April 2005 Archives

Apologies for the indulgence but for the really small bunch of people who are (or pretend to be) interested in the building project ..... tada, here it is in all it's emerging sheddiness:

"Today the walls, tomorrow the roof!" sound of *maniacal laughter*

I loved this film! I've spent ages trying to write a synopsis but have given up and give you instead Yahoo's take on the film:

"Good girl" Mary (Jena Malone) and her popular, influential best friend, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), are starting their senior year at the top of the social structure at American Christian High School. But when Mary finds out she’s pregnant, Hilary Faye and her devoted "disciples" turn against Mary and the school labels her an outcast. It's as an outsider, however, that Mary finds true friends – other students the school doesn't quite know what to do with. In this sweetly subversive comedy, a group of strangers band together to navigate the treacherous halls of high school and make it to graduation, ultimately learning more about themselves and finding out what it truly means to be Saved!"

Here's my thoughts on it: The film has "ouch" in abundance holding a mirror up to christian culture, it has lots of laughs, it has joy and hope, it explores redemption rather than the narrow idea of "Saved" that is the pre-occupation of Hilary Faye, the baddy (goody) of the film. It might wind you up, it might make you smile, it might odly inspire you, it might do all of these.

Check out the trailer here!

For anyone who has had to unlearn some of the stuff that christian culture has taught them, for those whom following Christ is a messy wonderful adventure where there are more greys than black 'n whites, watch this movie!

Indebted to Sudders for linking to the results of the "Hideous cars owned by youth workers" competition! Made me laugh!
When I was first a volunteer youth leader I had an Austin Allegro Estate but I did have a Public Address system build in to it, being able to talk to passers by, crowds etc I thought was fab! (The car also had stick-on bullet holes for reasons I forget). Up until 2 years ago though my car was an old 1988 VW Polo that I was given by one of the youth leaders. Due to a leaky passenger door though I had to tape it shut. Clearly this is not acceptable if giving lifts to young people so my mental risk assessment neccessitated un-taping the door for youth work then taping it back up afterwards!

Most distinctive youth work car I know of at the moment is Deep Thought's Fiat Panda. Nearly every other example of this late 80's shoebox have rusted away but this one gets welded back together every year and it just keeps on going ..... just!

I'd love a really cool minibus, that would be excellent! What would your ultimate youthworker-mobile be?

Just had an e-mail from Ian (Oxford Vineyard), he's found this minibus for £695 on Autotrader. All it needs is a re-spray in black and the Youthblog logo adding.

I blogged a few days ago about amaztype as a great way of producing unsual titles for powerpoint and the like. Along similarish lines here's typo generator which mixes your phrase and puts background and image with it. I really like some of the stuff it produces, thanks to Robert for the link.

I reckon this will be great to produce some backgrounds for worship. You can also retain the pattern & images but change the text, enabling you to produce a similar group of slides.

Huzzah, I've completed a years worth of blogging but three months ahead of schedule! This is the 366th post since I started Youthblog in August ..... and there was me wandering if I would be able to think of anything to say! I love being part of the blogosphere and it's become part of my life, I blog therefore I am (Blogito ergo sum)!
In the car I was trying to work out who the regular readers are. These are who I think you are: Nick J, Dr Sarah, Kristofer, Mark B, Stu P, KTvS, Tessa, Sudders, Pete M, Acting Phil, Diana, Nick L, Kathryn, Abigail, Johnny B, Graham, Gavin, Paul, Richard P, Nigel, Tony, Stu, Pete L, Roy, Peter, Dave W, Richard, Barrie, Dave, Ben, Simon, Rob, Ken, Tony, Andy, Dan, Kevin, Robert, Alice, Katie, Mike, Robert, Grant, Lewis, Crispin, Ian, Mark M, Andrew G, Giles and ....
Have I missed you out? Let me know and I'll add you in.

THANKS to all readers, known and unknown, commenters and musers, challengers and agreers, volunteers and full timers!

