January 2006 Archives

Christian Aid have produced a Lent resource called Count your blessings, In their words ...

'Giving up something for Lent? Chocolate? Alcohol? Take a radical approach this year with our free Lent resources for adults and children – give up giving up and give instead! There’s something to get you thinking each day, counting your blessings and making a difference for some of the world’s poorest people'

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We had a blog and share a few days ago about unfortunate lines from Hymns BUT how's this for a line? Encountered and sung by Steve Tilley :-) Had the youth group been present I suspect it would have been some months before they stopped sniggering.

Is Monday a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life? Or is it a day full of opportunity and possibility, exisiting as it does, near the start of the week? Well good morning to you whichever of these camps you fall in to. I'm feeling a lot less whelmed than I was and have enjoyed a 24 hour break away with Jo (my wife), our first night without kids in years! (A lie-in until 8am was such bliss)

Anyway here's the weekly splurge:

I visited a Church on Friday where the youth team have contact with 300 young people a week through the clubs, open groups, football initiatives and detached project! BUT even they have members of the congregation who question what they are doing as it doesn't translate to bums on seats for the Sunday morning service! (Thought you'd be encouraged that it's not just you!).

Jam no. 10 is out and is looking good, really great youth friendly mag' that I've plugged before (and am plugging again). VERTIGO is happening next weekend, come along .... it'd be great to see you! If you are going to SOULNET at Centre Parcs then I wish you a FABULOUS time (I may write some stuff about this in the week having been before twice). I'm going to the CONNECT conference tomorrow! It brings together all the key people who are involved in training volunteers involved in Christian Youthwork. If you've got rants, questions, suggestions or queries ... then punt them this way!

Thought for the week:

Sometimes the way things have always been done is worth challenging and a much better, more useful model emerges!

And sometimes you find out the old way actually was much better for all sorts of reasons!

.......... Finally, a huge thank you to Daniel! Out of the blue he sent me a present, an important text book on the emerging shed movement that I enjoyed hugely :-)

I was visiting a great youth club last night, awesome bunch of teens and a superb team! I had a lot of fun even if I did get beaten at Table Tennis by Chris and Chris(Bob). Anyway here's the blogworthy funny story:

There was a bit of a group time and the end of which there was a prayer. As the prayer ended everyone shouted 'AMEN' really loud and looked up at the ceiling. As the 'Amen' resounded around the hall a light fitted to the rafters came on, lit up then went off. Everyone then went back to chatting, dancing to 80's music (true), table tennis, making cookies and the like!

"What was that?" I asked

Anyway, it turns out the "God Light" as the group call it is intended more as a 'party pooper' light! It's a system fitted by the residents association (from the houses by the hall). If the noise reaches a certain volume the light comes on as a visual warning. If the warning is not heeded and the volume continues then ALL (I mean ALL) the electricity to the hall is cut off!

All credit to the group for redeeming he most officious piece of electronics I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED!

There's a lot going on at the moment and I am in a constant state of being whelmed! That is I can't really claim to be over-whelmed, but the mix of family, work, college and placement currently equates to a constant state of whelm! It's not a state I function very well in as it squeezes out the creativity and fun. HOWEVER I am going to keep this blog short, stay at my desk through to my meeting this evening and work de-whelmingly hard. Shalom :-)

"It's at times like this I wish I'd listened to what my mother said!"

"Why, what did she say?"

"I don't know ..... I wasn't listening"

To have Coke or Pepsi, that is the question!

A bunch of us were having a discussion yesterday about lines from Hymns/Choruses that had reduced the youth group to hysterics. One youth worker's group had totally "lost it" during a chorus that called for "a tongue to be put into our mouths!"
Given the capacity of teenagers (and come to think of it youth workers) to spot innuendo ANYWHERE, there must be some good stories out there? Do share a moment via the comments and know that youth workers on three continents will be howling with laughter shortly too.

My favourite story that is one that I've never been able to verify but is worth telling anyway. The narrative broadly is that two of the lads from a Church met up regularly on a Sunday afternoon with others to play football. The game didn't allow much time for getting home, changed and to the evening service. One of the lads had dashed home and being in a rush to shower had slipped, falling out of the shower and bashed his head on the toilet.
Arriving at Church his friend had asked about the obvious bump/mark on his head and heard the details of the mishap. This is where the story would have ended if the First hymn had not contained the line,

"Gone throught the curtain, held onto the throne!"

at which point they both errupted into uncontrollable laughter. Nice!

