There is a 3 part 1 hour documentary series starting next Tuesday (6 September) on BBC 2 around 9.00pm entitled 'No sex please we're teenagers'.
You'll find more details here! I reckon this could start some important conversation. Loads of respect to the two christian youth workers in the programme, Rachel Gardner and Dan Burke!
I've finished reading Nick Park's book on Worship! The tag line for the book is "Why worship songs are failing the Church" and I was interested to read his thoughts, particularly having just experienced Soul survivor.
Nick takes a look back at how sung worship has developed (always fun to be reminded that Hymns were radical and unaccepted by mainstream denominational church) and produces a useful "map" of how we got where we are today.
He critiques our current crop of worship songs as being too musically complicated for an average church and with lyrics that not only don't connect with people's lives but actually use obscure and archaiac Biblical imagery that confuse people. I thought this was a really good point in that we expect Preaching to be relevent, understandable and connected with everyday life but we don't expect that from worship songs!
His call is for the writing to be vital, practised and developed (not just left to the musician who may not be as gifted in the writing area or have sufficient time to develop in this area when their primary focus is the music). He asks for writers of worship songs to:
Take it seriously
Work hard at your craft
Make every word count
Test your words
Share the load
Never stop learning
Not use old words if new ones are as good
Find new images
Tell us about God
Go deeper
I enjoyed the book and found it a useful piece of work as I think about young people and worship. I enjoyed the fictional worship leader and songs that he created by way of illustration as he wouldn't/couldn't name and shame individual songs. The one thing that I really struggled with was the page at the end of the chapter that had a list of "Key Points" and "Key Questions" .... it felt a bit patronising to me and detracted, in my mind, from the argument Nick was developing ..... but maybe that's just me being old-school and it is a useful way of summarising!
Well worth a read.
Spent some time at the book stall today and bought a couple of books. Picked up "Help! I'm a Woman in Youth Ministry" by Kara Powell & "And now let's move into a time of nonsense" by Nick Page!
Impressions to follow but I'd love to hear some thoughts from any female youth workers who've read Kara's book and whether it resonates with their experiences (especially in the UK)
How's this for a cool seminar? Tall Skinny Kiwi is delivering a seminar on the Spirituality of blogging. I recognise a few of the bloggers present, some of whom don't know each other.... Random moment when I got to introduce a couple of them, obviously there has to be a step before proper names. So this was the act of introducing two bloggers to each other:
"Cool but Weird this is Deep Thought
Deep Thought this is Cool but weird!"
... obviously I didn't introduce them in html but I couldn't do the quote without including the links :-)
I was hoping to blog-along with the seminar but the signal kept cutting in and out. It's probably sensible anyway to wait for Andrew Jones to post his notes as I couldn't do justice to what was a very inspiring and full seminar. He did a fabulous job of painting a picture of blogs (and other web stuff) as making up a framework of what is the cyber church, from there looking at the opportunities, possibilities and importantly, the responsibilities of our ministry, story telling, commentry and event-recording in cyberspace.
He also revealed that there are now 50 million blogs (eek) which begs the question:
Of all the blogs in all the world, how come you wandered into mine?
Morning worship at Greenbelt 2005 this morning was awesome. Hosting a service for 20,000 that's consistent with Greenbelt's idelogy of love, justice and creativity .... a piece of worship that's radical but inclusive, not easy! Thoroughly enjoyed this morning though and the way that the service and the communion was built around "The Tree of Life" theme was wonderful.
One of the opening pieces was a poem by Stewart Henderson which we all said together, in his words, "Karaoke liturgical poetry!" I really liked the middle verse ...
"The luscious blooms of Babylon
The pastures of Orion-
I'd swap such verdant wealth
To be a dandelion in Zion"
My camera and my laptop are now talking to each other :-) But there's some far better photo's of this morning on the GB pages.
It's good to be home. Greenbelt is bigger, cooler and funkier than ever with a great layout and everything running smoothly for the 20,000 GBers here. Just got back from a great gig by Iain Archer and am now blogging from the tent as there's wi-fi across much of the site.