New and revised, some deletions and some new entries: Click

Too much of my mind wandering time on the drive to work is being occupied with the shed I'm building (designing it I should add, not just being preoccupied with the shedness of it). As a result I have no coherent blog to present this morning, sorry! However I have a stash of contextless randomness to offer:
New (to me) Youth Ministry blogs to check out: Holy Phil, Stu's Rants and Ministry via Mistakes! Events: CPAS are putting on some training called "Liquid Worship and the All-Age Church" in Warwick on July 2nd. Jobs: Schools work job in Oxford Download file, DYO job in Coventry Download file.
Apologies for randomness of entry AND if anyone is interested here's a picture of my emerging shed, how sheddy is that!

(You'll notice I've already put in a window, smart huh? I can now see what I'm doing)

Interesting (and disturbing) survey in the Times relating to the "Young People in 2004" survey. I've been unable to find the report but the article can be found here.

"More than a third of girls aged 10 and 11 admitted that they were sometimes afraid of going to primary school because of bullying. A quarter of primary pupils said that they had been bullied often or daily in the past month.

Nearly 60 per cent of girls aged 14 and 15 were unhappy with their weight, as were more than half of 12 and 13-year-olds. Between a quarter and a third of boys said that they wanted to be slimmer"
Tony Halpin, The Times

Mad time on Friday night! I was at a Church in the Diocese who run a group for 9-12 year olds. Friday night was apparently a "quieter" night but still had 83 young people! Got thoroughly beaten in a grass fight but mainly just chatted and observed, it was fun!
Great bunch of leaders and really committed! I wonder though if a group this size becomes a victim of it's own success? The bigger a group gets the less opportunity there is for building relationship and community, for being a distinctively chrisian group.

Interesting chat about "wrist bands" with some of the young people who didn't neccessarily relate to ANY of the campaigns, it was instead cool to have the most!

I blogged before about "Baby got Book" which I think is hilarious! If you haven't seen it yet, you SO should! My 10 year old this morning added a new dimension to it however! I followed the sound of laughter and found him watching it at double speed, he was right, "Twice as Funny!"

I should have said that the "Spirituality Day" made reference to work being done by the national Youth Agency! More details just ..... here

Ok here goes, Youthblog's take on the Spirituality day put on by CTE and the inimitable JBB!

The key parts of the day were presentations by Bob Mayo and by Phil Rankin who were reporting on two seperate pieces of research, the first connected with the Nazarene College in Manchester, the latter at Sarum College in Salisbury.

Bob was reporting on the Nazareth project which is seeking to explore "The gap between the reality and expectation of Christian Youth Work" and working with young people who have a connection with some sort of faith based work. I'm afraid I was not able to get down all the questions that formed this work but Bob identified three types of Spiritual response in those questioned:

1. Entertainment (ghosts, scares, talking points)
2. Significance (family, friends connections, an idea of life being lived to the full)
3. Transcendence (a sense of "other" an acknowledgment of God)

As a work in progress Bob and team also postulated two types of Spirituality:
FORMATIVE (concerned with the human condition, making meaning, value sensing)
TRANSFORMATIVE (conscious attempt to touch a deeper reality)

They also noted how many of their respondents prayed but were often unclear about to whom they prayed and why ..... but prayer was part of who they were!

Phil Rankins work was based around conversations with young people (aged 14-25) in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The conversations happened wherever he found people and was as random as is possible. His research was around two questions and the ensuing conversation. He used no tapes or notebook (in order that the discussion would flow) but wrote up detailed accounts immediately afterwards. The two questions were:

1. Do you perceive yourself as spiritual
2. What do you understand by spirituality

I'm really looking forward to this report being published as this open conversation prompted some extrodinary stuff. What emerged was young people would often struggle to consider themselves spiritual BUT as the conversation went on spiritual stuff emerged.
Phil discovered that young people really appreciated the opportunity to talk about this subject and their experiences. They were really happy to talk about "spirituality" when someone was actually listening not telling them.
Phil discovered that Young People pray a lot.
He also discovered that Young People think they have sufficient information to reject christianity when in fact they have very little understanding of the christian faith. His experience also bore out that Young people long to be genuinely part of REAL community.

