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January 31, 2005
London and the quest for free Wi-fi
Grand day out in London, will upload some notes from the Young Leaders symposium tomorrow. Also had chance to go to the Natural History Museum which is so cool, didn’t get to see the “Wildlife photographer of the Year” exhibition as that cost extra but there was more than enough to keep me engaged. Hung around for half an hour at South Kensington underground station with the MP3 player on, it was a great place to people watch! It was like one of those fast-forwarded video clips showing you how a day pans out somewhere, except this was in real time but with the same ever changing rapidity and absorbing drama.
South Kensington was a dump but with a gleaming Lamborghini showroom in the middle of it? It did however boast a fantastic Indian Restaurant and I had a sumptuous feast with some good friends, Curry and conviviality!
Then back to Paddington Station and in fact Paddington himself as there’s a good Openzone Wi-fi signal sitting next to him, only on subscription though, Free wi-fi remained as fictional as the famous Bear.
Posted by ian at 11:39 PM | Comments (3)
How many Youthworkers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Just one, but the light bulb's got to want to change!
The most discouraging thing about youth work is when you’re working with a young person who seems unreachable. I’m facing exactly that situation at the moment and nothing I say, do, pray, give or challenge is making any discernable difference, there has been some success as I am at least liked and trusted and even treated with respect (especially compared to his abusive relationship with the rest of the world) but nothing that would constitute growth from the young man involved or recognition of any responsibility for his actions. I always come home from one of our meetings feeling heavy hearted and convinced that the next time I see him will be during visiting hour at what ever Young Offenders Institute becomes an enforced home. I’ve known him for a year and we’ve spent quite a bit of time together and I know him quite well considering how little of himself he gives away.
I called to see the lad in question last week, he’s 14, large and lives in a small, smoky, untidy house that is usually full of extended family (all young) watching TV.
He met me at the door and tried to get me back to the car as soon as possible as he “was getting some grief.” Next thing I know there are several people in the doorway and Mum shouting at me that unless I sort him out he’s not welcome back and an impressive and damning list of accusations! The upstairs window is opened and a tirade of abuse comes from there while the young man responds with surprising eloquence (though not the sort that would be awarded marks in English lessons) as I attempt to work out whether I am a mentor, family mediator or in charge of a strategic withdrawal. I go for the tactical withdrawal option promising that I will TALK to my young friend. I “ask” him as sternly as I can without making him even more angry to get in the car!
Don’t ya just love youth work
McDonalds is where we end up fairly inevitably and I’ve allowed him to have Passion FM on really loud all the way there to get some space and calm down. We get some “food” and sit in the car (it’s packed in McDonalds) and it’s over to Mr Youth Worker to do that whole informal educative stuff resulting in some owned and changed attitude!
Yeah right!
Ok some open questions about what happened this afternoon. I get a long list of what their problem is. An attempt from me to help explore what other people in the family might be feeling. I get utter incomprehension. You name it, I tried it! Tried to look at his options but it’s not a dimension in which he thinks at all. Tried to get him to think about what could happen if he went back and apologized, he has no concept AT ALL that any of the fault could be on his side. Told him I thought he was great but really didn’t like his behaviour in this situation. Nothing!
We drove back with Passion FM on again and I had no choice but to drop him off and hope/pray that he went back in with a better attitude!
The lightbulb's got to want to change!
Posted by ian at 09:14 AM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2005
But on the seventh day Blog ye not
There are six days when you may blog, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to post to your blog; wherever you log on, it is a Sabbath
Posted by ian at 07:46 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2005
You don't have to be an extrovert!
A lots of Churches that I talk to have a very stereotyped idea of what a Youth Worker is. Among their assumptive menu of the qualities required will be Extroversion. It's uncanny how often this seems to be the case, maybe it stems from how insecure so many people feel with teenagers and therefore assume you'd have to be very extroverted to work with them!
I certainly think the basic requirement of working with young people is to like them, it'd be quite scary if there was a Myers-Briggs set personality type that you had to be! (Can you imagine how naff Youth Work Conferences would be if we were all the same, although probably easier to organise!)
I am quite defintely an extrovert but this has it's down sides as well. The Myers-Briggs analysis was really useful for me, it made sense of a whole bunch of stuff. Understanding that I get my energy from being with people was really useful, even if I was tired I'd soon be buzzing if people appeared but would crash twice as badly later. I now know that on residentials I need to take some space rather than just seek out people when I'm shattered! I also know how vital it is to have a balanced team of all sorts of personality types.
The point of this preamble was this article I discovered by Jenny Baker which rightly flies the flag for Youth Workers who are naurally more introverted.
It takes all sorts ..... and this includes Youth Work, probably even more so!
Posted by ian at 02:09 PM | Comments (2)
January 28, 2005
Church Minibus
After two serious posts on a Friday I should at least do something light hearted. I always wished that I'd had the money to get a really smart Youth Group mini-bus and customize it, never quite worked out what I'd have written
down the side though, suggestions? I guess the whole A-Team Van thing features too much in my creative thinking.
