November 2005 Archives

Had a great time today at Eton Dorney Centre talking with a network of residential centre managers. I was asked to facilitate a discussion looking from a users perspective .... I used the comments and e-mails you'd typed as a result of this post as the basis for the seminar (thank you).

We had a lot of fun and some useful discussion, they were a really up-beat group who clearly take an enormous pride in what they do. But I pushed them into flagging up some of the frustrating things they encounter with youth group residentials. It makes for a bit of an 'ouch' but could prove a useful check list of 'do nots'

1. Not reading the info
2. Arriving really early or really late
3. Not leaving at the agreed time
4. Booking in '40' people and turning up with only a dozen
5. Not clearing up
6. Moving everything around and not putting it back
7. Not reporting breakages, concealing damage
8. Not being organised/prepared & the young people getting bored
9. Cancelling at the last 'minute'
10. Being late without any warning for meal times
11.Wanting the centre to be the strict disciplinarians

Now remember I pushed the group into making the list, they were actually really positive about what we [the youth workers] do and their own role as hosts. Having assembled the list though we had a good discussion around what was the leaders' responsibility and what was the centre's AND how we could improve communication, understanding and co-operation.

Some of this will flow into the training I'm writing on "Zen and the art of the residential" but I got a good glimpse today of the need to communicate clearly and honestly with residential centres, understand their policies and requirements, communicate any changes beforehand, Inform and discuss with the centre while you are there and leave the place in the condition you'd like to find it.

It also re-inforced how useful a site visit is prior to the weekend.

1st December is World Aids day. To get your group involved in a HUGE and creative photo petition then have a look at this, It'll be a great reminder to world leaders that our eyes are on them. Also Andy Freeman of 24/7 is organising a period of prayer for the World Aids Crisis. E-mail him if you'd like to sign up or get some resources to help you/your group with this.
There are two useful webistes for more info on HIV/Aids here & here.

I've been having a trawl round and tried to track down ALL the youth work and youth ministry conferences. I don't claim this is a definitive list but thought I'd flag up progress to date. Please let me know of others if you know of them. This still seems like a small list given the number of faith based practicioners there are!

Just before we plummet towards Christmas it might be a good idea to block some time-out for 2006 AND a conference. I think a conference is crucial, time for worship, get some input, chat/pray with like minded people AND not be responsible for anything!

Additional: Youth Alpha conference Feb 16/17th '06

I reckon one of the biggest gatherings of youth workers is actually at Greenbelt. If you've not been then consider it recommended.

'Well it's just another Splurgic Monday, wish it was ___________ * (enter your day off here) 'cos that's my fun-day, my I don't have to preach day, it's just another Splurgic Monday!'

Greetings and welcome to the weekly string of contextless links and html hot tips.
First of all .... a laugh, you have to check this out on Vintage Faith. It's a complaint that has been phoned through to a Church (with tremendous grace and humility) But someone somwehere has used it as a sample and made a mix of it. Wasn't sure whether to link to it or not, but here it is! Enjoy Talking of blogs I rather liked this idea on YSMarko for a five line you! (Could have some procrastination mileage).
My list of Youth work/ministry conference for '06/'07 is coming together but I can't find details of the Baptist Youth work convention, Lee Abbey dates or IASYM 2007. Anyone?

Crusaders have their holiday brochure out and I guess CYFA and SU/Runton should be out this week .... It's the right time to be encouraging people to think about a Camp next summer AND especially some of the older teens' applying to be 'junior' leaders.
And finally, Ken asked me to remind you about his resourcing page! Job done

As predicted the Fusion EXPO day was top-notch and a huge encouragement. Having been on my soap box about this for months I was really disappointed that I'd failed to mobolize many Diocesan peeps to this, however it was good to bump into Anna of Oxford and also Dave who has just joined Aylesbury YFC. There was a good turn out overall though with folk there from as far afield as Manchester, Brighton, Wales and London.
The thrust of the day was the why and the how of the Church(es) engaging with community. There were some great stories too of how Open-crowd festivals, Community research and inter Church work had achieved this! Hearing enthusiastic stories from folk who'd caught the vision AND put stuff into action was fantastic.