It was clear from all aspects of the conference that a unifying definition of spirituality eludes us. Probably the most helpful one came from someone in Phil's research who referred to it as,
"Stuff concerned with life and death"

Great day, I hope it'll form the basis for lots more discussion, experimentation and theological reflection.

Key thing so far for me (and a regular line of mine):
FIRST, LISTEN TO YOUNG PEOPLE!

(PS CTE are considering repeating the day in the Midlands sometime in the Autumn, if you're interested let them know as they are keen to see if there's a demand, JBB via office@cte.org.uk)

Fantastic day yesterday at the "Spirituality and Young People" conference in London. It's triggered ton(nes) of thought, both the sessions and the conversations. I'm not going to blog about it until tomorrow as I'm still distilling some of the stuff and working out what is helpfully blogable and what needs to wait for the research to be published.
It was a great day for networking though and even more importantly the chance to complete some more of my I-Spy book of Bloggers. I managed to spot Diana and that's worth 30 points!

Respect to Dave and all best wishes for the new site and buisness!

Maybe "preaching" is too loaded a word (thanks Sarah, Richard et al) but I do believe in communication. I do believe that when we move our emphasis from "teaching" to "learning" then great things can happen, including dialogue, media and engagement with more than just the sense of hearing. I believe these things can exist within what I call the preach! Although having read Richards comments this is probably not the correct starting place. I will attempt not to mention preaching tomorrow but look at some communication stuff in relation to young people.

Before I get off preaching though I recall that some American Churches a few years back had asked a Madison Avenue Company to do a piece of consultation work. The Churches had comissioned a study around how to more effectively use the "sermon slot"
If my recollection is correct then the summary revolved around three points:

1. Know your people
2. Involve your people
3. Be/use the visual

I also recall that there was a book around entitled "Why nobody learns much of anything in Church!"

I enjoyed the comments on the preach/sermon divide that I flagged up (thanks) and the call for another catergory of "talk!" I however like the dynamic of the word "preach" and am going to run with it for the moment.

I find it much easier, in one way, preaching to groups of young people, you get so much more feedback and reaction; it's easy to read when you are connecting and when you've lost the plot. (This also makes it harder too) By comparison adult congregations are really draining as it's difficult to get a reaction you can read .... also adults are much better at masking what they're thinking, so you can just "sermonize" without knowing when you are irrelevant. I believe this makes the sermon, in many ways, too easy! The sermon slot exists and it will be filled/tolerated!

Weirdly the law is totally on the side of the sermon. The 1861 "Offences against the person" act makes it illegal to interupt any part of the service including the sermon. I think a healthy dose of heckling or at the least a well timed,
"What are you talking about?" would be enormously productive!

The trouble is the sermon begats the sermon and failure to develop just replicates a style of communication that is totally alien to young people!

There seems to have been a thread of thought developing recently among the youthwork quadrant of blogdom regarding preaching and it's role. Tim asked

"Is the tool of preaching irrelevant to this generation?"

Good question!
Communication, teaching/learning, preaching and the like has long interested me, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. So, *warning* I can see a few days being devoted to the subject so if it doesn't light your fire then have the rest of the week off!

For what it's worth I'd say the "Sermon" is irrelevant (in it's typical form) to this generation however preaching isn't and can't be! Stay with me on this one I'm not just playing with words, I want to explore a contrast between the sermon slot by right and the preach by intention. How can preaching be irrelevant? It's about the practical challenge and teaching of Christian truth and experience in a way that connects with and challenges the recipients. I have a high regard for preachers who've learnt their art learning how to communicate to people who don't think they wanted to be communicated with (youth groups/assemblies etc)! Forgive the deliberate polarisation but I thought it might be interesting to explore what the sermon has become with what a good preach could/should be:

Phil and I seem to be on a blog "cultural" exchange today, He's got something from my site and I'm lifting from his site too. He managed to unearth an "Alanis Morisette" song generator which made me laugh. I asked for a song about Legalism! I'm impressed with the result:

"Why"

Why God, Why?
Why God, Why?
Why God, Why?
Why God, Why?