At the moment I hanker after a really funky old black hearse with Youthblog and the Logo on the side, it would be great driving round the Diocese in that, It would also have lots of room in the back for all the Youthwork Malarky I carry with me.
Confession time: My first car had leopard print car covers, a Public Address System and Stick on Bullet holes down one side. By comparison a Youthblog hearse would be positively tasteful!
Posted by ian at 02:52 PM | Comments (2)
Margaret Hodge and journalismitus
I blogged a couple of days ago on the less that positive article from the Guardian covering Margaret Hodges Speech and suggested that it may have been some less than helpful journalism. Turns out that this is the case, Howard Williamson in YPN has written about this and provided the link to the full speech which is actually great! I hope that it translates into some real results!
I wish quality newspapers would be a bit more balanced in their attitude to teenagers! A report that all the Newspapers covered this week revealed that a shocking 25% of teenagers had comitted crime! I'm not condoning that but it would be interesting to know what precentage of adults had also comitted a crime such as: Cheating on their Tax, Using a mobile phone when driving, Speeding, Failing to pay for something? Just a thought!
Posted by ian at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
What do we need to remove?
I really like this story from Holland (which I know has attracted some interest on whether it might work in the UK)
Traffic engineer Hans Monderman's pilot road design scheme in
Friesland, northern Holland, may be radical - no signs or markings,
and no divisions between road and pavement.
But the success of the scheme has now prompted an EU-funded study
in Spain, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Britain. To make communities
safer, Monderman argues, we must remove 'traffic lights and signs
exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge, centre lines separating
lanes, even speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and
pedestrian crossings...it is only when the road is made more dangerous,
when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people,
that driving becomes safer...'
Monderman's experiment in 'shared space' evolved from conventional
traffic-calming schemes. When, in a small village whose residents
suffered 6,000 speeding cars a day, he took away all signs, lights and sidewalks, 'within two weeks, speeds on the road had dropped by more than half...' In fact, he says, there has never been a fatal accident on any of his roads.
But, I hear you ask, What's that got to do with Youth Ministry?
Well the reason it got me thinking was that I was involved with a really fun training evening at Wokingham last night. As part of that evening we were talking about the need to invest time in building relationships with young people, that this was absolutely foundational. I'm aware that it could be received as,
"Oh No, more stuff we need to do, HELP!"
But it's this quote from the above road engineer that really struck me,
'The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they always try to add something' Monderman says. 'To my mind, it's much better to remove things...'
It maybe that the question is not, "What do we need to add?" but what in our programme driven approach needs to be removed?
Posted by ian at 09:30 AM | Comments (2)
January 27, 2005
Seven Worst Communication Habits
Thought this was a helpful article, good to be reminded of, I think as Youth Ministers relating to the Church it's easy to be guilty of Number 1. and 7. .... I'm not telling you what they are, you'll have to read the article!
Posted by ian at 08:25 AM | Comments (0)
Youth Group Names
Searches googling for "Youth group names" and "youth ministry names" are the biggest single source of new hits that Youthblog gets! How Bizarre is that? I am staggered that these far outweigh searches for any other (and more) important avenue of youth ministry! I don't believe the teenagers will ever think,
"Hey that programme has a cool name, I'll go along and check it out!"
I'm still haunted by some of the truly cheesily acronymed names that I stumbled across for a previous blog.I stand by my call for a vision not a name to form the group and then for the young people to run with the creative part. Spent some of my idle thinking time today mentally playing with the Cheesy name thing. Just in case anyone was tempted to go down the Crass Acronym route I decided to think up a few. I thought it might work as a kind of vaccination, that is, in being exposed to a small but active part of the disease it might prevent future contamination!
NERDY: New Encounters, Really Disipling Youth
YUCK: Youth Under Christs Kingdom
IMPACT:Inernational Ministry Promoting Calvinistic Teens
CHEESY: Christs Hotspot, Evangelising Energising Societies Youth
Actually I think that these are not as bad as some actual ones I've seen. As ever I took things too far and thought of, Faithfully Urging Christian Learning! (It would have been Christian Knowledge but I chickened out!)
Posted by ian at 12:44 AM | Comments (17)
January 26, 2005
Talking of Tweenagers!
Tweens is a bit of a recurring theme and is the most popular piece of training that I am involved with at the moment. Jenny Hyson and I identified some values that are, in our opininon, critical to working with the changes that have happened with this age group. We talk about being Age Approprate (the need to recognise that Tweens are very different to our experience of being this age), the need for work to revolve around Relationship and not programme, that learning as a focus not teaching at is a priority. We also look at Spirituality as a practice and the need for discussion and learning to relate to the wider world (of which Tweens are very much aware).
None of this is Rocket Science, however for Churches it often requires a Paradigm shift. The important thing in the training is leaders talking about how these values could/should/will shape their work with the Tweenagers.