This is a fascinating place to be, there are so many christians here who aren't certain what denomination you'd describe them as but feel "at home" here. People who's faith is fed here through Worship, creativity, celebration, challenge and a cry for and engagment with peace and justice! I guess that's why there's so many people here who are involved in new expressions of/emerging Church. Tomorrow David Tomlinson is being interviewed on "The Post Evangelical" book ... 10 years on, should lead to some interesting discussion.
I'll also try and check out some of the Youth stuff tomorrow IF they'll let me in! Great to see really good numbers of teenagers here.
I blogged before about putting together an I SPY book of bloggers (which made me laugh)! If anyone had taken this seriously then Greenbelt festival this weekend would be THE place to be. So far I reckon among the potential spotable GB Blogroll are such blogmeisters as:
Matt Rees, Mark Berry, Dave Walker, KTvS, Dr Sarah Hamilton, Jonny Baker, Andrew Jones, Phil, Maggi Dawn, Pip Wilson and about 20 Wibloggers!
And also the following blogsters who are pseudo-Greenbelting i.e retreating to the comforts of a B&B at night: Amanda and Phil :-)
Really looking forward to the festival. I undersatnd that the scope/size of the youth work provision has grown and am looking forward to checking that out. I have a Press pass to do some stuff for the Diocesan newspaper and website, I shall try not to be like Wayne and Garth backstage at the Alice Cooper concert but will probably fail.
For those at the festival, If you want to drop by I'll be camping in the Disabled area and the Youthblog flag will be flying. If not, see you somewhere in the village ...... obviously by that I mean the Tiny Tea Tent!
For those not at the festival I shall hopfully be blogging day by day so you can virtuially join in.
Weird but cool, Youthblog is one year old today! It's 12 months today since the site took it's initial faltering steps and uttered it's first words of html!
Over the year I've written quite a bit about youth ministry and youth work and, indeed, the emerging shed movement and will continue to do so. Any pretensions I may have had about making a serious contribution to youth work in this country were very much held in check last night! How so? Well someone searched for "Horse Muck" on Google and in doing so found Youthblog! LOL
Some of us heard Phil Rankin at the CTE day in April where he presented some unique and fascinating research into spirituality in the UK. Sarum college are now hosting a conference building from Phil's research:
"The conference aims to bring together those working in youthwork, church leaders and training officers, academics working in religious studies and theology, those teaching in schools and young people themselves in conversation. At a time when spiritual and ethical values in society are under scrutiny, the contribution of the findings of the research project will be of great interest and significance to churches and society."
More details here
Soul Survivor B continues until Wednesday at Midnight but my visit is now over. I had a great time and I realy enjoyed catching up with people, random conversations with teenagers I'd never met before and the whole vibe/novelty of being at a Christian event where adults were in the minority by a long way. There were 11,000 there which I think is more than usual?
It was good to catch up with some Full-timers from the Diocese and I chatted to Dawn, Hannah, Nicky, Matt, Kathryn, Simon, Ally and David. It was great to have a chance too to meet/hear Mark Oestreicher who is the boss of Youth Specialties!
Fustratingly though hardly any churches had banners or signs and despite my trying I found virtually none of the volunteer led groups where I didn't already know the leader.
My favourite random moment was when I was able to provide some cable-ties and doweling and was able to engineer a splint to repair the fractured leg of a Gazebo for a group! Who says that DYO's don't have their uses!
Oh big thanks to Greenham for letting me join them in using their weird alien foot cooler thing, Nice!
I'm at Soul Survivor for a couple of days with the Youthblog flag proudly flying over my tent ... oh and a really cool random LED light :-) Sadly no pictures at the moment as the camera and the laptop seem to have had a tiff plus there's no wi-fi so I'm in the on-site internet cafe! Hope you'll therefore forgive the reduced service.
Greenbelt festival rocks! Greenbelt is an awesome awesome event that carb loads the soul and upgrades the heart (it's also a place that's so easy going that you can mix metaphors as badly as me and no-one would mind!) Worship, Justice, Laughter and the Tiny Tea Tent!
I know of more newbies who are going than I've known for years so in case that's you I'm starting a Survival guide to Greenbelt below! (If you are an experienced GB'er then add your own wisdom via the comments!) So waddya need to know ......
1. Greenbelt is put together mainly by volunteers, it runs so well you may forget this BUT if the odd thing goes pear-shaped then go easy because there are hundreds of people who give up a wadge of their year to make our weekend happen!