A humbling, encouraging, exciting and well earthed Day!

Things seem to be going Perennially Pear-shaped at the moment. I was teaching a module on the Local Ministry course tonight and had put together a session on Youth Evangelism that revolved around a Power Point presentation. Fired up the lap-top and found that said presentation was conspicuous in its absence as was several gigabytes of other stuff ... gone, not there .... completely absent! As I've often said,

"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined!"

I switched to plan 'B' which was in fact, think of a new plan!

Actually I really enjoyed the evening. We explored exisiting models of youth evangelism then looked at where young people are at culturally then critiqued existing models and explored new ones. The discussion then flowed into Ecclesiology and some fab observations emerged. At least two of the bods are going to buy Hirsch and Frost as a result of our exploration of Church and Mission.

Encouraging evening (but I'd still like all my computer documents back!)

As a result of yesterday's reflection on events at
the youth club and my use of a quote from the Sci-Fi spoof Galaxy Quest I had an e-mail from Daniel (thanks). He felt a fuller "no surrender" quote was in order and send me the text of a Churchill speech from 1940. I've modified it slightly ....

Ladies and Gentlemen

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to
the end. We shall work with young people in Rural
or Urban settings, in Village Halls and on Estates ; we shall minister with growing confidence and growing faith.
We shall defend young people of our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight the media,
educational-exclusion, branding, ?Asbos? and lack of opportunity.
We shall never surrender!

I have a heavy heart this morning. Last night at the youth club on a local estate where I do a placement, things went PEAR-shaped! We ended up having to call the police to clear the building and I'm wondering where we go from here. We've built relationships with the young people for 6 months, we have a good and positive team who like the young people BUT none of that made any difference last night!

C'est La youthwork! But to quote the Commander Taggart from Galaxy Quest,

Never give up, Never surrender!

"We can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist and whom we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and whom we include."

Père Henri's Easter homily in Chocolat

The Monday splurge has happened four times now so in Anglican terms it is firmly routed in tradition! Dearly Beloved, welcome to the Monday Splurge ........

It's quiet out there in Youth Ministry blogdom (too quiet!) and I'm debating whether I have to cull some links from the blog-roll? In the mean time here's the goss' The Connect Conference for (Christian) Youth Work trainers will be on 31st Jan until the 1st Feb at Swanick. The two Youthwork conference's have just finished and they are inviting feedback. The 2006 conference(s) will again be in November and themed, "Infinite Possibilities - Reimagining mission to the digital generation!" [On my to-do list is to prepare a comprehensive conference list for '06/'07 so pleeeez e-mail me any obscure ones you've come across ... failing that, make one up :-)]
Locally: Next Saturday is the training day from FUSION, hope to see you there. For Berkshire Bods, Newbury St Nix & Thatcham Baptist are putting on a youth service on the 17th December at Speen Church, more details when I get them. Let me know other stuff!
This week on the blog I plan to write some stuff around confirmation that I've been mulling over!

I started off the splurge via 'tradition' .. I've just remembered a cool talk a few years back from Steve Gaukroger on the importance and dangers of tradition. He polarised the good and the bad stuff as:

Tradition: The living faith of the dead
Traditionalism: The dead faith of the living

Your homework for today is to go through the forthcoming Christmas programme and mark things as 'tradition' or 'traditionalism'

Had a preaching gig tonight and found myself at a ROCKMASS being held at St Mary's Thatcham. The theme (as per the church calender) was "Christ the King!" I arrived half an hour early and the place was already buzzing with the light rig, smoke machine, band, amp etc all up and running and quite a few folk in the congregation for what has become a kind of youth service for all ages! The Format, as they describe it is, "exactly what it says on the tin" ... Rock music (worship) plus a liturgical Eucharist. This liturgy provided a great skeleton for the service which helped avoid the possibility of so many youth services, that stray too far into performance.