I thought it would be good to play with some ideas of what a Tween group could be, if you want the Story then you'll need to click on "Continue Reading"
Tuesday evening and the junior youth group are all arriving at a leaders house for their regular get together. The crowd of a dozen or so 10-12 year olds arrival in quick succession and sit around the lounge chatting and catching up. Part of the session involves eating together and the young person whose turn it is to cook takes a BIG packet of Pasta, some tins of soup and some Cheese to the Kitchen and tells one of the leaders what they will be eating tonight. Another of the Tweens helps make the food ready for cooking later.
Everyone then gets together in the main lounge sitting on the floor or bean bags and one of the leaders runs a bit of a how are you, what's been happening discussion which ranges all over the place and everyone has something to add, the group head off on a big tangent of "Famous people that I have met" but the leader lets it run and it generates some great laughter and story.
Things are then brought a bit more to order and a guest is welcomed, a local Christian Youth Minister who the group have invited. The guest is invited to tell their story in 5 minutes of why they are a Christian and what difference it actually makes. The Tweens then ask questions about what they've heard and how some of it actually works for the Youth Minister, the questions are fascinating and the group often end up discussing the things that have been said. There is a mixture of real depth and great fun, One of the Tweens talks about how she knows God is speaking to her.
The group all then pray for the Speaker and their role as a Christian Youth Minister applying the stuff that they have heard.
It's time for the notices and the Leader of the group reports on progress to date on fund-raising they as a group are doing for the older youth groups Mission trip to Armenia. There is a great deal of enthusiasm and although the group wish they were old enough to go thet have thrown themselves into supporting the older group. The Leader then reveals that she has found a Christian project locally that they may be able to get involved in in the summer and says, "What do you think?"
There is some discussion and an enthusiastic consensus that that would be FANTASTIC! The group then spend some time doing some practical and creative work on the fund raising while a couple of the Tweens cook Tea.
They then split into three groups and pray for each other before each having a bowl of the Pasta, Soup and Cheese recipe one of the young people concocted. Lots of laughs and chats with the leaders and with each other and the group ends.
I know it all seems a bit unrealistic .... BUT that was the group I was invited to last night and it was FAB! (Names have been changed to protect the groovy!) Cool huh?
Posted by ian at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2005
Tweenagers Training
Ran a session on "The Church and Tweenagers" last night for St Nix* which is where I used to be the Youth Worker. Really good bunch of people and the start of some good discussion on how we more effectively work with Tweens! The great thing about training in this particular arena is that there are more questions than answers so the discussion around "How?" always throws up some new creative avenues.
Quite a lot of the input last night was drawn from Marketing text Books such as "Brand Child." The Marketing people spend a fortune on research and they really understand this age group.
Martin Lindstrom who wrote "Brand Child" has some very interesting observations on what characteristics/values will be present for the most succesful brands. He reckons that they will have the right measure of:
Fear
Fantasy
Mastery
Humour
Love
Stability
If these are themes that engage Tweens then I'd love to develop a "Son of Tweenagers" training which looks creatively at these and how they overlap with our teaching and living out of a Christ Centered Life.
Posted by ian at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
St Nix Church Newbury
I mentioned I was at St Nix last night. Not strictly true! The Church is called St Nicolas Church as in "Nicholas" but for historic reasons without the "h!" Now I admit that I must have slept through the school lesson on apostrophes but when I was recruited by said Church I thought I was going to work at the Church of St Nicola (was their one?). Anyway that's just the context. The Youth group (who were called "The Firm" ... I mention this because I'm still getting loads of hits looking for Youth Ministry Names?) affectionately referred to the Church as "St Nix" which I thought was great! However some sectors of the Church did not and were very cross about this retracted form and got quite heated about it being inappropriate that the Church was being referred to as "St Nothing!" I still refer to it as St Nix (when talking to the young people) and actually quite like the fact that the main opposition to this affectionate re-branding is based on a mis-translation. "Nix" doesn't mean "nothing" it means snow or white! Cool huh? Thought you should know!
St Nicolas in the Nix
Posted by ian at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)
January 24, 2005
Margaret Hodge and why Telly is better than Youth workers
Slightly bizarre article from the Guardian on "Why Youth Clubs Can be Bad for you" based on some research that'll turn up along side the green paper. I'm looking forward to hearing what Margaret Hodge really has to say as I think there may be some journalismitus going on! However I want to just point out where this report seems to disappear up its own hypothesis!
1. Claiming that Youth Clubs can be bad for you is a bit off when they are not talking about Youth Work at all, the claims only relate to where there is no activity taking place. Youth work is about opportunity for young people to grow and develop.
2. Claiming that Telly (TV) could be better for young people than "Youth Club" rather flies in the face of all the recent research. I thought were were told that sitting in front of the TV and the resultant inactive snacking leads to obesity and associated health problems.
3. The article appears to think that hanging around at a Youth Club can lead to smoking, underachievement and crime. However at the same time the article quotes that the trouble is only caused by 25-30% (over-estimate I reckon) who resist involvement in organised activities AND therefore wouldn't be at a Youth Club.
There may be some historical truth in the report I admit as its based on a group born in 1970, I can't help thinking though that this particular article is not very helpful as it will usually be received as a statement about current practice!
