May 2005 Archives

I've added a new album to my mp3's on the IPAQ! I have a great collection of loud and proud music that I tend to listen to when cycling (fast). At the moment there's stuff like Northern Pikes, Transvison Vamp, The Men they couldn't hang, The Alarm and of course, Meatloaf.

"You're never alone when you can put on the 'phones
and let the drummer tell your heart what to do"

But I recently discovered Veggie Rocks! The combination of the mad/weird/funny veggie songs and cool bands is awesome! High Energy, fast paced surreal Rock! Now it may be that it's a nostalgia thing as I've done lots of youth events where Veggie Tales has been a funky late night video option. But it may just be that it's great fun!
If your youth group have ever encountered veggie tales then I recommend this CD. If you or they never have then check out such classics as "The Water Buffalo Song," "Where is my hairbrush" and "The Pirates who don't do anything!" (there's samples of the tracks on the web site above!)

Must remember to try not to sing along when I'm cycling though!

One of the great things about being a DYO (actually I'm a DYA, "Youth Adviser" but DYO ("Officer") seems to be the generic term) is that I get to visit all sorts of youth groups and projects. Not only is it a blast meeting the young people but I learn an enormous amount observing youth work in so many contexts.
On Friday for instance I led a session on Spirituality at a small group that meets in a leader's home. This particular group was led by a leader of 71, she'd met a bunch of girls when she was a volunteer at a holiday club a few years previously and as a result of that had started a group which is still going strong. It was fun to see the rapport she had with these teenage girls and the regard they held for her. Next time a Church tells me they are all too old to be working with young people I'll tell them this story, you're never too old to be a significant adult friend to young people!

Next week I'm off to a really vibrant village youth group to talk about Sex! (I'm at least guaranteed that they're interested in the subject!) I saw this picture and it made me laugh, it's the sort of photo opportunity my old youth group wouldn't have been able to resist either!

The shed thing maybe getting out of hand, someone found youthblog today by googling for "Creosote Substitute" .... even worse I'm fairly high on Google for this! LOL! Shed goeth well though and the electrics are now properly wired in via 17m of armoured cable through an RCD! If you understood that you are getting as bad as me :-)
The exciting thing though from an emerging shed perspective is that that if anyone tries to use to much power, the RCD just shuts everything off. I just need to design the ecclesiological equivelant now for when anyone intentionally (ab)uses too much power in the Church!

If you would like to know more about the "Under the hood" campaign and add your voice then click here

"We believe that the media perception of young people as a lawless underclass who cover their faces while creating all society's ills is FALSE"

The site is now Firefox compatible!

Mangement stuff is still what's hot in Youth Ministry blogdom and also what's raw stuff in a lot of cases. Sarah has linked to a couple of stories here and I often read "Dead Youth Pastor Walking" and find his reflections challenging.
Ben has flagged up writing a book on managing youth workers, it'd be great if so many negative experiences could at least be partially redeemed by helping future youth workers eh.

If you're a youth worker or youth minister employed by a Church could you let me know if you have:

a) Regular Line Management Meetings and their frequency
b) An annual appraisal/review

I was asked yesterday to produce an annual review form for Church Youth Workers Download file. If you've got other examples please could I see them? oh and if you've got a set agenda for regular supervision meetings I'd love to see that too.

Thanks for the help :-)

This blog post is via me being a wi-fi bandit again. I had to do the school run and for reasons too complicated to explain we were VERY early. My youngest was playing an advanced technical playground game, the rules of which seemed to be: shout very loudly at someone and run away then stand still and allow yourself to be shouted at very loudly .... then run away (repeat ad-infinitum). So in a moment of optimism I flicked open the laptop and *Ping*, the whole of the world wide web opened up while I was sitting on a picnic bench correctly designed for a 5 year old (ouch!)

This is an encouraging story, a young person is challenging Richmonds Council's use of "dispersal zones" as a form of curfew for under 16's. The Young person "W" started the case in September but I guess it's now reached court as the BBC covered it this morning. This could be an important case, particularly in light of all the "demonizing" of young people recently.

And ian said, "Let there be lights in the roof of the shed to seperate the day (where he can work in the shed) from the night (when he could not). The bulbs in the roof gave light to the expanse of shed and Ian saw that it was really cool!

When I was a Parish Youth worker I had an annual budget of £1500 but with the tuck shop, trips, a little enterprise and the various camps the turnover was about £7 or £8 thousand. This was very cool and the young people and I had a lot of fun kitting out the youth-building and working out what the "must haves" were! Nostalgia eh?