2. For some reason towards the end of August the nights get much colder. If you only have an Argos-esque pseudo sleeping bag take loads of blankets!
3. Bring a woolly hat (see point 2) especially as you will end up in profound conversations in the early hours of the morning and it would be a shame to fail to make a major spiritual/theological discovery 'cos you were cold!
4. You cannot go to everything (basic temporal laws, too much going on). 4(a) It is also possible to miss everything cause there's tooo much going on and you never quite commit! If you are taking a youth group then go with them to some stuff and also spend time discussing/planning what others in the group are going to.
5. Spend ages reading the programme and seeing what you really really want go to but leave yourself time for serendipity-like discoveries and impromptu Tiny Tea sessions.
6. If you can do, take food and cooking gear with you! The food kiosks at Greenbelt are fab and a great pick-me-up or treat. However if you plan on just buying all your food from them though you will end up spending an absolute fortune and still feeling peckish.
7. August bank holiday weekends can experience diverse weather (understatement city) be prepared for heatwave or monsoon and anything inbetween.
8. Make sure all your camping kit is there, waterproof etc BEFORE you get to Greenbelt.
9. There are showers you can book but don't bank on getting one! Baby wipes are genius as a kind of keeping you from stinking alternative! (Blokes make sure you buy the non scented! nuff said!)
10. Queueing is part of Greenbelt ..... don't come with an impatient attitude or you'll miss out on loads of the fun.
11. Enough tents for 15,000 or so people is a lot! Make sure you can recognise your tent and remember roughly where you left it
12. Every year there are rumours that suddenly start circulating that "X" is on site or "Y" and are guest appearing or the like. You need to know that their are always these rumours and on the whole they tend to be a) Completely untrue or b) Entirely accurate. (There is no way of knowing which catergory any rumour falls into)
13. If anyone starts telling you how bad the weather was in '86 or '94 you can shut them up by reminding them it's NEVER been as bad as Glastonbury 2005 (piccy below)
Have fun, see you there!
Just enjoying a post sessional dram (opted for the Talisker tonight although the Lagavullin almost won) and reflecting on conversations at club tonight. Talked to a bunch of girls outisde the club who were all smoking roll-ups, they've been smoking since they were 9 or 10 years old. That saddened me. Talked to a 12 year old too who has lived in 14 different houses ...... how unsettling is that?
Overall a good session though and some good chats, I remain unbeaten at Table Tennis but am really hoping to lose soon as some of the lads are really getting into it. There's also some interest in getting a football (Soccer) team together, not a huge interest of mine but if it 's something the lads are up for then I'm good to roll with it even if I then have to undersatnd the off-side rule.
Anyway now need to invest some cerebral computation into how best to make a "Youthblog" flag for Soul Survivor and Greenbelt. I have a cool piece of black material (1m x 1.5m) but am open to suggestions from anyone more artsy/crafty on how to youthblogise it!
If anyone needs a shot of encouragment then get hold of the current Youthwork magazine and read the story of the lad that Dave Swain helped and the words of the lad himself. Awesome!
I guess I kind of assume that people have come across the Blob resources by Pip Wilson but they're so good for group work that I'll mention them again. If you're not familiar with Pip's work then I really recommend "The Stinking Rolling Magazine Book" as he writes really well about how to create open-ness, how to get people to talk about feelings and the importance of valuing "human persons!" Fantastic stuff. Sometimes I come across "youth work" that is so rooted in the formal teaching modality that it has squeezed out youthwork, The Blob Tree is a great antidote and step into participatory group stuff. Anyway I noticed on "Sunday Papers" that Pip has a new book of blob resources. Buy it! The blob tree is one of the few group work tools that works for virtually any age, ability or situation.
Which blob are you today?
Had a great e-mail from Martin Saunders (see previous post) and am now an encouraged Diocesan Youth Adviser again, Huzzah!
Just been listening to an edition of Premier Christian Radio on Youthwork. Martin Saunders of Youthwork magazine is in conversation with Jim Partridge in this particular programme and they are exploring Blackburn Diocese appointing a School based Diocesan Youth Officer/Adviser!
They were in favour of this appointment especially as it might differ from the more usual DYO appointments where .....