I look forward to the full research and the Green Paper being published and hope it will produce some coverage a bit more positive than this misleading article!
Posted by ian at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)
How do you know you're Called to Youth Ministry?
Ploughing through the Google Searches that had landed people onto the "Old Kent Road" of the Blogopoly board threw up some interesting stuff. Two particular themes struck me!
Loads of people have been looking for "Youth Ministry Names" or "Youth Group Names" Why? Here's a tip, get a Vision not a Name, young people will come up with a Name! Sorted!
The search that I really loved though was the one that gives this "post" its title,
"How do you know you're Called to Youth Ministry?"
What a great question, what an important question! I reckon it's a great one for the collective wisdom of Blogbury but I thought I'd have a stab at it!
1. You're not sure entirely how you ended up doing Youth Ministry there just seem to have been things that led that way!
2. You just like young people!
3. There's other stuff you've done and can do BUT Youth Ministry just feels like where you and God connect
4. When you've been able to help a teenager work through some stuff you just kind of feel this "YES!" type feeling.
5. When you read the Bible you can't help seeing the 12 Disciples as a kind of Youth Group and Jesus as a great Youth Minister.
6. When people say "You're Mad" because your taking some young people away for the weekend, you don't get why they don't get it!
7. You log onto Youthblog regularly (couldn't resist that one!)
8. You laugh a lot when you are with young people.
9. It feels like, this is who you are, who God made you to be!
Posted by ian at 09:46 AM | Comments (5)
January 23, 2005
Essay Progress report
Procrastination Rating: 2.75
Number of Words Written: NOW 1784 wahooo x 2
Percentage of Assignment I still don't understand: 1%
Number of unneccessary Coffee Breaks: Lost count
Reason for being on-line: Gloating
Number of days late the assignment is: 7
THE ESSAY IS FINISHED ...... I DID IT!
Posted by ian at 09:07 PM | Comments (4)
January 22, 2005
Interruption to "normal" Service
I have an overdue College Assignment which I HAVE to complete this weekend. The negative effects of this will be that I will have to drop all the practical research work I have been doing for my PhD level study in Procrastination! I also will not be blogging about youth work and ministry this weekend. Normal service will resume on Monday!
In the meantime: Today on my lunchtime stroll I was thinking about the Perfect Youth Worker and what attributes they would have. I then ended up thinking about "The Six Million Dollar Man" which was a truly cheesy TV thing from the 70's in which featured a character called Colonel Steve Austin. In the show he'd managed to get himself blown up in a Rocket accident but they'd managed to keep him alive and rebuild him to be stronger, faster and with telescope vision (if I remember rightly) .... thus enabling him to be a cunning weapon in the battle with all things that were against the American Way! The two ideas seemed to join up, so given the chance to build the Six Million Dollar Youthworker and therefore the ability to ammend any physical, Intellectual or Emotional limitations, what would you change?
Posted by ian at 12:50 AM | Comments (1)
January 21, 2005
Commenting to Youthblog
Due to the evil nasty annoying Parasitic Purveyors of Spam, Youthblog has had to be modified! From this moment forth (sounded better than "from now on" I thought) Comments will only be accepted for "Posts" less than 10 days old. Please Please e-mail me if you have something to add to an older debate rather than feeling dis-inblogged!
Question: Does God even love Spammers?
Posted by ian at 10:57 AM | Comments (4)
Fusion, Youth and Community
I know I've mentioned Fusion before however they are worth mentioning.
Yesterday afternoon found me in a Wine Bar in Thame for a presentation by Fusion. They've been working in Thame for a while now talking and listening to the community. They carried out a survey which involved talking to young people and well, everyone about the needs of young people and the community. Yesterday was the launch of that survey. The process has drawn so many people together and the Wine bar was packed with all sorts of people including Community leaders, Councillors, Youth workers, Scouts, Church leaders/members and more.
One of the things I love about Fusion is that they are a Christian organisation but so adjusted to their Roles and Goals that they can build bridges and enable people to work together from across all sections of the community. There was a real buzz about what this survey AND acting on it together could mean for Thame. I am looking forward to seeing how it develops!
Thinking: I may ask Fusion if they'll help me put on a day in Oxford on Community Surveys, Open Festival Work and their approach to youth AND community work. Let me know if you'd be interested!
Posted by ian at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2005
Youthblog where art thou?
For the UK readership and London dwellers, I'm in London on the 31st January, anyone fancy a coffee and youth ministry think at about 3:30pm. Will be at the Matrix Conference Feb 9th-11th, I know Lev is going .... anyone else?
Posted by ian at 02:23 PM | Comments (4)
The Art of Googling for Resources
I've uploaded the guide to better using Google to find youthwork and ministry stuff which you'll find it on the Resources page!
I've also put some links to useful sites on the main Diocesan Youth pages, I'd welcome any additional recomendations of sites that you use and frequently
re-visit.