If we'd have seen this then, we'd probably have been able to procure one (or two) but now I'm the Diocesan Youth Adviser I have no chance of persuading anyone that £99 on THE COOLEST light sabre ever is a worthwhile investment (even though I have already designed several talks around it).
So if you have more flexibility in your budget, watch the light sabre video and then order one! I cannot believe how cool these are .... *ahem* as a visual aid for a talk I mean :-)

Thought these letters and replies on Mike's Blog were fab! Made me laugh and there's some deep theology! Apologies for stumbling into the realms of the Children's Advisers!

Someone googled Youthblog by asking,

"How does it feel to be a Youth Worker?"

I've been thinking about this today, I was more or less settled on "pretty good" as being the definitive answer but on the drive home I kept coming back to one of Hugh Grant's lines in "Notting Hill" i.e "Surreal but nice!"

Someone else (or it may have been the same person) asked Google, "What is the average age of a youth worker?"

I have done a crude analysis by averaging out the youth workers I have spoken to this week. The answer my friends is: 36.3

I have an essay to write at the moment that really interests me. The JNC vs Ministry type debate has rumbled around the blog for ages and so this title leapt out at me:

"In what ways does having a clear value base and a strong ethical code of conduct make youth and community workers more professional?"

So blog buddies, what do you think? In what ways does being faith based workers make us more professional AND are there ways in which our values/ethics are anti-professional?

I look forward to being able to quote you in my essay!

Cupboard Doors: Free (Someone's Garage clearance)
Plywood for Cupboard: £6.95
Ski Poster: Free (scrounged from Travel Agent)
My own Space: Priceless

?Ever since Adam and Eve pulled on breeches there's been a connection between wrongdoing and covering up; hoods keep your ears warm but they can also preserve your identity if you want to engage in criminal activity?But as my hoody-wearing son would tell you: good guys and bad guys wear hoods. For every Sith Lord about to destroy the universe there's an Obi-Wan Kenobi battling to save it.

The most evil regimes in history have worn the smartest uniforms. Indeed, you could make a strong case for the most criminal group of people in this country being suit wearers: isn't it people in suits who are largely responsible for robbing pension schemes, selling arms to countries that can't afford them, and starting wars??

I'm grateful to Roy putting a link to this in the comments and to Barky for unearthing it. The full "Thought" on the BBC web site can be found here. I am not sure who Rhidian Brook is (anyone know?) but he is a pithy, challenging writer .... It's an awesome thought for the day!

"The intimidating behaviour of kids in shopping centres is not to be defended; but instead of threatening to exchange their hoods for orange penal suits, maybe we should be asking why they behave the way they do. Is all the anger, boredom and frustration that roams the nation remedied by a change of clothes?

In some ways, I suspect that these kids are not so different to us. They're probably even asking the same questions - How can I enjoy myself? What's it all for? What is real? Maybe the people who are abusing shoppers are not so different to those shoppers, harming themselves buying things they don't need and can't afford. Are they just medicating the emptiness in a different way?"

Grateful to KTvS for finding this story, fantastic! It's great to have a positive story at last.

Interestingly too during a radio debate one caller felt young people should be allowed to wear hoodies BUT not, she added, anyone over 35! ouch

Even by usual media standards there has been a staggeringly large amount of negative press about young people recently. Susan Rauprich from NCVYS has drafted a response that will be going to the press after close of business today. (You can read the letter by clicking on "Continue reading")
If you would like to endorse this letter, please email Ellie Rose at NCVYS directly (ellie@ncvys.org.uk ). You should state your name, position and organisation, and respond by 4 oclock today.

If you're new to Youthblog ignore this post it'll make no sense! If you are a long term reader of Youthblog you know at least to humour me on this one :-)
As a pioneer leader in the emerging shed movement I invested some time yesterday in working on structures and organisation. It does I admit look rather traditional and not as post modern as I would have liked!

I don't know if you looked at the "Store Wars" video from yesterday but it is well worth a look. I reckon I may well use it in Preaching and Communication training. The thing that fascinated me is how well it communicates the message about organic produce, great use of story and humour BUT the preachy application at the end really grates. Definitely a good piece to reflect on in terms of how story communicates but 'tidying it all up' at the end wrecks it.

This cracked me up, you could probably use as part of a youth group session but you may just want to watch it and laugh:
Store Wars

OK after rambling off via Devon, Sheds and Firefox I'm finally back to "Management and Support!" I wrote before about things that I've seen de-rail a succesful appointment by a Church. But once someone has started what then?