10th May 2006 FYT are hosting a day in Birmingham for youth workers to share experience and reflect on working with young people in multi faith settings. Details from Nigel Pimlott.

17th March 2006 World Visions 24 hour famine weekend. For a free fundraising pack call 01908 84 12 12

Had a really cool discussion day on Evangelism, Bishop Stephen was hosting the discussion and was absolutely top notch. Lots of stuff to digest.
Talking of digestion, dining in the Great Hall at Christ Church was fab AND NOT because of the Harry Potter connection, just 'cos it was fab!

Quote of the day was when Bishop Stephen was telling us about him being challenged on, when all this 'new' (implication = wishy washy/un-Biblical) talk about 'our christian journey' became a feature of evangelism?

His reply,

"Well ........ it is difficult to put an exact time on it, but probably ... around Tea Time on the FIRST Easter day!"

I was on duty at Drop-in at the Youth Club on Friday and it went brilliantly! Some of you know that it's been quite tough, but this week we had great conversations, real engagement and the teenagers taking some responsibility. HUGELY encouraging AND I've got funding for the residential I want to run with this group. Frustratingly though two of the key girls won't even entertain the idea as they have never/will never stay away from home!

It's a slow news week in youthworkdom so I have little for the Monday round up so far. Was really impressed with this idea from Andy though, he ran a Church crawl with his group. Well impressed!

I'm at Christ Church Cathedral all day today (or at least somewhere in Tom Quad) as our department are having an away day to consider 'evangelism' within our mission, vision and practice!

Weird moment of the weekend was writing to a friend and signing off with the line, "I have to go and Hoover now" but MS Word auto changed in to "I have to go and hover now!" My friend will think I have strange mystical levitational powers ..... And I thought It was nature that abhorred a vacuum, not Microsoft?
Oh and my favourite time waster at the moment is trying to break through the 3000 barrier on Nev's Jam Buster!

Auf wiederblog and Shalom

De-lurking continues here: A chance to say Hi, without being traced, type amnsety.

Big Hi to everyone who has said Hi, so far, it's been great to learn a bit more about who visits and I've loved the quotes especially the "ski through a revolving door" and the "Second mouse gets the cheese" ones :-)

A 'few' years ago when I was a full time Salesman and a volunteer youth leader I was often presented with the question,
"What do you do?"
Being (maybe) somewhat of an extrovert and quite vocal, I guess there was a certain amount of pre-judging of me that had already occurred. It was, however, still slightly frustrating that when I said, "I'm a Salesman!" people generally rolled their eyes and said "I should have guessed!" This happened so many times that for fun, variation and so not to be pigeon-holed, I adopted an imaginary profession!
The Story: I'd met a girl at a party in Bristol who was a 'Cellular Molecular Pathologist' and thought this was quite cool. With the facts that I gleaned from our conversation, as well as bits 'n bobs about Histology that I'd picked up from med' students I became quite adept at describing my adopted role. So here's the confession, to various people (especially that I met on holidays) I was a Cellular Molecular Pathologist!
The reason I mention all this is that I am ocassionally tempted to resurect my fictional career as I'm tired of people asking, "er ... what exactly does a youthworker do?" after revealing my profession.

So in order that I am not tempted to Lie, anyone got a good answer? I'm hoping for a pithy paragraph that encapsulates the ability to build relationship/trust with young people, mentions theology, management, sociology, psychology, understanding of adolescent development. Doesn't over look skills in mentoring, discipleship, intervention, negotiation, mediation and group work. Takes in health and safety, communication, organisation, fund raising etc. That kind of thing, over to you :-)

Mind you, some people don't think we need to know anything!

The statutory youth work that I am involved in continues to be a game of 'Snakes and Ladders' without, in fact, any ladders! They are the most challenging bunch of young people I've ever worked with and despite comitted work from the team we continue to move only a couple of 'spaces' forward before hitting another snake and things sliding downwards. There have been encouragements but despite positive relationships with the young people they 'kick-off' at a moments notice! This week I really felt we were making progress only to see an attempt to break down the fire doors, a fire extinguisher let off and stuff thrown at me. I am trying to work with some of the young people to put together a residential for Easter. I really believe this could be fantastic IF we can pull it off, a chance to be out of the usual situtaion and to experience community. So watch this space, failure is not an option :-) Faith, prayer, youth work and patience!

"There is no such thing as a difficult person -
just difficult behaviour" Pip Wilson

On a lighter note I'm really enjoying the comments and e-mails as a result of de-lurking week. Do continue to add to this.