Posted by ian at 12:49 PM | Comments (1)
Quote for today
"Adolescence is perhaps nature's way of preparing parents to welcome the empty nest" Karen Savage and Patricia Adams, The Good Stepmother
Posted by ian at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Non Emerging Leader
I spent the morning not being Jonny Baker!
I was supposed to be at a seminar on Emerging Church led by Jonny. Unfortunately his car broke down (hope it's fixed if by any chance you read this!) So at the last minute Dot Gosling (Chester College) and I were asked to lead it. We started off by asking why people had signed up to this seminar in particular to see how we'd structure it. The first response was,
"To see Jonny Baker" (be encouraged Jonny!)
We still had a good session though. Dot did an overview and a lot of the Hirsh and Frost stuff on "The Shaping of things to come" was still very much in my mind and proved a helpful framework. We were able to prompt discussion and dispel a few myths. Given that the room was full of trainers representing many different denominations, groups and colleges it was good to be able to discuss the relationship between the Mainstream and the Emerging! As ever more questions than answers but some very astute ones ...... which people should direct to the real Jonny Baker!
Posted by ian at 10:52 AM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2005
Conference Update
Lots of debate at the conference around the JNC qualification, it's future and it's role. Also what happens when Youth Work (JNC) becomes a degree in 2010? (It will then be a three year degree in itself rather than the degree mix we have at the moment of 2 year JNC diploma with theology/ministry making up the equivilent of year 3). The other big source of debate is VERY importantly around the training of volunteers, should it be accreditted? What motivates volunteers to access training? What's the most effective way to make it available!
There's some great people here and I've even met "Betty" who contributed majorly to the youthblog debate on JNC and Ministry!
Posted by ian at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)
Fusion Youth and Community
There's a Christian Youth and Community Organisation called FUSION who I have an enormous amount of respect for. They originate in Australia but have been invited to work in loads of countries as a result of some fantastic community, youth and open festival work that they do (and more importantly help others to do!)
Fusion have been working in the UK and have just been trying to see if their strategies work here, from what I've seen I'd say yes they do and are! I really believe they're on to something with their approach to youth and community work and especially the festivals as a way of re-engaging with community.
They are putting on a FOUNDATIONS Course (which is the main course they run in Australia) in High Wycombe in March. Here's the web site and here's a pdf of the press release! Download file
Posted by ian at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
Undercover Youthworker
I'm going up to Swanwick Conference Centre for today and tomorrow. I will be at the "Connect" conference for Youth Work/Ministry trainers BUT in the same centre at the same time will be the "Good Book" Conference for Children's/Youth Workers which I'd not heard of at all until Sunday! (I will attempt to go undercover and infiltrate one of their sessions to be able to let you know about this mysterious gathering that managed somehow to completely avoid my radar)
Swanick's sister Conference Centre (not sure what makes them sisters rather than just siblings?) has wi-fi so I'm hoping that there will be a high level of blogability at Swanwick too!
Anyone at the Connect Conference will be able to spot me as I'll be wearing a Youthblog T Shirt, at the other I will, obviously, be in disguise!
Posted by ian at 12:45 AM | Comments (6)
January 17, 2005
Good to see you!
Roy has a great story today on the effect of being able to call a young person by their name after several years gap. A wonderful Youthwork moment where it communicates volumes about the value in which you hold that young person!
I've heard it said that the sweetest sound in the world is someone calling you by name, conversley the most grating sound is being addressed by the wrong name! I reckon there's a lot of truth in this, having observed the effects of getting it right and wrong.
Whenever we've run residentials and holidays I've tried to get us as a team to take this FULLY on board. It's a big challenge especially as our abilities to remember names vary enormously and for some people it's really hard. However if we recognise the value of knowing young people by name then it's something that we'll work at. A few years ago someone gave me some great advice on remembering names. As fitting with the Sharey-Carey world of Blogdonia ... here it is!
1. Listen out for the persons name (sounds obvious but we tend to be bad at active listening, it's even worse if we are introduced because we tend to listen out for our own name!)
2. Having heard the name make sure you use it as soon as possible (e.g, "Good to meet you Geoff, do you know anyone here?")
3. Make some sort of mental association between the name and the Person (doesn't matter how obscure it'll make it a firmer part of your memory!)
4. Write it down at the next opportunity! (After a youthwork session it's really useful to make a few notes that you can read before the next session as a reminder, "Hi Geoff, I was hoping you'd be here again!")
Posted by ian at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)
A Bit of Monday Encouragement
Click here, type in your name and soak up some affirmation!
Posted by ian at 09:37 AM | Comments (3)
January 15, 2005
What does a youth group look like?
Someone found Youthblog by Googling, "What does a youth group look like?" which I thought was a strange question and led me off into some bizarre thinking. I wondered if I should produce a list of must-have teen types, e.g the Extrovert-enthuser, the Shy-creative, the Friendly-encourager, the Animated-argumentative? I didn't think I could come up with a typical list though. I certainly couldn't come with any standard idea, shape, membership or meeting time for a youth group either!