I think one of the big issues is around goals and objectives, mission and role, the whole concept of "If you don't know where you're going any road will do" [Harvey-Jones]
This is especially true of Parish Youth ministry where there are a million roads open to the youth worker. Being clear therefore about goals and objectives is essential! This is especially true as the Church often has not thought through the role further than we need a youth worker, further to this as youth workers we can throw ourselves into being a youth worker but without a plan. These are BIG generalisations I know but I reckon this is a key area to look at in terms of making things work (and it's where I observe a lot of the tensions) ..... OK, here's the problem Checklist:

1. Church has not got a clear idea of the goals of the youth ministry OR there are many different ideas of what the goals should be.
2. The Youth Worker/Minister responds to need/opportunity and end up busy being busy (very busy)
3. Church and Worker have radically different goals.
4. There are goals and objectives but these are not regularly discussed, reviewed as the ministry team or as worker and Line Manager.
5. The Worker has goals and objectives but fails to see part of her/his role is to communicate these with the whole Church.
6. The worker removes themself from accountability
7. There is a lack of review, monitoring and reflection from the worker, the manager or the church.

On a lighter note here's a rather well thought out but ambitious five year plan, Download file

A letter in this months Youthwork praises the School based DYO in Blackburn as she'll be "a lot closer to the pulse of local youth culture than your average desk based DYO!" I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry so I'm going to settle for a resigned chortle!
I'm glad Youthwork magazine is keeping me humble!

I think I might try and leave the desk briefly next month and meet some of these teenager people (right hand of irony very much raised here)!

Sound of *resigned chortling*

This made me laugh :-)

Oh and talking of laughing, Roy has the Youth Minister's Bible on his site.

Have updated the Residential's page with the places that you added to the "Woolhope Cockshoot" post but keep them coming, I hadn't realised how many places I didn't know about! Tell me more!

The coolest, funkiest residential centre that I know is coincidentally the one with the weirdest name, Woolhope Cockshoot.
I've been going there since I was a teenager and rate it highly as a place to take or to be a small group. It's in Herefordshire down an obscure series of lanes that don't obey normal temporal laws (get lost at your peril) but you can make as MUCH NOISE as you like or enjoy as much silence as you can handle ..... for relational youth work it rocks! It's self catering but I love that, cooking and washing up alongside the group is such a great opportunity to talk, it can sleep 22, there's no shops, no nothing for miles and it has an open fire!
I told one of the trustees I'd give it a plug for Youthblog readers who are looking for a venue, treat it well I love this place!

Location wise type in Woolhope Cockshoot on Streetmap (multimap can't find it). For more details contact Andrew Mugford. Obviously too, Youthblog can give you LOADS of info on what to do, where to go and the like.

Now I've shared my favourite residential venue, please do ye likewise as I'd love to know more cool places!

Four seperate Youthblog agents sent me links to BBC's Shed Heaven! (Thanks) I'm taking this as a cue to do an Update on all things Sheddy:

The outside is all finshed, final phase was to glaze the door and Creosote* the rest of the shed! Now working on the inside, have some shelves up and am constructing the floor.

Cool stuff: Can blog from the shed courtesy on an unencrypted Wi-fi somewhere is the vicinity. Next step is to get hold of 12 metres of armoured cable and a switch box to power up the shed ..... oh and an easy chair!

This mornings preach for Wardington was the first to emerge from the shed, any surreal bits will probably have been caused by the creosote* fumes. Although the biggest surprise came when the gospel reading was entirely the wrong one as per a previous post on this inevitability!

(*Oviously I was, in fact :-) using Creosote Substitute in line with the "Creosote Use (no.2) regulations 2003 Directive 2001/90/EC")

Having blogged about the CRE I was rather amused to find this picture on Richard's site. It's from a forthcoming episode:

Homer is apparently here shopping in the, "Gospel for Less" Store! I think it might be quite a profound episode.

Succesfully navigated the Christian Resources Exhibition without turning over any tables. As ever it was a strange mixture of the trivial, twee Christian subculture AND radical organisations! The best thing, as ever, was chatting to people but I was struck by the average age being high-ish and how few Youth Workers I met apart from those manning the CYM and YFC stands. In fact anything relating to older teenagers seemed in very short supply especially compared with the plethora of stuff for Children's work.
My only major investment was signing up for Tools for Talks, I'm giving it a go and will report on it (am quite optimistic though as I know Damaris of old and have a high regard for them). Was really hoping to have more youth resources to share but hey ho! Instead here's a photo of the most obscure Christian Resource I came across:

Presumambly they are specifically designed for wearing with Sandals!

