think). Lastly the joke, a profound pointer to God's humour! While the Magi search for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords at the palace, he is born into poverty, obscurity and danger.

For me the Crackers, as ever, will serve a near sacramental and pivotal role in the feast!

Thanks for the comments you've posted to the previous "Post" I am disappointed that you so easily conceded defeat but I couldn't find anything to trump it either. I throw in a scene that is right up there in terms of cheesiness but lacks the previous level of sickening crassness

On a more serious note though. How do we get away from the Christmas Card dung free perfection that looks like being born in a stable was a jolly lovely alfresco alternative? The fact that God's son was born into extreme poverty, discomfort and danger is a potent opening statement in God's rescue plan that gets so easily lost eh?
If you've managed a teaching session with your group where there was real engagment with this, I'd love to hear about it!

I've got a great title for the session: "Time to STOP cutting the Crap!

Hutchinson has linked to a few different Nativity scenes on his blog right up to a life size one. There's some interesting ones from around the world on Beliefnet (click on creches). I also thought it'd be "good" to put this one up that I'm still reeling from twelve months on!
I lay the gauntlet down my blog-buddies, find one more cheesy, tasteless and crass ...... bet you can't!

I was in town yesterday and over heard a fascinating snippit of a conversation about drinking. There were three teenagers, two girls and one boy, one of the girls said,

"I don't know why I drink it really, it's not that strong! But I like the taste!"

It was a great phrase to overhear on the day that the press (Times Article) picked up some of the stuff from the European Values survey and especially the amount that teenage girls are drinking. It's such an indicative quote, the alchoholic strength is the most important component (either to the girl or to the peer group!)

It's well worth reading the article, especially the stories of three teenage girls. The statistics are depressing!

The Times asks the question, "How do we deal with binge drinking?"
debate@thetimes.co.uk

Here's a great site run by a guy called Andy Bateman (most original site map I've seen) but the best bit is THE definitive collection of TV themes. This rocks for:
a) a Youth Group Quizzes or
b) serious nostalgia sessions with the other youth leaders!

If you've not come across Scattergories then let me fill you in. You give the "Subject" to a team and they have 2 minutes to get all 10 linked words, some are obvious some are a bit more lateral! Here's an attempt to produce 6 with a Yuletide flavour!

By the way, a survey in the Times today (quoting research from Sky) reckons that one third of people in Britain do not know where Jesus was born. Worringly, one in 10 Churchgoers also failed to identify Jesus' place of Birth. This may make scattegories even more difficult!

OK, I've had the hit counter for exactly two months today. Long term readers will know I was concerned that Youthblog would be the web equivelant of the bargain book bin titles, such as "The Life of Warts" and "Canal Adventures in Shropshire." Well the good news is that Youthblog has, to continue the metaphor, made the main bookshelves even though I reckon somewhere towards the back of the store near Poetry and Childrens books! It's had over 2000 "unique" hits (distinct 24 hours apart) and over 4000 in total. I'm quite encouraged though and the Youthblog experiment will continue, Stay tuned!

Greetings esteemed readers! The Mixed Up Christmas entry has been getting loads of hits, glad it's proving useful. Embarrasingly though Agent K pointed out a small error, "Fresh Tilt Owl" should read "E Fresh n Tilt Owl!" (I will ammend the resources sheet). I'll upload another Christmassy quiz I've been working on tomorrow.
Other stuff that has impressed me and may be useful in Youth Ministrydom include a FABULOUS take on the 9 lessons service on Jonny Bakers Blog, some awesome publicity themed around Mary from Ben Bell and the Wibsite discovering that Christians have an ally in the Sun Newspaper when it comes to putting Christ back into Christmas! (Rather than the Beckhams!)

We had our first couple of Carol singers last night! The pair of them struggled on bravely, hampered as they were by being unable to sing and not knowing all the words! Hey Ho

With apologies to Arthur conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes had been engrossed in another of his Chemistry experiments for only a little short of two hours when he finally acknowledged my presence once more.
He held aloft a small test tube and declared,
'Here it is Watson, the proof that it was not the Butler that poisoned Lady Brompton-Sycal!'
I was, I admit, surprised by this statement for the Butler had been found with a bottle of poison in his hand and had immediately confessed to the crime. I put this to Holmes.
'Far too simple,' my companion declared. 'My suspicions were initially alerted by the window being slightly open, the bruise on the Butlers nose, the dead budgie in the cage and the large quantity of Marmite in the Larder. It's clear from my experiments that what killed her ladyship was not the poison the Butler held. The poison used was a rare secretion from a deadly tree frog that must have been ingested some twenty fours hours earlier. Normally the taste would be a giveaway but clearly as her Ladyship regularly ate Marmite she had a very poor sense of taste'..

Before Holmes could furnish me with his exact reasoning as to the bizarre behaviour of the Butler and the true source of the crime there came a knock on the door. A man aged roughly thirty was shown into the room. Holmes bade him to take a seat and observed him closely as he introduced himself as Ian Macdonald.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing"

Youthblog says: "Go do something playful!" (you can blame me!)