I'm really pleased to hear that FYT have secured funding for another year of the Connect (Spiritual Development) Project! (Nigel will be at the Youth Spirituality day in London on Wednesday)
FYT are offering a new stream of training, "Responding to Challenging behaviour!" If any Diocesan readers would like us to host a session then leave a yes type comment.

Oh and while I'm doing a News type summary then it might be worth listening to a prog on Radio 2 on Tuesday at 20:30 called "God in the Music Machine" about Christian Music!

If there existed a site where you could enter a word and then the site would create a "flash" animation of that word made entirely of books that have your word in the title, how would that be useful?
I merely ask because there is such a site! (thanks Jesus tribe)

Actually having thought that this was fairly pointless exercise I've found they are fantastic for Title slides on powerpoint. The one I used for a talk on "Sex" makes quite an impact.

Finally attacking the North Face or the "In" tray (without supplemental oxygen) and in a concealed couloir I've found a note promising Mark that I'd flag up the Forum he's set up! It's called Anapauo and you should check it out!

Deep Thought launched into her blog yesterday by mentioning the advert for Honda, "Cog" although she couldn't remember what it was for! (not uncommon with adverts, apparently every time Thora Hird appeared on TV advertising stair lifts, Stannah's sales went up even though she was in fact advertsing a different company!)
Anyway Sarah's post got me looking at the ad' again which is fantastic and was actually done (not cgi'd) and thinking about all things advertsy. Absolute Andy has kindly put loads of great ones (including the Honda one) on his web site.
I haven't got a TV and generally the only thing I miss are the adverts especially as they are so great for sessions and getting young people to discuss the message behind the advert. So highly recommend downloading some stuff from Andy's site OR even better buy the annual DVD from British TV Advert Awards! or watch the adverts online!

Oh and as we're talking about the Honda advert, you'll find the spoof version from 118 118 here!

Oh, for a bit of Friday fun: What's your fav' ever advert and why?

A few months ago Collins sent me the CEV Youth Bible for me to review and plug. So, only a few months late here's some Youthblogesque type observations!
Another Bible! Again on the "Youth Bible" label but unlike the NIV version the text is quite accessible and I'm a bit of a fan of the CEV, Contemporary English version. It is however dangerous to be calling something "contemporary" e.g this translation uses the word "wicked" but in the negative sense .... I await some Bible study confusion where young peope see God hating the wicked as being a justification for Christian nerdness! But I digress! Layout and extras are good. It goes for the two column layout and lacks pictures (The Good News Bible is still very radical on this front) but has a nice font and is not frighteningly busy. The translation is accurate, straight forward and readable! I'm also impressed that the biggest word on the front is "Bible!"

In summary: A useful addition to possible Bibles for young people/youth groups, Kind of cool but not quite wicked! Have a look for yourself though and let me know what you think.

"Laughing may just be the greatest spiritual resource available to us, occupying as it does the wetlands between despair and insanity. In our laughing we give voice to the entire tragedy and joy of human survival in the war-zone of life. Perhaps it is laughter which is the image of God within us." - Mike Riddell

Just a reminder that the piece I wrote on using Google more effectively to find what you need is avaliable as a download here.

Had a great time at Lambeth palace yesterday as part of the planning for an event on May 7th. Seven Dioceses will be taking a party of young people to an event there called "Food for the journey" with is being led by the Archbishop. I'm really pleased that young people from the Diocese will have chance to talk to Rowan, allowing their faith, life and church experience to be heard.

I took loads of photo's with the camera phone as it is a funky place and wanted to upload them to blogdom, but during the briefing from the Press secretary we were told to remind the young people that photo's are not allowed to be taken in the Palace, oops! (Might work on an artists impression today instead!)

Wi-fi-ing from Paddington Station (get me!) and have only time for a quick "post" as I'm off to a meeting at Lambeth Palace (Pretentious, moi?) so here's some stuff that made me laugh:
Ollie and Hutchinson have discovered a fab site which sells demotivational posters, all done in the motivational stylee but the antinthesis. Very Cool!
This also made me laugh, it's a letter to support about some upgrade complications moving from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 .... and the reply :-)

I know that on the face of it this post has nothing to do with youth work but give me time, I've got an idea for a sess' around the demotivational posters!

aaaarrgggghhhhh I can't get anyone to spell my name right, it's maddening. Even when I write Macdonald down people seem to "correct it" when they reproduce it by giving it a capital "D" and often losing the "a" as well. hey ho, maybe I'll just call myself youthblog permenantly!