Wahooo, today will see Youthblog get its 10,000th hit since October 15th, weird ...... but cool. I'll be at the Christian Resources Exhibition today, recording what's what and what's not, what's hot and what's grot (report to follow).

The Diocesan Youth Advisers conference was awesome! It was a real privilege to spend time with such a great bunch of practicioners. Importantly too we achieved quite a breakthrough in how we function as a national Network, we now have a clear vision of what, why and importantly how ...... and have put the "fun" back into function (or, as was, dysfunction). Enormous thanks to the South West region for "Stepping Out" and producing a unique conference. And in a Radio-2esque dedication type stylee, Big Hello to Bridget who wanted a mention on Youthblog!

Apologies for short blogs at the moment, the conference doesn't allow for blogging time!
Great input this morning from Bishop Peter (Bath 'n Wells) who I was well impressed with. He mentioned in passing a Mission report he's wrtitten for Synod. In it he flags up ......

how few Churches have no weekly engagement with young people BUT don’t seem concerned by that!

I hope Synod hear this. Especially on the back of the "Good News for Young People" which is absolutely brilliant apart from the fact there's no mandate for Churches to do anything about it AND no financial backing for implimentation. Doh!

Bit of a blogging convention last night on Pete's Balcony. Some nice Irish Whisky and chatting to Pete, Miz and Sudders.

Interesting article in the Guardian contrasting teens and young adults with those a decade ago!

I used to have this picture up in the Youth Building as my antedote to the Sunday-schoolization of Jesus.
It still inspires me!

I am blogging via wi-fi from a pub in Woolacombe on the eve of the Youth Advisers Conference. The venue for the conference is well smart! (If any of my esteemed colleagues have not set off yet make sure you've got a smart shirt as they are compulsory for dinner!) I've sussed the place out, been for a mountain bike ride (tough hills) and am now answering a few e-mails.
Started the day in Plymouth catching up with a former member of the youth group and her boyfriend. Had a very mellow morning in Plymouth including eating at the legendary "Captain Jaspers" (Check out the Sausage Sandwich!). While we were having our eats the TV people fired a Peugeot into the harbour for a forthcoming episode of "Casualty!" It's pretty random to be enjoying a nice sandwich when suddenly there's an explosion, a car flying past you into the harbour and dead fish landing around the place! (I jest not)

Youth worker type stuff: It's so cool to spend time with people who used to be part of the youth group (proud of you)
Oh and interesting blog development, it's opened up conversation and debate between teenagers and Parents (see Lambeth entry)

I reckon I've invented a new form of youth work :-) I was upstairs in my house and happened to look out of the window and was surprised to see a teenager scurrying along the patio! I went down and introduced myself and explained that people vaulting into our garden over the fence and scurrying about was not the norm. Anyway he wasn't from the estate and had made the mistake of coming on to it which the Pigeons Lane Crew had taken great offence to. He'd therefore vaulted into our garden to escape. So we had a chat.
But what is the opposite to detached youth work? I need a pithy expression for when youth work unexpectedly comes to you!

Just had a fantastic day at Lambeth Palace! Archbishop Rowan had invited 14 youth workers and 70 teenagers to spend a day at the Palace exploring together "Food for the Journey" ..... the Bible and Communion in our Christian lives. There was input from Rowan (spot on) and time for reflection, discussion and questions.

Highlights of the day included:

1. Signing the visitors book which was like a who's who of influential people (we were the page after Kofi Annan)
2. Seeing Rowan talking to and Listening to the teenagers
3. Worship/Communion Service in the 13th Century Chapel
4. Getting to know the crew who came from the Oxford Diocese

Have decided not to write anything about "Management and Support" today but will swing back into the debate next week, especially looking at aims and objectives. In the meantime though Roy has added some great wisdom into the debate.
Dave Swain has a daily trivia competition on his blog (you'll have to scroll the right hand column all the way to the bottom). I've won it the last couple of months (competitive, me?) so pitch in and shakes things up.
I'm off to the CRE next Friday (anyone else?) which I both loathe and quite enjoy. I loathe the Christian commercialism but I love chatting to people from all corners of christendom and catching up with friends.
On Tuesday to Thursday I shall be meeting up with the great, the good and the loud and the annual Diocesan Youth Officers conference. Really looking forward to this ....... theology, food, fun and discussion, oh and a bit of surfing as we are at Woolacombe! (Though not so much surfing the internet, just phoned the hotel to check internet access, "Oh no I'm afraid not but there might be somewhere in the village"