Was talking to a Review group at a Church this morning and spotted this on the notice board! Cool huh! I spend quite a bit of time trying to get churches to think about how they can make a difference to young people, I'd love to see this on more notice boards and hearts!

One hundred years from now
it will not matter:
What Car I drove
What kind of house I lived in
How much money I had in the bank
Or what my clothes looked like!

One hundred years from now however
the world may be a bit better place
because I was important
in the life of a young person!

Having some fun as ever reading the log entries to see how people found Youthblog! Someone today was looking for "St Egberts" (which I thought I'd made up) and found me as the number one hit! Someone else, and here the mind Boggles, typed "Ian is really Kool" into Google and found me which is very re-assuring as if you look back in the archives I was recently described as only "fairly cool!"
Funniest thing so far is when I was trawling Google for blog ammunition and typed in "Youth Work Bizzare Incidents" and was pointed straight back to YOUTHBLOG! Ho Hum!

I had the opportunity to visit a new Purpose Built "Secure Training Centre" (Young Offenders Institute) today. Big big improvement on anything I've seen before ( a lot less jail like and grey). I was encouraged by what I saw but I struggle with the fact we lock up kids as young as twelve!
Earlier this year I spoke at the conference of Prison Chaplains who work with Juveniles, they were a remarkable bunch of Ministers. I learnt a lot from them, their tenacity in the face of so many discouragments was remarkable, while making some real achievements in the lives of the young people through the chaplaincy work.

Blogging is definitely starting to mess with my mind! I was driving to Milton Keynes this morning and thinking along bloggish lines. It suddenly occured to me that it would have been very cool to have had a girlfriend called Destiny. That way I would have had to say,
"I have to go now as I have a date with Destiny!"
I don't think it was having this thought that worried me, the madness lay in the fact I thought it was hilarious! (Off to lie down now!)

The Wibsite have done it again and tracked down another cartoon series, "Cartoons by Jim" Definitely worth checking out!

I'm Grateful to Brendan for permission to put this cartoon on the blog, for more cartoons and Copyright info click here for his site!

Was at a fantastic day on Youth Spirituality on Monday, led by a great (Australian) guy by the name of Dr Paul McQuillan. Haven't blogged about it up until now as I've still been digesting it all. I scribbled notes on my IPAQ like there was no tomorrow but regrettably I failed to get it all down. For the moment I'll just throw out some interesting stuff that I noted (it may not be word perfect):

Some research by Hay. The question was "Have you been aware of a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from you every day self?"

in 1987 48% said yes
in 2000 76% said yes

Paul picked up on the fact that we do not have a widely developed universal Spiritual language, the language of the Church and the way people express Spiritual experiences are completely different. This of course links in with and feeds the cultural belief that "Religion" and "Spirituality" are not related!

I was also struck by this list of Modern Divorces (missed the author I'm afraid):

     Modern Divorces

1. Spirituality and Ecclesiology
2. Religion and Sexuality
3. Experience and Language

Promised to let you know the answers to the Christmas song anagrams and so I will. The Favourite seemed to be this one:
You Fat Face Molehill which re-aranges to make O come all ye faithful!
If you want the rest of the answers then I've uploaded them as a pdf into the resources section. They are already to use as individual cards with Holly round them! OOooooh. (Scissors required!)

The more observant among the youthblog readers and agents will have spotted a new title on the right hand bar of the blog. I finally got around to inventing Categories for the various "posts." It was not easy and I ended up having some like "defies categorizing!" and "Rants!"
If you want to read Youthblog by theme or find related articles though it may be useful. Let me know if you spot the need for other categories or if you disagree with where they are currently filed.

(Which Category should I put this Categorizing "Post" under?)

Was reading some research at the weekend on laughter but found it all a bit too serious!? Worrying thing was that it reckoned that Kids laugh up to 400 times a day whereas Adults (thats us!) only manage a triflingly pitiful 9-15 times. Now thankfully I know that my youthwork Bretherin and Sisterin definitely buck this trend and laugh a whole bunch more! That's one of the great things about youth work, it kind of breeds laughter (I only have to recall the Custard incident or the line "Dave, your leg's sort of on fire man!" to start laughing).
But I felt that there was no room for complacency, we need to laugh because:

• It's good for you (Medically Proven!)
• It stops us taking ourselves too seriously
• It builds relationships
• It celebrates joy
• It's contagious
• It's a gift of God to be used and enjoyed

So here's the first YOUTHBLOG free gift, I put together the Laugh Montage you see above and uploaded it as a PDF document for you to print off and stick on your pinboard as a reminder, so do it now, seriously!
Download file

Well I heard "Stop the Calvalry" in a shop yesterday so it's officially time for me to start thinking about Christmas! I thought I'd post something vaguely useful today for a Christmas discussion.
Below are fifteen anagrams of Christmassy Carols and songs:

E Glows a second King
Bell jig lens
Calms this Star
Freshen tilt owl
Hark he art held
English Tint
Send with a glass
Smith is a wretch
Anagram ye a win
My a soft thorn News
you fat face molehill
Sweat needs more within
Chat desk hell
This knee Grew
A blond Irish Wench

Might be fun to use this for a quiz then follow it up with a discussion about it being a mixed up Christmas. How about using a list like the one below and then putting them in the order you'd assume from TV or walking up the High St, then putting them in an order that is True to the Christian celebration of the Birth of Jesus.