The band were awesome and led well, there was a mix of new stuff and semi-trad. Interestingly though, incorporated into the worship was a couple of mainstream songs, What if God was one of us? (Joan Osbourne) was a very bold move and worked well. What a great question to be asking, albeit with some interesting speculation thrown in! Lean on Me worked well as a very anthemic piece but I have to admit I struggled with the Rap version of "The First Nowell" Loads of credit though for boldness, creativity and experimenting.

The preach was difficult for me, trying to do a youth service with SUCH a wide age range. It went OK(ish) but I will link to any critiques that surface. The text was from Luke 19 where two disciples 'steal' a Donkey that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on. The crowd of Disciples declaring "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord" [vs 38] and Jesus responding to the Pharisees saying that if the crowd didn't shout out then, "the stones will cry out!"
I used Lord of the Rings, Return of the King as a way in and how the White tree in Minas Tirith begins to bud once more as Aaragorn is recognised as the rightful king of Gondor. The challenge of the preach being to

1. Seek the King
2. Serve the King

I really appreciated it as a service. There was a passion in worship, an engagement with the senses ... and in the middle of all this, a simple and meaningful Eucharist.

Sadly I will not/have not made it to Eastbourne today as my wife is not well. I look forward to reading blog-reports from Alice and Simon et al so I can hear what I missed. A thousand apologies to people I was meeting up with ........ I'll have to owe you a coffee.

I recently read this book as I thought it may be an aid to understanding ministry from a female perspective. It's a quirky book in many ways as it ranges from exploring calling to advocating a hobby, from discussing accountabilty to giving housework strategies. For this reason I've not really felt able to review it as the book seems kind of sexist to me even though it's subtitled as "practical empowerment"
But maybe it's just a very practical and honest book and it is the first youth ministry book I've read that has made a strong case for the usefulness of Slow Cookers

I was at a meeting last night that was hosted by a female youth worker who had in fact cooked us a top notch meal. I mentioned this book and my uncertainty on what to do with it blogwise. It was rightly questioned why there wasn't a "Help I'm a man in youth ministry?" book and some speculation as to whether, if there was one, it would advocate Microwave ovens as you were then able to eat when you were really disorganised and rushing!

Any attempt to disagree with the book though were undermined when the youth worker hosting us confessed that the meal had been cooked in a Slow Cooker!

I'm certain that this ramble has nothing to add to the gender debate and I continue to be glad that both Marsians and Venusians are involved in youth ministry!

In response to an invitation, I headed down South yesterday to talk with Moorlands College about young-leaders and training. Now it doesn't take much to impress me I admit but I was well chuffed with the welcome. On the wall behind the reception was one of those funky red and gold hotel conference type notice boards and ........

The other thing that impressed me is that all the tutors I met were passionate and enthusiastic about their subjects and courses, the place had a real buzz.

My time there was spent in discussion about discipleship and training for young leaders. It was good to be able to share experience, best practice and good examples. Obviously part of the reason for being there was to discover what they can offer and whether any of it could be useful to Oxford Diocese (and beyond). Moorlands offer 3 different 1 year courses, they all look really good from a training, learning and experience point of view but there's one which could be a real assett to anyone running gap year projects.

They run e-livate (in fact pronounced el-ivate), Ace-lerate (in fact pronounced accelerate) and a Foundation Year (bizarrely it's pronounced as it reads!)

E-livate is a distance and residential learning package that could really add value to a gap year placement. It provides learning in the areas of self, bible/theology and missiology. It's delivered as two residentials and then distance learning/portfolio. I can think of projects that have gap-year-bods but are patchy in providing input and I can think of Churches that offer a gap-year-placment but struggle to "add value" to the offer to make the position attractive. I reckon E-livate could be great for these!

"When the newspapers have got nothing else to talk about, they cut loose on the young. The young are always news. If they are up to something, that's news. If they aren't, that's news too"

Kenneth Rexroth

Am driving down to Eastbourne for the Yoof wurk Conference on Saturday but have just noticed that the £40 for being a day delegate (weird word, 'delegate'?) only allows you to participate up until 5pm! I can't decide whether to invest a further £9 to attend the evening stuff? Decisions Decisions, I've not experienced this pay-as-you-view approach to conferencing before! Ho Hum, don't want to fuel what is already a bit of a conference over-indulgence this year, but don't want to miss key stuff.