Who actually reads Youthblog? It's an interesting question as I'm not entirely sure. BRAVENET gives me a bit of an idea but only a bit and I'd love more of an idea of who virtually drops in on a regular or semi-regular basis! WELCOME!

I was thrilled to discover via Tall Skinny Kiwi that Paper Napkin had announced a delurking week! A kind of ammnesty opportunity to just say, Hi

Now, 'Lurking' in this context is entirely positive, it refers to all the lovely people who turn up, read the blog and silently disappear without a word or a comment.

You are extremely welcome to continue doing this however here is an invitation to leave a comment. You only have to click on "comments" then type in a name/nickname, Put a quote/lyric/thought into the box (no need for e-mail or URL) and press publish! You cannot be traced but I'll know a name, enjoy your quote and smile! Thank you :-)

oh and If you're from a different country you could include that too .... eg 'Jeremy from Iceland'

Had an e-mail from a guy named Ben I met at a youth service last year. He poses a how do you start? stylee question about youth services. Thought it'd be really cool if worshippers from across Blogdonia could chip in with their experiences and insights ..... and critical questions Ben should be thinking about.

"I'm currently looking into getting some kind of youth service going at my church and was wondering if you have any tips on the best way of doing this like ways of getting speakers, organising a band and the kind of things to actually include in the service"

For years I seemed to go ten pin bowling twice a year, once with the youth group, once at a camp. I never really improved and only ever got scores of between 100 and 130 :-( The local bowling alley though has a January sale at £1 a game so if I'm passing I pop in for a practice. I had a gap between appointments today so I grabbed a lane. Now I've often been told before that I bowl entirely the wrong way AND use the wrong weight of ball (all true), but check this out ....

Filed under "Feeling just a little bit smug!" Don't be surprised if the next Youth Work network day is a bowling trip! It's an Antlers thing :-)

Hey this is the first Monday Splurge of '06 as I completely forgot about the tradition. So what's what and what's not in the world of youth work?

I had a really encouraging meeting on Friday night. I was in a distant corner of the Diocese meeting a group of six churches. They've built some great youth work up from nothing and have a committed team and a vibrant programme which the Area Dean is not only supportive of but involved in, cool huh! And there's more, they've raised funding for a youth worker to take the work forward AND have developed such a good relationship with a local Convent that they are being given a wing of the building to use as a Youth Centre.

RESPECT! (no not George Galloways' party which he has so succesfully enhanced via Big Brother?!) the government idea. You'll find details here and I reckon it's worth keeping a copy so that we can make sure this is the level of respect that young people can expect to be given as well as to give! Meanwhile the Conservative party have launched the Real Respect programme, I'll bring you details of Labours 'Really Real Respect' programme as soon as they counter back :-)
Crusaders have been reaching out to young people for 100 years this year and if like me you've had any connections with the organisation you may want to get yourself down to the Albert Hall on May 20th as it should be QUITE a CELEBRATION. Details here.
Nearer to home can I plug a couple of events? Vertigo is coming up again on Feb 4th, it should be a monster event, I need more bods for the Cafe team ... is it you?

Training wise: Feb 7th at Church House in Oxford I'm running some training called, "How to do sex with your youth group?" If you are wondering how to cover the Bible, Birds 'n Bees then e-mail me for more details.

And finally, here's todays fun challenge:

As a comment to the previous entry Mark linked to one of Jonny Bakers worship tricks that combined (UK) advert tag lines into a liturgy. Cool!
It reminded me that I have a long list of adverts from the last 30 years that may amuse you or be the basis of a useful quiz (very UK and some just regional) You'll find them below ....

I mentioned a superb thought for the day a while back on Hoodies that was done by Rhidian Brook. I hadn't realised that he's a regular contributor to Radio 4 and I'm grateful to Charlotte for the link. I was especially impressed with this one that uses only song lyrics to express that 'we cry out'

" ...Dry your eyes mate. We can be heroes just for one day.
Today is gonna to be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.
by now you should have found out you realise what you gotta do.
Time to make the change, come on you rock and rollers.
Look at the stars see how they shine for you
With the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne...
All the people, so many people, and they all go hand in hand, hand in hand
Nothing to say but what a day
It's going to be a glorious day.
A beautiful day
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, O Lord...
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom ..."

I reckon this would be great to use as a Youth session and/or to get young people to compose their feelings purely from lyrics.