Great quote from Andrew Jones which touches briefly on the relationship between emerging church and coffee. Have a read of his experience of preaching at an emerging church in Germany, encouraging stuff!

The Espresso Machine is the new Organ

Reading the encouraging stories made me wonder about less than encouraging ones. If you've got any host church nightmare stories from when you went to do a preach do tell ......

Great letter in the Times on Friday from a 16 year old in Manchester called James:

"Sir
As a 16-year old I have some sympathy for Linda Walker, who was jailed for three months for firing a pellet gun during a confrontation with youths outside her home. However, I believe that there is a lot of unfair antagonism among adults towards young people.

Please remember that you were once young yourself."

I think he's hit the nail on the head, society forgets what it was like to be young! Add to that the immense volume of negative press about young people and you end up with a virtually automatic prejudice.
It's also worth remembering that young people are the biggest group who are victims of crime, while the press only ever covers them as a source of crime!

Hey welcome to Monday! Apologies for lack of blogging over the weekend, I don't know where the time went. I did however go to a party thrown by an ex-member of the the youthgroup .... I was the oldest person there by 17 years (weird) but had a fantastic time and caught up with lots of my old group. On Saturday I mixed and laid half a ton of concrete without a mixer (ache a bit now) and ran a seminar on reaching young people at the Curates conference!

As per the title and it's on April 24th! Brought to you by Word-on-the web from the Church Army ...... over to you.

I saw Robots today and it rocks! Admittedly it follows a predictable redemptive type plot but it is a superb morality play dealing with consumerism, marketing and what gives us value. In the film the corperation gone bad touts the slogan:

Why be you when you can be new!

It also has a unique take on adolescence with youth work themes aplenty in terms of vision, passion and identity. Added to all this humour, superb action sequences and great music. Thumbs up from me, great fun!

Blogged a couple of days ago with pictures of the sideways room on the possibility of a session around, "things are not always as they seem!" It's been rattling round my mind and I've dug out another picture to throw into the mix:

Couple of quotes that I recalled too that are vaguely related (I'm quoting from memory so they may not be word perfect)

"Things are not always as they appear! For instance Man had always considered himself so much more intelligent than the dolphins because he'd achieved so much; New York, wars and so on while all the dolphins had ever done was splash around and have a good time. Conversley the dolphins also considered themselves more intelligent for precisely the same reason"
Douglas Adams

"Everything you see is not the way it seems
tears can sing
and joy shed tears"
Bruce Cockburn

After a couple of chats recently I'm wandering whether to put together a training evening on how to "do" sex with your youth group. I've sensed quite a level of fear and reluctance to sexuality being part of the programme, it'd be great to be able to help on this subject.
Youthblog agents have unearthed a TV programme coming out which may be really useful. I've not been able to verify the details but it might be called "Romance Academy" but it's scheduled for transmission this year. From what I hear it could be fantastic, it works with 12 young people who as a result of the programme abstain from sex for a number of weeks and explores the issues and positives that arise. If anyone knows any more let me know ....
Any doubts that we really need to help young people explore and engage with the subject should check out these stats from the Guardian.

Just taken one of the lads I mentor to see "Be Cool" at the cinema. The film is both not great and enormous fun. It's very hammed up but I liked in a kind of Ealing Comedy for the 21st Century kind of way. Can't think of any useful clips in it for youth sessions but if you fancy some mindless fun which is OTT but comical with it then maybe go see it, but not wiithout reading some other reviews here first as it seems I enjoyed it more than most reveiwers!

The G8 are meeting in Edinburgh and on July 2nd there will be a MASSIVE rally in support of Make Poverty History. The rally will be family friendly, a bit of a party and there will be loads happening.

But how will I get to Edinburgh Ian?