To stay or not to stay: that is the question!
whether it's nobler in the mind to suffer
slings and arrows (having heard you missed a GREAT session)
or to take arms and pay the extra roubles
And then by staying (and it being naff) To die, To Sleep

Excuse me, I've had one of those weeks (already)

I have from time to time reviewed films via the vague excuse of critiquing them for Youth work/ministry. And in that vein ...... Valiant

Valiant is a British CGI film (up to now we've generally done plasticene and the U.S have done CGI) which is interesting in itself and it has managed to recruit lots of great UK actors to voice the characters.
The film is set in 1944 and follows the exploits of Valiant, a pigeon who joins the Royal Pigeon Service to serve his country. it's a witty idea as it is then able to parody elements of the RAF as well as working with the fact that Pigeons did play a key part in the second world war (I kid you not) and won several medals (again true!). Valiant obviously is the under ... (well) pigeon who saves the day and along the way teaches Bugsy (Ricky Gervais) the value of friendship, loyalty and living for something other than yourself.

"It's not your wingspan that counts ... it's the size of your spirit"
Valiant (Ewan McGregor)

It's strong points are that it's fun, it's well animated and perculiarly British (hints of Black Adder). I liked it, an enjoyable 'family' film with a feel good ending. It's weaker points are that it's short (75 mins) and is maybe a tad predictable but that's not neccessarily a bad thing. I reckon that "The Incredibles" was clearly an adult film (that Children tend to enjoy too) while "Robots" was clearly a Childrens film (loved by adults). Valiant seems to sit somewhere in the middle!

I reckon I may hi-jack some teaching/discussion stuff on "it's the size of your spirit" that counts as well as the way Bugsy grows in character as he is offered challenge, opportunity and friendship.

Watchability for a youth weekend

Usability for teaching or discussion

I'm heading down to Eastbourne for the day on Saturday to Youthwork the conference! I'll be a complete Norman-No-Mates so if anyone fancies meeting up for a coffee then drop me an e-mail and we'll arrange something. I'm always up for a chat!

Oh and on the conference theme, I've booked in for the Spirituality Is Forum at Sarum! Who is else is going?

Welcome to the Monday Splurge on all things Youth Ministerial and Youth Workery! The useful, the obscure and the Miscellaneous ....
If one of your young people had their Sixteeth Birthday on the Saturday just gone (12th November) then Channel Four is trying to find them. It's a massive project entitled Sixteen for a day in which they are exploring the aspirations and values of young people born on this particular day in 1989.
Grove Books are about to launch a "Youth" series which is very cool, not only does it give us access to books written by top notch practicioners but it also puts these books into the hands of clergy as they are regular Grove purchasers. They're only £2.95 each (Or £8.50 for four). The official launch is in Nottingham on Nov 17th with +Graham Cray and Nov 30th in Oxford with Jo and Nigel Pimlott! (Go ye and Blag an invitation eh).
Just Time Out is a a get away for Youthworkers at Chellington to do exactly what it says on the can! Dates are 21st-22nd Feb 2006. Download file
The Big Lottery Fund want to give £50 million in grants to community buildings. Could be useful :-)

And talking of useful! Christian Aid have now got their online version of Present Aid up and running! So you don't have to waste money buying an Incredibles Themed Telescopic Electric Back Scratcher with a Sofa Holster and Spare Batteries .... you could give something useful to someone who actually needs it. Result!

and finally, Church re-branding 5

Met with my tutor group from CYM today who are a top top bunch. One of the students led a discussion exploring how far we can be friends with young people within 'professional' youth work. The group flagged up the attributes of friendship and the attributes of professional practice, then compared the two. Obviously there were overlaps and area's where they were incompatible but it proved a valuable exercise and re-inforced the need to examine and define where boundaries lay in ALL youth work situations.