And the shed! Nearly finsihed and a couple of shed groupies have asked what it's for! Well, it's a workshop really, a place to fettle. Specifically though I end up fixing the bikes for quite a few of the kids on the estate and having somewhere to work will make that easier. I also plan to put an armchair in there as well, It'll be a kind of retreat centre :-)

"Blessèd city, heavenly Salem," which gives us:
"From celestial realms descending,
Bridal glory round thee shed,"

Thanks to Sarah for finding me an appropriate hymn!

Lev posted a comment about Training for Senior Ministers on managing a Youth Worker, I think this is a great idea but would extend it to be training for the minister (or Line Manger) and the worker. I'd have part of the day training on what Line Mangement is, formats, benefits of good management etc and then give space for the Manager and Worker to spend time together thrashing out how they would make it work in their context. I reckon this could work well, however would managers/workers commit to coming?
I'm in favour of this format as I think that sometimes there can be a streak of the Maverick about us Youth Workers and we also need some help on our responsibility to be managed! (I'm now bracing myself for some outraged comments!)

Mostly today I'm being "Tool Time Tim" and working on the shed. But hey, virtually join me: If you're bored, I mean REALLY bored, call in. I'll update progress every couple of hours or so and you can be a cyber sheddie .....

I know, very sad! but hey I bet you call back :-)

All updates will be via this post, For progress reports see below:

19:30 The Shed emerges from the primoridal creosote soup from whence it came. Ian looked and saw the it was good.

Have added a few more items to the list as more thoughts occured. Thanks for adding to the debate, I have a feeling this will be a very useful process.
Still plan to write about:
1. The responsibility of the youth worker
2. The requirements of management

As ever I'll lob in some thoughts and you can critique, add and subtract

Ben Bell blogged the question, "Can Church Support it's Youth workers?" which Miz has picked up on. You can read Ben's thoughts here and the subsequent comments.

I've seen quite a few projects go pear shaped. I think "support and management" is one of the factors but here's an attempt to produce a chronology before the youth worker starts of mistakes that I've seen that have led to or contributed to projects failing and/or youth workers leaving or being sacked:

When I was at a statutory youth club last week there were inevitably racks on the wall with loads of pamphlets in, you know the sort of thing. They were colourful and sassy, covering topics like drugs, contraception, legal rights and the like. what surprised me though was that quite a few young people at various points in the evening came into the chill area and quite happily picked one up and read it while have a drink and/or listening to an mp3 player. I was really surprised by this but thought it was very cool.

I reckon there was some stuff to be learnt from this! Leaflets cerainly don't replace relationship but I reckon relevant, well produced, info was a great thing. So what's out there? I'd love to know if there's some funky stuff across the whole spectrum of teenage issues that is written from a Christian perspective? I wonder whether tracts *shudder* have turned us off completely from the positives of leaflets?

Just thinking outloud while wi-fi-ing in McDonalds, here endeth the first musing.

Back to writing about youth work and youth ministry tomorrow but thought I'd shed some light on the building project. The big news is that after a hard weekends graft I have a proper, pukka roof on the emerging shed, Huzzah!

On Friday I said good-bye to a lad I've been mentoring for a year, I feel good about the year but not so great about my "contract" being over. He's a guy that was referred through the "Youth Offending Team" and during the year he has seriously wound me up at times but I'm going to miss him. On the plus note though all the work on getting him to think about the future seems to have had some success, he's been an archetypal N.E.E.T for a while now BUT it looks like he is going to engage with a college course and some work experience (thanks to Connexions)! Told him I'll miss him and will continue to pray for him, didn't manage to ween him off his McDonalds dependancy though :-(
Other youth work stuff this week. Fun time at a youth club, learnt to play a game called "BullS**t .... it's actually "Cheat" but I guess the teenage version :-) Also had a reminder why "Dope" is called Dope after chatting to a bunch of 13 and 14 year old girls at the club who were herbally adjusted, one of them forgot what she was talking about half way through a sentence!
Also been trying to devise a one sided, helpful but simple questionaire to try and get a clearer picture of what is and isn't happening youth wise in the Diocesan Churches. Really useful comments from those kind enough to cast a critical eye over it, all I have to do now is try and persuade 600+ Churches to cough up the info. Ho hum!
When I know, you'll know you know!

(NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training)