Well, if you live in Oxford Diocese then you can join the specially chartered train. It'll leave Oxford at 07:00 and return at 00:30. It would be great to take a group from your church including young people and go make a global difference while having a fun day out.
Cost is £40 return BUT Christian Aid need enough genuine interest in the next couple of days to justify the MASSIVE cost involved. If you're up for it please e-mail SClay@christian-aid.org asap, lets really get behind this one!

Here's a couple of pictures that could be useful for a session on Faith or Spirituality along the lines of "things are not always as they appear"

Add some people and your take on the room changes somewhat ...

The pictures are from this site (thanks) and you'll find much more detail about the room there.

The posts I did on youth group names (here and here) still get more hits than any other post AND still attract comments. There's someone on there looking for some small group names if you are feeling creative and I love this one from Phil:

TRASH!: The Real Answer Starts Here!

Last day of my Easter hols today trying to get at least some of the stuff done that I'd naively assumed I would have plenty of time to do! Normal blogging service will resume tomorrow and I look forward to your virtual company.

If you're a fan of animated films, as indeed Herr Youthblog is, then you may have noticed an odd thing that has crept into the classification recently? On the back of The Incredibles DVD case you'll find the warning "contains mild action violence and peril!" Now I'm pretty sure that I've not been warned of "peril" before but lo, checking out Valiant I am further censured that it contains "some peril"

Now I have to say I like this word, it has a certain swashbuckling romance to it! The dictionary has much to say about Peril, but the nub of it is this: "a venture undertaken without regard to possible loss or injury" or "a state of danger involving risk"

Now I like the phraseology of this warning and would like to see it adopted in youth work. "The Youth programme may involve mild peril"
That'd be pretty cool. Young people need risk, they seek it out ... it's part of growing up, it's part of living! I'm not advocating ripping up the health and saftey policy but can you have adventure without an honest bit of mild peril? NO FEAR had a great slogan that I liked,

"If you're not living on the edge
then you're taking up to much space"

Not sure where this ramble is going really, just the "Peril" thing got me thinking. The assumption might be that youth work/ministry is about young people being somewhere away from risk but where does that sit with our desire to see young people grow into all that they can be? It strikes me that being a follower of Jesus is a perilous activity ..... certainly was for Paul!

I feel really alive when I'm dicing with the traffic in Oxford on my bike, being the fastest vehicle through the congestion, racing cars away from the lights, overtaking cars on the outside. Peril is cool but where does this on the edge, carpe diem stuff fit within youth work? I don't know, I just wonder if risk innoculated youth work is a neutered and ineffective pastiche?

(It might be that I had too much random thinking time today while I was digging a BIG hole in the garden)

It was a slow traffic day on the blog yesterday, hope that the fifteen regulars chuckled mirthfully at the April foolery. To the forty new visitors yesterday (who probably won't be returning anyway) my apologies if things were a little too obtuse! (I'm not sure which nations have "April Fools" day and which do not? anyone ....) Suffice it to say we do in the UK and its a licence to be silly. It's also fair to say that the only real international commercial interest in youthblog has been from spammers, the site remains unsold although bidding on e-bay is up to 23pence now!
Pete picked up a good jape on the emerging Church site and the wibsite have found the site for the Christian theme park (which sadly is not a joke, at least not intentionally) Oh and talking of the wibsite (yes we were, concentrate) they've added to their yoofwork pages with a helpful guide to running a residential.

Just to warn you that the archive and resources will be disappearing from the site this afternoon, so if you want anything then grab it now!

It's funny how you start something with no idea of where it will lead, like Youthblog! I've been pleased with the way the stats had grown and it's so cool that I've got to know so many people through it who regularly comment. What I hadn't realised though is that the Mirror site in Germany doesn't show on my stats but is massively popular (in Germany, Holland, Austria, Lichtenstein and parts of Belguim?). Weirdly I've had an offer, from Witz Publishing House based in Kleinklechersdorf, for Youthblog and I've accepted. I'll continue to post each day but Witz will (continually) own the back catalogue with a view to publishing "daB Youthblog" annually as a youth ministry resource with other stuff added in.
Cool .... nicht wahr?

Witz Publishers Kleinklechersdorf 817244