Needless to say that we wouldn't/couldn't have achieved a universal consensus but identified some useful principles around:

1. Never letting young people meet our emotional needs
2. Not creating a dependancy on us.

We were really into cliches today (as we were looking at concepts around 'team') So the cliched summary was

"We are friends to young people, not friends with young people!" or " We Befriend rather than Be Friends"

None of which stops us investing our time, talents, love and energy in the lives of the young people we serve!

Aha .... you heard it here first folks. I can exclusively reveal the dates for Matrix '07, the funkiest conference for Christian youth workers this side of the horse head nebula.

5th - 7th March 2007

If you keep an electronic diary then input it now! If you have a paper diary then you'll have to write on the spare page at the back next to the doodle but below the important mobile number that you've long since forgotten who it was for!

Apologies for lack of blogging but I was down in the depths of darkest Sussex on a residential with other Diocesan Youth bods. The venue was St Bartz which is a very cool centre to take the youth group to. It's a converted Church and it has been turned into a well equipped, very cosy and nicely appointed centre that sleeps up to 28 people! If you are in that part of the world then I recommend it as highly as I recommend Woolhope Cockshoot to those who can get to Herefordshire.

It was great to spend time with the DYO's who are a passionate, fun and eclectic bunch of Christians who have a BIG heart for young people and a calling to make a difference in and through the church.

We had a really useful theological reflection on Discipleship and Leadership. On Day two that discussion flowed into a look at Discipleship in the context of ethnic young people. Dean Pusey presented a helpful critique that contained both the inspirational and the 'ouch' as we faced up to how little we (as the church) reflect and enable diversity.

As well as some useful theological insights I also discovered that I may have a snoring problem! It's only a suspicion but all the guys in my dorm have started calling me Darth Vadar.

Had a weird and scary experience tonight. I was on my way to meet up with a youth worker (sorry I never made it) before going onto Youth club BUT my plans were put on hold.
A LARGE 4x4 tuned right into the road I was about to exit, in doing so it drove straight across the path of an oncoming vehicle .... and then in a weird kind of slow motion I watched a horrific crash as the car slammed into the 4x4. The car span through 180 degrees and the 4x4 slid round and into my car (although it had practically come to a stand still by the time it made contact with my Astra).

It's one of the times when I wasn't sure whether I was glad to be first aid trained or wishing I wasn't as I got out to see what I could do for the car passengers. I was expecting to encounter major injuries but unbelievably, thanks to air bags and the fact that it was a big car, both the occupants were able to walk away although in a VERY shaky manner.

Lots of standing around, talking to Police and that kind of stuff.

One lady said to me, "You seem quite calm about it all?"
"Well," I said, "I'm a Youthworker!"

Actually feel kind of shaky now but it makes me laugh that I was able to do a positive piece of marketing for our profession in the midst of the chaos.

Look at the following picture and complete a risk assesment!

If your conclusion was that the activity shouldn't have gone ahead in it's current form then congratulations: You passed :-)

Here's a big plug!

And here's another one. On November 26th Fusion are running a training day in Thame. If you are interested in youth and community work that can impact a whole community then YOU NEED TO BE THERE! I am hugely impressed with these guys and what they've achieved.
Pre-registration is essential. More details here or send them an e-mail.

The weekend, as ever, flashed by! Spent Saturday in Wales visiting relatives which was fun, got to ride a 250cc trials bike again which rocked, first time I've managed to get air on the motor-bike ...... so coooooool!
On Sunday I was at a meeting with Scripture Union then at a youth group in Olney, great fun. Towards the end of the session they played a great game. Everyone formed a circle round a chair and gripped onto each others hands/wrists tightly! The rules: If anyone came into contact with the chair they were 'out!' What followed was a hilarious test of strength, agility (and sometimes conspiracy) as the group eliminated people one by one as they hit the chair.
Spent a bit of time on Google Print which is FANTASTIC! If you are looking for a book or books on a subject this is THE place to go, it's not finished yet but the list is way beyond impressive! If the book is out of copyright you can read most of it, if it's still copyright you can read the 'contents' and the like to see if it's relevent.
Christmas is already annoying me: The run down into a crass orgy of consumptive tackiness has begun in earnest! I highly recommend Present Aid! Presents that make a difference to people who actually need 'stuff' Oh and while you are on the Christian Aid site you can download their Christmas Pack with some great ideas in.
Oh and making me laugh this morning. Marko's encounter with this particular church and it's Carpet First Aid Kit! Nice