Frustrated at this I decided to ask myself "What should a Youth Group be called?" I went looking and found a list of hundreds of genuine youth ministry groups on the "Pastor2youth" site! There were some great names and some that answered the question, "What shouldn't a youth group be called?" It would be against the positive nature of Youthblog to name and shame but if there isn't at least one under "M" that makes you go, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" then we have to talk!
Moral of this blog is no matter what the youth group looks like NEVER grab a name then try and make it into an acronym!
Posted by ian at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2005
Young People are worth listening to!
Sometimes I feel like a play a one string guitar (metaphorically speaking you understand, I can't play any instruments no matter how simple) as I spend so much time saying, "Listen to young people!" It's amazing how many people just don't seem to think this is a worthwhile excercise. I know a youth worker who was invited to take a party of young people to the houses of Parliment to meet with one of the ministers. The minister duly met them and said, "I'm very keen to hear what you have to say!" He then spoke for 20 minutes, looked at his watch and said, "oh I've got to go now!" I won't even start on the Church stories!
Doh!
As a result I was really encouraged by one of the positive stories that came out of the Indian Ocean Disaster, the story of how a 10 year old girl saved a whole beach of people! Tilly had learned about Tsunami's in school. When the water started to recede she recognised what was likely to happen, while the other tourists were just staring and looking on she told he mum that there was going to be a Tidal Wave. Her mum told the hotel staff and the beach was evacuated, as a result no one from that beach lost their life!
Supposing no-one had listened to the little girl?
Young people are worth listening to!
Posted by ian at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2005
Lets do lunch?
Sometimes my job is so cool! I had lunch today with some colleagues and Ben Okafor who I've heard play many times at Greenbelt but not actually spoken to before. He's very cool and it was a fun time as well as some serious debate around justice and the role of the Church.
If you are in Oxford Diocese then put 11th September in your diary (3pm!) It's Racial Justice Sunday and Ben will be playing at the service at St Laurence Reading. We are planning something else too that weekend around justice issues and connecting with young people! You heard it here first!
Posted by ian at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
How much stuff do you need?
I blogged a while back about Sarah Mclachlan's video "World on Fire" and how they'd spent $150 Dollars on the video rather than the usual $150,000. They then gave away the difference and detailed what the money would normally have bought (director, catering, lighting etc) and what it bought instead in the two thirds world! This was a very cool piece of work but it strikes me too that it would make an excellent Basis for a discussion with young people if you are able to be on-line where you meet!
After showing the video you could go on-line and see where members of the group come on the global rich list (quite an eye openener!) and ask the question, How much Stuff do you need?
It would be interesting to look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs if you know this piece of work. It would also be a challenge to look at a downward list of growing affluence and ask how far down would you draw the line in what you consider acceptable to have in an un-equal world. (I've played with a kind of list below which starts off in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and becomes I guess, Youthblog's hierarchy of greeds!)
Water to drink
Food to eat
Freedom to travel
A job
Access to Healthcare
A Place to Live
Your own home
A Car
A Holiday
Membership of a health club
Designer Clothes
A Foreign Holiday
Savings
Beauty treatment
An expensive Car
Several Foreign Holidays
Cosmetic Surgery
A Holiday Home
Household Staff
A Boat
Personalised Number Plate
An extra Car for fun
Property abroad
Posted by ian at 11:28 AM | Comments (2)
January 12, 2005
Youth Ministry without coffee?
Lark News are being as wonderfully silly as ever, quite liked this pseudo headline on a coffee fast! I've blogged before that I cannot imagine running a residential without coffee (oh me of little faith) so this amused me.
If Johnny, one of my favourite ex-bloggers, tunes in I know he'll like this Lark Story!
Posted by ian at 08:34 AM | Comments (5)
January 11, 2005
Come on and Stop me Ammadeus
Here's a link that will either amuse or sadden you (or both if you're me!) about Classical Music being used to deter teenagers from congregating! On an amusing level it seems reminiscent of the Track (what was it?) that they accidently discover can defeat the aliens in "Mars Attack!" Mozart as "yob" control!
It does sadden me though that groups of young people are always seen as a problem (I admit they can be a handful!) and that we have a society that doesn't welcome it's fledgling members but sees them more as a pest-control issue! Ironic too that a group of young people playing music loud is a problem, adults playing Classical Music loud is a solution! Grrrrhghhghghghghghhhghgh
I am expecting to hear an advert soon that runs along the lines of:
Have you got an infestation of teenagers making your life a misery? You are not alone! Help is now at hand. Introducing new "Yob-be-Gone" in handy CD form. One play success or your money back! Call Now, Operators standing by! (Product does conatin high doses of Mozart, may cause drowsiness in Adults!)
Posted by ian at 09:04 AM | Comments (2)
January 10, 2005
Youth Ministry Collective Nouns
For what it's worth here's my suggestions:
A Bravado of teenagers
A Random of Youth Ministers
A resistence of PCC Members
A Resigned of Parents
Feel free to add suggestions before I contact Websters and the Oxford English Dictionary!