Giving, Buying, Family, Friends, Drinking, Prayer, Eating, Celebrating Jesus' Birth, Partying, Getting, having, Worship, helping others, TV, Posessions, Spending, Having time for people, time for yourself, what you want, taking, what others want, time with God, desires, needs, sharing, self, silence, noise, others.

And what ever list you come up with, a challenge to ask,
"How can we re-mix Christmas to be more like it should ... and will we?"

....... oh, the answers to the anagrams! WEll yes, don't want to spoil your fun, I'll post them up in the week :-)

Funny thing is that hardly anyone reads Youthblog on a Saturday, so I thought I'd just put up the test card! If bizzarely anyone has logged on then can I just say, ooops SORRY! Here's some links to other youthy-work type blogs like Hutchinson, Lost Empires, Barky, Ben Bell and Lewis!

Call back soon eh!

Set up the video projector last night for a mini movie fest. First off was watching "Garfield" with my kids. Most reveiws had said that was not a very good film and they were perhaps being a little over generous. Having said that though for one of my boys the humour was the stuff he loves, Cat falls off roof, Cat hits dog etc. I normally like to pick out something that could be useful for a youth group discussion or the like, in this case, I failed. The only redeeming moment for me though was the tongue-in-cheek theft of a line from Jerry McGuire, I won't spoil the films one good line though by telling it to you!

Next up was "Paycheck" which Rocked. A quick proviso though, you need to have clicked the "disable scientific plausibility" on the remote but having done this, an enjoyable cool thriller with all the cliched ingredients that are vital. In this case, served up well and with some good twists and turns. From a Youth Group point of view there'd be some great stuff on Free Will, the future, Fate, determinism and the like!

I know most of us have, however briefly, entertained a similiar thought to the above .... often at 2am on a residential! More dangerous though is a subtle forgetting of the "why we run this trip!" Ocassionally (and not recently!) I have come across Churches that have been running a youth camp or residential for a lot of years. It's generally got a well established format, has a great history and the leaders love it (some of them remember going when they were teens). Only problem is that they really struggle for numbers now and it's often hard work to get enough young people to make it viable ..... but they always do, just!

My role is kind of difficult in this situation. I have to find a way of geting the leaders to see that the trip may now be running for their benefit, not the young people. I need to get the leaders to look at, what the aim of the camp is and how that fits into the aims of their work with young people! To look at how it could/should run or not run now.

The places that have been receptive to re-looking at their aims, reveiwing what they do and why they do it, have benefitted enormously.

To re-write a famous hymn:

Plan and review, for there's no other way
to be ha-ppy in youth work
but to Plan and review

Hooray it's December and I'll feel less grumpy about Christmas stuff being everywhere! Interesting thought as to whether Advent has become our Christmas Season and the the Twelve days of Christmas have now just become the Sales and New Year Parties?
Anyway, have you got an Advent Calender? If not you may want to check out the online one on Beliefnet. The site is a religion and Spirituality one but the advent Calender doors that I've been able to look at so far have some good Christian content. Usefully too it's stuff you may be able to use, for example today has a selection of Nativity scenes from around the world.

Haven't heard Jona Lewie's "Stop the Cavalry" yet, this alway signals the point at which I start to feel festive!

I'm teaching an overview of the Bible tomorrow to a bunch of gap year volunteers which'll be fun. I have a whole crate of different Bibles to take with me to provoke some discussion on translation, dynamic equivelent, paraphrase etc. From a Youth Ministry point of view though, "What Bible is the best(ish) one to use?"
I've just had my Bible re-bound as it was falling apart, its an NIV that I deliberately bought 'cos it didn't have loads of commentry, life-application stuff and the like. It has 11 years worth of my notes, links and coloured shading for various studies in. The Coolest thing about getting it re-bound though was I got to choose what was printed on the cover. I opted for "The Bible!" I really get wound up by Bibles covers that lose sight of the fact it's THE Bible! You know the sort of thing that I mean:

"NIV Study Bible
Hardback red letter edition
Spirit Filled with Life Application
notes and Mens Study Guide
Executive edition"
Copyright Fodder and Stouten

Maybe thats just me? I still think the Good News Rocks (It has pictures) I love the New Living Translation and quite often use this with youth sessions! What do you make of Bibles like Revolve? (I found a web site that didn't like it, but then anything other than the King James is Heretical as far as they are concerned, Scary site). The Message strikes me as brilliant as it captures the fact that The NT was written in a dynamic, idiomatic Style! CEV, NCV, Graphic Bible, Street Bible ........

So which version do you reckon is best for Youth Ministry?