Picked this up via the legendary Dave Walker, well written piece on the commercializing of Aslan in comparison to Watterson's Calvin! A cautionary exploration of what happens to the exploited character, how its potency is diminished, As the author puts it, "Garfield meet Aslan!"

"Which cat do you like better," I asked my friend, "Aslan or Hobbes?" He hemmed and hawed for a bit, then replied, "Probably Hobbes." He explained that Aslan inspires his faith, but Hobbes—he paused, finding it hard to articulate his appreciation—"I mean, I love who he is to Calvin. He's just, you know; he's just awesome."

Or so you would think" .. more

E.J Parks

I watched The Island last night on DVD. It's a film about a facility that bio-engineers clones for spare part surgery when their "sponsor" requires them. The Clones are kept in isolation and believe they are the only survivors of a world wide and lethal contamination. But "Lincoln Six Echo" (Ewan McGregor) realises that, not all is as it seems! The film becomes a quasi Sci-fi high action escape chase that on the way calls in at ethics, human values and some truly unsubtle product placement. Ewan McGregor is great and when you see him acting his clone self and his client self subtely differently it brings home his acting ability. The stunts are nuts and lots of stuff gets destroyed, Sean Bean is suitably creepy and Scarlet Johanssen is suitably lovely!
On one level it's a great no-brain high octane sci-fi thriller romp! On another level it's quite a horrific and disturbing film. I seriously do not think this should have a '12' rating in the UK with the casual violence and qualmless executions it contains. (In fact I wonder whether it actually has? IMDB say it's a UK 12A and Amazon reckon it's a '15' but I see that BBFC have rated two different cuts, one at 12 and one at 12A. In the US it carries this tag, "Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action").
In terms of usability for discussions in youth group/ministry setting though it has shed loads of mileage, there's issues of hope, meaning, purpose, ethics, human value, greed and consumerism.

Anyway, using my usual evaluation methods I'll put my highly subjective rating below.

Watchability for a Youth weekend (providing it's for 14's and older)

Useability for teaching and discussion

Thanks for the comments about the 'God Slot' it was good to read through the stories, musings and examples. I wasn't dismissing the God Slot (I nearly wrote 'dissing,' then realised that I sounded a bit trying-to-be-pseudo-cool *laughing*) but wanted to throw it into discussion, it was good to have some positive stories of God Slotiness!
I guess one of the difficulties I have with the SLOT approach is when it's communication firmly and heavily aimed AT young people without the possibility of dialogue. How 'bout some stories today about stuff that's really allowed young people to share their thoughts and experiences .... a kind of 'God Listening' thing!
What and why has stuff worked? Reflections appreciated ....

Sometimes I've pretty much worked out what I'm going so say before I start, this is not one of those ocassions! However I do want to throw open a debate to the combined might of the elect-blog-intellect on the subject of ..........

The God Slot?

First of all let's define terms. By the 'God Slot' I mean the moment at the end of a youth evening, of some description, where the group HAVE to be quiet and a leader tries to pitch some aspect of the christian faith, in a relevent(ish) way at/to the group!
(If I visit a group this is often the privilige/ordeal inflicted on me)

The debatey bit is this. On one level I'm not a huge fan of the 'God Slot' as it kind of grates with me, to have a whole evening of stuff which is not different to any other 'secular' group but to then attempt to redeem it with a God Slot seems a bit odd.
But at another level at least the young people are clear that there is something distinctive in the reason the leaders commit to and run the group, their faith is explicit (although in danger of being compartmentalised).
I guess I'd rather a 'God Slot' than groups that just have an ethereal hope that something of their Christianity (however vague) will make some lasting impression. The ideal though is a group where faith/spirituality are at the core of what the group is and does.

The "God Slot" though is handed down as the traditional way that Christian youth work is done and many group's have not come across any alternatives.

So ..... what do you make of the 'God Slot' and what alternative models do you have that I can present to busy and over stretched volunteers?

We had a family DVD session on Friday night and watched a Feature length Scooby Doo! It varied a little from the 'usual' plot as there was a pretend monster AND a real monster. All good fun apart from the truly truly bad scottish accents!!!! The fascinating thing is watching the effect of the film on my 3 children:

My eldest boy (11) merely enjoyed the film, the slapstick and chase scenes are right where his sense of humour is and his laughter is contagious.

My youngest son (5) always runs everywhere but for the rest of the weekend has attempted to replicate the shaggy/scooby technique of running furiously without moving for a few seconds AND then zooming off (I'm sure he'd love to have the accompanying percussion noises too).