"DYO's ..... seen as a bit self important, a perception of being a bit removed, bit detached, not involved in grass roots youth work"
Thanks guys! Yours slightly discouraged, Youthblog
I'm looking forward to some great youth work chats over the next couple of weeks at Soul Survivor and Greenbelt. It's been quiet over August, too quiet.
Am at Soul Survivor 'B' on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday
Then Greenbelt for the whole Bank Holiday weekend
My Walkie Talkie will be on channel 4.12 and there will be a Youthblog flag on the tent. Hope to see you!
Just got back from a kind of Roving Youth Minister type gig. Went up to Cloverley Hall in Shropshire to spend a bit of a time at a Youth Camp. I'd agreed to go to do a preach, be the male leader during a brief gender gap in the leadership cover and also Lifeguard so they could use the rather funky outdoor pool.
It's always fascinating going into a group 'cold' and building a rapport with the teenagers, a challenge I love. I often wonder how much this is achieved by skill/experience and how much relies on being perceived as OK(ish)? Each time I do this now I'm trying to see if my age counts against me (downhill towards 39) or not. I have not the slightest doubt that there isn't an age barrier to youth work in general BUT in terms of having to rapidly develop a rapport and a place in a group I wonder how long I can do this well?
Great bunch of young people though and I had a lot of fun, also a really challenging first aid incident which I was very pleased with in terms of how we handled it.
Random moment on the drive home, passed a sign that read!
"Horse Muck, free to a good home"
What, I wonder, constitutes a good home for manure? What elements would need to be ticked off a checklist before the horse muck would be released to be moved to a new location?
Sudders is cracking on with "Mission Shaped Church-Youth" by all accounts and Discipleship is one of the themes that's emerging. It's an important theme too, I ended up on a particularly litterary rant on this subject last year. On my travels around my patch I encounter some amazing young people who are involved in the life of the church but have never been discipled .... their faith is a real God awareness but shaped and understood in a kind of compartmentalised way interpreted through a societal view of religion (Kenda Creasey Dean reffered to a Therapeutic Moral Deism)
Sudders also asks about what we mean by discipleship? Over to you but I'll have a stab at it.
Deliberately helping a person to understand and live their faith fully through the intentional modelling, teaching and experiencing of the Christian Faith, recognising that the Discipler does not hold the full sum of understanding and will learn with and from the disciple too.
October 1st 2005: Vertigo
I've been talking about the Vertigo event for some time now but it's really taking shape well now and it's going to be quite an event. This will be an awesome gathering of Christian young people from across Oxfordshire and across the denominations.
The web page is up and running. Martin Layzell is leading worship and Ashley House is hosting. Put it in your diary NOW!
VERTIGO: Don't look down
Youth work and information leaflets ...... a symbiotic relationship I reckon. I've got a pile of leaflets here that are attractive, "cool" and informative on subjects like benefits, connexions, sex, drugs and suicide! (not many positive themes). I also have a new one from West Berkshire on "ASBO's" that I have to get young people's opinion on tonight and feedback.
Anyway it got me thinking about a leaflet that we really ought to produce. One aimed at answering the unifying regular question continually asked of youth workers?
Yes, that one:
"What exactly does a youth worker do all day?"
I reckon we should produce a leaflet that can be handed out in response. A bright colourful pamphlet with action photos that gives:
Examples of what we do
Skills and training that we have
Reminds people that 'yes it is a proper job'
Outlines the challenges we face
What do you reckon? Anything else to add?
On of my roles at the moment is as a youth worker in a team on a large (and challenging) estate. For various reasons the youth centre needs to re-build its work virtually from scratch. The team are great and we've managed to increase provision to not only staff the club night but drop-ins and detached work. The centre's attendance is growing BUT it's impossible to work just with the 13+ age group that the govenment and unitary authority have laid down. As is typical of an Estate friendships don't neccessarily go along age lines and the presence of numerous cousins too means that if you say the under 13 can't come then the over 13 won't! As you can imagine too with the centre having to rebuild it's work, there are not enough 13 plusses that come. Problem!
If this was voluntary sector then I would develop a junior club to build the relationships that will form the 13+ club the year after. However the government and the authority are clear that we are ONLY to be working with 13 plus! Hey Ho!
I've also found that three of the lads are quite good at Table Tennis. I reckon this would be a great way to do some work with them and develop their confidence BUT they are not all 13 yet!