Posted by ian at 06:40 PM | Comments (1)
Collective Nouns
We have a meeting of employed youth ministers on Wednesday but I do not know the collective-noun to describe a group thereof! The Collective Noun Page contains quite a list of both authorative nouns and amusing suggestions but doesn't actually help!
Your suggestions please for Collective Nouns relating to groups of:
Teenagers
PCC Members
Youth Ministers
Parents of teenagers
Over to your creative or comic collective geniuses?
Posted by ian at 10:10 AM | Comments (2)
January 09, 2005
Youthwork Resources and Search Engines
If you type Youth Work into Google you will immediately have access to thirty four million nine hundred thousand pages! Certainly enough reading to keep you busy for the weekend. Weird too when I think that I used to have and NEED a whole office of resources, images, media and the like to support my youth ministry role and now all I need is a telephone socket or a Wi-fi hotspot! Pretty Cool and slightly weird (I reckon we should have a "National Stop taking technology for granted and get awestruck day!") It is obvious though that when faced with 34,000,000 pages it may be paralysing rather than a handy source of information. Monitoring the "searches" that have signposted people onto the Youthblog sidestreet of the super highway, it becomes obvious that not everyone is using search engines to their full capability! For the more geekly endowed it's time to duck out now, but if you are just typing a string of words into Google and hoping, then you may want to press continue reading as I've written some stuff on how to more fully use search engines!
If you type
youth work
into google it will immediately throw back at you all the sites (a lot of them) that mention both youth and work, some of these will be youth work and some will be about employment of young people!
Straight away we can improve the search by using quotation marks! If you now search for
"youth work"
the number of sites has been reduced considerably because it is now searching for these two words togther as a phrase not just the presence of both of them.
You can now refine the search further with the use of + and of -
"youth work" +resources
will look for the phrase youth work and ONLY sites that also mention resources! You can also eliminate key words by using -
"youth work" UK +resources -training
will look for UK resources without throwing up pages that are talking about training!
Google is only as good as the information that you give it, so thinking about what key words you do AND don't want will give you the most useful sites. It's also woth remembering that it can be hard work finding sites that give you good youth work/youth ministry resources so when you find them then add them to your favourites!
If you are looking for particular types of sites via Google you can include the word intitle: in the search, this will then only deliver sites that have your key word in the title, e.g
intitle:youthwork
inurl: works in exactly the same way for the web address
SEARCHING for images
IN December I had loads of hits from people looking for
Nativity jpg
and then trawling through the web pages (youthblog included) HOWEVER simply clicking on "images" above the google bar rather than just the web search which is the default would have given you immediate access to 63,000 Nativity images!
Hope some of this is useful to you!
Posted by ian at 04:41 AM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2005
Youth Ministry Resources
Hey if you've stumbled across Youthblog for the first time, Welcome! I tend to "post" every day about something to do with youth ministry and youth work or at least how I see the world as a youth minister. If you're looking for something specific then you can search in the right hand column, you can also click on read by themes and find stuff that way! You should find something that'll encourage, challenge or inform you. If you don't then lob in a question by e-mail or by comment, I love having stuff that makes me think and I love any discussion that makes us better youth leaders, workers and/or ministers!
Posted by ian at 03:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2005
IASYM Conference
The day at the conference was great, I wish I'd had chance to be there for longer. Jonny Baker has written up the sessions on Redemptionitis and Intergenerational Congregations, they are well worth reading! For me the best part, as ever, was talking to the other delegates and hearing stories from different countries and what's happening with Youth Ministry there. Spent quite a bit of time with Anglican Advisers from New Zealand and Canada, we were sharing a lot of the same struggles on how to get Churches to genuinely enagage with young people where there is real involvement, listening and opportunity for young people to lead!
In terms of the sessions that I went to, I loved hearing Prof Malan Nel (South Africa) on "Why theology? It is only youth ministry!"
Malan brilliantly argued that theology is vital for Youth Ministry, I'm still processing a lot of the lecture but I hope these couple of quotes give you something to chew on in terms of a definition of youth ministry (I like the fact it is a WHOLE Church one) and a working challenge of what we should be able to do!
"Youth Ministry is an inclusive congregational ministry in which God comes, [through all modes of ministry and with special regard to parents (or their substitutes)] in a differentiated and focussed way to, with and through youth as an integral part of the local faith community and also with and through youth to the world" (Nel 2000:97)
"I would say that people in ministry (full or part time) should be able to reflect upon the ministry with regard to knowledge, insight, competency and attitude as to what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and with what attitude we do what we do" (Nel)
Posted by ian at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2005
I'm not worthy!
I'm at the (IASYM) International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry Conference, it's so cool! It's an international who's who of youth ministry and I'm having some fantastic conversations! Am feeling a bit like Wayne and Garth at the Alice Cooper concert though, "I'm not worthy!"
Party on though eh!
Posted by ian at 11:54 AM | Comments (5)
But teenagers are scary
I'm amazed at the number of people I meet (including some training for ministry) who are at best nervous of teenagers but often actually scared of them. For a youth worker it's strange that teenagers are viewed by some as a dangerous mutant alien species, but the reality is, that's often how they are seen. Very sad!