Here endeth the weekly splurge, go in peace to minister unto youth, catch up with thine admin and drinketh coffee. Amen

On of the lesser known spiritual gifts that becomes highly developed in Diocesan Youth Advisers is "Confusion!" I have definitely discerned this gift developing and the role is excellent at nurturing it.

Recently I've been very confused about Pregnancy!

Youthwork 'Y' let me know that she is pregnant! All straight forward so far and communication is going well (Parishes often forget to tell me stuff like they're taking on a youth worker or details that affect their worker). Next stage of the story is that someone contacted me and came to the office and asked for information about legal issues surrounding 'maternity leave' as their youthworker was preganant!
"Ah, youthworker 'Y' I reply, I know about that!"
"NO," comes the response, "Youthworker 'H'
Slightly flumoxed that that the number of Diocesan Youth Workers who are in-the-family-way has just doubled, I sort out the required paperwork.
This morning I took a phone call asking about how a Church can recruit a sessional youth worker to cover a particular evening because their youthworker is going on maternity leave!
"Ah, yes" I say, "but can't it be covered by the team and the CYM student?" (Having discovered randomly that Youth worker 'H' has a student working at their church!)
"We don't have a CYM student," was the response!
"But I remember 'H' telling me," I protest.
"But our youthworker is not 'H' .... she's 'R!'"

No wonder I get confused. So the situation is that about 10% of the youthworkers in the Diocese are currently pregnant! Bizarre but true. If any other Diocesan youth workers are expecting a baby please can they tell me so I can work on the gift of 'knowledge' Thank you!

I've been dipping into Adventures in Missing the Point again and enjoying what McLaren and Campolo have to say. I was re-reading the chapter on leadership. TC righty points out that Leadership style will vary with who you are and what is needed in terms of leadership at that moment BUT I rather liked this idea from BM.
He refers to The Wizard of Oz and uses The Wizard and Dorothy as two contrasting styles .... Dorothy being a more culturally relevant style than the Wizard (CEO) one.

I like the "Dorothy" List as a Youth Minister! Next time some asks me, "What exactly do you do?" I may rattle of this aspirational list :-)

Our annual Diocesan weekend, the cornily named 'Yellow Braces' is scheduled for July 7-9th. I'm looking for team ....

Phew, finally got 'Youthwork update' finished to go out with the Diocesan Mailing tomorrow. Last night was a marathon desk top publishing session (hence lack of blogging) but I had some great music on, kinda an 80's theme with a healthy dose of Transvion Vamp ... and it's done. YES! If you need a copy then:
Download file

My son is a big fan of the Famous Five books. I find the stories quite annoying but it is heartening how the most misguided 'ruffian' soon turns out to have a good heart really (after spending time with Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy). I'm sitting here with a large glass of Talisker reflecting on my evening at the statutory youth club and wishing I could work a little Blyton-esque magic on some of the teenagers I've been working with. There's a group of guys who I like BUT I just can't get through to at all. All attempts towards bridge-building, intervention or even just conversation get lost in destructive, insecure and attention seeking behaviour. Ignoring the behaviour means that they will do worse until you do notice, challenging the behaviour creates a battle they thrive on.
There was lots of good stuff tonight at club but my continual inability to be able to work with this group of lads is making me feel like moving to Kirrin Island (with my Talisker obviously)

This blog post a few days ago featured an e-mail that was asking, 'youth church, what do you think?' Thanks for the responses, really useful.

This is my response to the e-mail ......

Really excited to hear the opportunity that you have AND I can relate to the difficulty of trying to get church to change and minister to those that don't fit the church "norms"

3. Youth Church is good if: It's focus is being/living Church, not just being a youth programme dressed up as church.