The E.A, working with, Crusaders and YFC, have announced a campaign to find 'Champions of Respect', young people who are role models of Respect to those around them.
The search for 'Champions of Respect ' is part of a national programme the E.A will be launching in November 2005 to raise the profile of Respect in today's society. A central theme of this campaign will be to highlight positive examples where Respect is being demonstrated, with a particular emphasis on initiatives which involve young people.
You can find out more here! This is a great thing to get into and a real chance to promote the positive stuff that young people do in this country.
"When it comes to respect we believe young people can be an example to our nation. We believe the way we live can help put respect back into the heart of our communities - relationships between young and old, black and white, male and female, teachers and students…"
Amen to that! & Big Thanks to Kat for the info :-)
I know Sarah who is running this event and she's great: In her words .....
"FREE TRAINING EVENT FOR YOUTH WORKERS
Do you believe that young people can change the world? Need some help getting them to believe it? Bought the white band – wondering what to do next?
Then here’s your opportunity to get started...come along to Christian Aid’s free training day especially for people like you.
When? Saturday 10th September, 10.30am-3pm
Where? Reading International Solidarity Centre
Who? Anyone who works with young people and wants to tackle global issues with their groups.
What? A fun, practical workshop with lots of ideas to get you started, free resources, a chance to participate in a trading game, suggestions for creative campaigning and worship and much more. Lunch provided.
contact Sarah on 01865 246989 or sclay@christian-aid.org"
Apologies for the longest non blogging in Youthblog history (3 days) but I took off on the bicycle for a couple of days. Had a fantastic time. On Saturday morning I set off. The bike was a BIT heavier than usual as I was loaded up with tent, sleeping bag, camp cooker et al but it still rolled and handled pretty well.
On a whim I decided to head up through the Cotswolds and fuelled by tea, cake and Carb drink made it to "Mourton on the Marsh," a distance of 61 miles. Camped overnight then looped up and back through the Cotswolds and down to Marlborough taking in 5 of the most BRUTAL climbs on the way. Distance for the day 74 miles.
I couldn't find a campsite so my family came and picked me up. Had the best time and was quite chuffed with 135 miles in two days :-)
Random moments of the trip
1. Cooking a vegetable Casserole on the steps of Marlborough Town Hall
2. Cycling past a farm harvesting the Lavender (I wonder if the workers keep falling asleep?)
3. Seeing a "Smart" car with a bike rack on the back!
4. Encountering an entire brass band dressed up as Batmen being conducted by the Penguin!
Sorry that this is not even remotely connected to Youth Ministry (other than for me this is a great form of retreat) and I'm back at work tomorrow and will blog youth-workerly! Promise.
Sometimes Google inadvertently reminds me how big the web is in an 'infinite number of monkeys randomly writing the works of Shakespeare' kind of way. Someone searched Google for "aarrrrghgghh" in exactly the letter combination I used to round off this blog entry, how weird is that?
I was also pleased to note that somewhere out there is a youth worker with a similiar line of thought to me after locating Youthblog by searching for "Tricked up minibus!" Now I know there's at least a worldwide market of two I can pitch the TV execs a new show called "Pimp my Youth Van"
Here's something the average Church Youth budget might consider
And here's how it might look after a paint job, mega sound system, Cola dispenser and Teflon gum-resistant seats
Or thinking a little bit bigger .....
I've mentioned Pauls research in Australia before, he's looking at the effect of media on young people's attitude to religion.
He's now blogged about the five things he believes young people are saying that religion should be. Have a read.
Religion falters when it sucks the imagination from us, which is one of the bad things about traditional religious institutions
We are now into the same month as Greenbelt and I'm looking forward to being at the funkiest festival on Earth that IS a taste of the Kingdom, admittedly with a little extra mud!
My tickets arrived last week and I've just opened the envelope. I was expecting 2 x Adult, 3 x Children and 1 x carer (GB kindly let me have a free ticket for a helper for my son). Anyway we actually have wrist bands for 1 x grown up AND six children! I'm always gobsmacked at how well Greenbelt is run especially considering its all volunteers apart from a tiny office crew AND this is the first mistake I've encountered. Do you think I can talk myself in to the festival on a child ticket? (second thought don't answer that)
See you at the festival!