There have been quite a few training situations where I've abandoned the lesson plan and we've instead had to look at, How to like teenagers? How to look beyond what teenagers look like to who they are?
A true story:
The first night of a national youth camp is always interesting. No one knows anyone and teenagers I admit can look kind of big and scary when they first arrive. At the first meal of one such event I noticed that there was no-one sitting with one of the teens. He was quite a big guy with punked up hair and a good collection of leather, studs and attitude. I headed, with some trepedation I admit, for his table.
Me: Mind if I sit here?
Him: Grunt (I took it to be a positive kind of a grunt)
Me: Hey your hair looks cool! Why do you wear it like that?
Him: I like Punk!
Me: oh (not knowing anything about punk but frantically trying to think of at least one band), what sort of bands (band pops into head) The Dead Kennedy's?
Him (much more animated) yeah they're great and I also really love .........
(I learnt a lot about punk in the following half an hour)
This was a few years ago now but I still remember him well and just how unscary he was when you got to know him. The more he got into camp and felt ok to be him the more of him you saw. My favourite memory of him was on the mounatin biking on Dartmoor. It was a bleak day, the rain was coming at us from all angles, we were wet, we were muddy, we were miles from anywhere and he rode up to the front with a huge friendly grin on his face and said to me (in a manner rather like a big labrador) "This is SO cool, it's the best fun I've ever had!"
There is a moral to this story but I forget what it was!
Posted by ian at 01:16 AM | Comments (1)
January 05, 2005
Spammers really wind me up!
I'm having MAJOR problems with spammers and having to delete upwards of 30 a day from Credit cards, Casinos and the like. They REALLY wind me up. I'm feeling quite un-Christian about the whole thing. Wouldn't be great to unleash the collective power of 5 million bloggers back at the spam saddos, how cool would that be? I know I should turn the other cheek but it's quite fun wandering off into a fantasy of how the Bloggers might strike back. Imagine if you will the Spammers receiving 5 million pieces of snail mail that were indistinguishable from their genuine orders! Ok fantasy over, can my more technically savvy friends offer any helpful advice? Since writng this I've had some really depraved stuff linked to my site as trackbacks, is there an official avenue for reporting this?
Posted by ian at 03:59 PM | Comments (3)
No Purpling
One of the challenges of running a residential is setting the ground rules in a way thats fun and enabling NOT a series of "Thou Shall Nots" which starts to feel like "Thou shalt not have fun!"
One of the rules that we used to have was: "No Purpling!" .... a light hearted way of saying that the girls were not allowed in the boys dorms and the boys not allowed in the girls dorms i.e the pink and the blue couldn't mix (No Purple!)
In my last youth group this concept of purpling took on a life of it's own and we had all catergories defined right from Mild Purpling to (if we were ever talking about sex) Extreme Purpling!, How cool is that? Worked really well too in that it made some important conversations much more accessible!
Posted by ian at 09:35 AM | Comments (1)
January 04, 2005
The long dark night of the blogger
I was looking forward to going to work today and manning the Youth Adviser hot desk once again but alas a "Common Cold" has left me feeling uncommonly horrible! On the plus side though being up half the night meant a couple of hours trawling in uncharted territories of the Blogosphere and in the process I found some great new blogs, chief among them was this one:
Amy Loves Books is fantastic! I don't know how to do justice to it really but I just loved the stories she had to tell, the overflowing sense of wonder and life, the reality and the way she writes! If you're confined to barracks today, pour yourself a double lemsip, log on to Amy's site (go into the archives and start at Jan 04) and read an inspiring blog by the only person I've ever heard of who go sacked from the library for reading the books!
Posted by ian at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)
January 03, 2005
On the Resolution Menu
New Years Resolutions,you either love 'em or hate 'em eh! The start of a New Year though is a great time to reveiw, think through and to remember that, (ooh look out for the CHEESY cliche)
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!"
I do note that Sarah has resolved not to be resolute, however other bloggers have put up some resolutions (nothing like a blog to keep you accountable) and as ever I wanted to be a bit helpful. So if you work with young people you can print off this handy list of resolute inspiration and decide which two or three to go for!
I will start organizing the Residential earlier
I will stop and ask why?
I will put aside time to pray for the young people
I will stop eating the tuck when setting up for youth group
I will spend some time with the teenager whose behaviour has been winding me up
I will ask for a proper budget
I will review
I will plan how I can involve young people in leadership
I will seek opportunities to learn
I will listen more
I will tell the church warden it was me that broke the window
Posted by ian at 08:07 AM | Comments (1)
January 02, 2005
New Years Resolutions
I'm still working on a pick 'n Mix Smorgasbord of New Years Resolutions that'll have something for youth workers/ministers, volunteers and paid. Not easy but interesting I reckon.
I remember reading once though:
"We tend to over-estimate what we can achieve in one year
but under-estimate what we can achieve in five years"
Wise words I reckon, It's certainly got me thinking about AND beyond 2005 in terms of what I'd love to see develop in my area of ministry!
Posted by ian at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)