My daughter (8) was much taken with the 3D computer sonar image of the loch that Fred, Velma, and Daphne were watching when they were trying to find Nessie. Last night she took herself off to the computer and produced on 'Paint' a picture of a 3D looking cross section of the loch complete with monster. I find 'Paint' a bit clunky so I wasn't sure how she'd managed to pull it off and asked the "How?" question! Turns out she'd opened up Excel and made up some data that would then produce a 'chart' that looked like a cross section of the loch, she'd then copied that across to Paint and drawn in the monster! (Call me Soppy Dad but I was sooooo impressed)

The film has had no noticeable effect on me .... apart from a tendency to say "Zoiks!" in stressful situations :-)

I have long been a huge fan of the Blob Tree as an awesome tool for group work. I've just been told that you can get them as posters. Nice!

Feb 4th, it's back. VERTIGO 2 a youth service, a call to action, a bunch of fun, a time of worship and the funkiest Cafe in the glalaxy (Ok may have exagerated that last bit 'cos that's my team). Details below:

UK Christians give 9 times more away: Cool!
UK Christians less likely to be in debt: Cool!
UK Christians have 3 times more savings: er?

Source: The Times

"The cheque book is a theological document, it shows who or what you worship" Billy Graham

A blog, I'm told, is a place to record and express some of the stuff you are thinking about. This is probably great when you are having deep insightful and profound thoughts! I on the other hand am thinking about Hong Kong Phooey ........ don't know why, just am! Still you can only go with what you've got and as this is the sum limit of my cognitive ouput today here's some absolute phooey:

"Who is this super hero?

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.
Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye.
Hong Kong Phooey, he’s fan-riffic"

What's this got to do with youth ministry? er, absolutely nothing! I guess for veteran youth workers (no names) though ....... pure nostalgia.

I used to have one of those little 'Christian' fish on the back of my car (that feels like a major confession). It was in for a service (the car not the fish) at the Garage and the mechanic asked,

"What's the fish for ... I've seen some of them on cars, does it mean you're a Mason or something?"

Mind you I suspect that a lot of people think it's the logo of a fishing club!
Anyway if you feel that a little fish isn't sufficient witness to your faith then maybe you can take a cue from this driver!

How much would the youth group LOVE riding in this eh?

I was dealing with one of our regular letters from the TV licensing people today who constantly register surprise that we don't have a TV Licence! I regularly respond politely explaining that the lack of license is entirely unsusprising given that we don't have a TV. This exchange always gets me reflecting (again) on whether not having a TV has some negatives, I'm still convinced however we are better off without a goggle-box (especially our children). My only concern is missing out on some cultural reference points BUT I tend to know a lot about TV from reading about it in the newspaper AND with so many channels now I'm convinced that FILMS are more of a unifying cultural experience than MOST TV programmes! ...... woaaaa we've finally got to the point, this whole pre-amble was supposed to be a brief link into DVD rental!

So, DVD rental, What about it?
Well I've decided to abandon Blockbusters! Their local branch was the primary source for my film viewing BUT have abandoned ship for the following reasons:

1. Price rise to ?3.95 a film
2. Often don't have much in stock AND they no-longer give it you free if they didn't have it :-(
3. They put pornographic/titillating films on the regular shelves.
4. You can't get films out of a different Blockbuster
5. We've had damaged films recently
6. Very limited range of kids films

Oh, that's all a bit negative for me! But I'm switching to Easy-Cinema where they post you the film and it only costs ?2 per film (including postage) AND you can have more than 1 film at once, for as long as you like! I'll let you know if the service lives up to expectations. If it does it'll be FAB for youth group and residentials et al 'cos being able to have the film for longer will make life so much easier! Nice!

Having written this piece I discovered that Blockbuster also do postal rental now at ?14.99 a month and Amazons' service starts from ?5.99

oh so this is what 2006 looks like? strange, very strange! Anyway thus beginneth the year .....

HAPPY NEW YEAR

and the big question is, What are we going to do with it? What is the cunning plan? last year I published a handy self-selection list of New years resolution for Youth Ministry! The option being to adopt two or three of them as your own. They looked more or less this but now I've added some more. If it's anyway useful or makes you laugh then I'll be more than chuffed, if not ignore it!

Over here at Diocesan Youth Desk my cunning plan is to invest much more prayer in my ministry, take some faith risks and drink less coffee :-)

Wishing you every blessing and an adventure of a year!