July 2006 Archives

On my estate!

The Community Police Team turned up in numbers last nigt with the mobile Police Station. They held a bit of a consultation and filled us in with stuff that was happening on the estate, as did the Neighbourhood wardens and the like. BUT the big news is that one of the Community police team has managed to scrounge a large porta-cabin and got various businesses to donate some resources. If all goes to plan we'll have a youth centre on the Baseball diamond. This is awesome as there is virtually nothing on the estate apart from the Church in one corner, a skateboard ramp and the dis-used baseball pitch left over from when the airbase was here, we don't even have a shop or a phone box!

I guess this is where I might be investing some energy as unless there is real ownership from the Estate VERY quickly it'll get vandalised/torched. Very cool step forward for the estate IF everyone can work together.

Yesterday I was day-offing and went on a coach trip, with the tribe called Macdonald, to Bournemouth. We had a fab day with all the important elements of a British seaside day i.e Loads of fun, sandwiches that actually had sand in them, chips, swim in the sea (brrrrrrrrr), getting buired in the sand and the constant smell of sun tan cream.

I was at one stage thinking about some discussion that had happened on and off the blog regarding youth work and teenage sexuality. This sign therefore made me laugh! With a change of spelling it could be the slogan for a new sexual health campaign.

"Our wealth as a society has clearly not bought us the kind of childhood we want for our children"

This could be an interesting enquiry, looking at childhood in Britian. Rowan Williams is the patron

Mostly today oive been thinkin bout Teenage Pregancy! I ended up at the Governments strategic plan and it set me thinking, so for what it's worth I copy it here and I've added to it (the yellow bits) with my thoughts.
It's really a societal issue (it seems to me) that seems to have de-valued sex to an on demand recreational pursuit rather than a highly valued bond and expression of love, trust and commitment. I think many young people suffer enormous emotional hurt (and worse) because of a sex obsessed society that also lacks the ability to explore and COMMUNICATE to young people what sex isn't and very importantly what sex is.

Anyway, here's my yellow grafitti on the governemt plan. Not claiming to have all the answers or to have got it right BUT firmly believing that youth ministers can have a prophetic voice in the area of sexuality .... as well as having the frankness and humour needed to help young people explore their attitude to themselves and sex.

This site allows you as a registered charity to buy current software for the charities use at massively significant discounts. You'll need to read the criteria but it doesn't rule out religious organisations providing their aims are to benefit the whole community. CTX can be found here

I am SOOOOO looking forward to Greenbelt this year. Having reflected on the various conferences I find myself eating christian lasagne at, the events where I participate (or struggle to participate) in worship, the seminars where I debate with Youth Minesterial bretherin and sisterin, the VERY limited number of gigs I get to and the churches I find myself adrift in ...... I have decided that Greenbelt is the most fulfilling and enriching thing I go to by far. It's the event where worship, gigs, debate, church, faith and learning all combine and I feel at home, my faith and my soul part of something bigger. It's a funny thing as Greenbelt is a massive bunch of imperfect people (I include myself) who don't all agree BUT somehow it's a taste of the kingdom that's really real. There's fun and faith, doubts and longings, hopes and dreams, creativity and dance, tears and laughter, a search for shalom, the mystery of Christ, the passion of the Spirit, the father heart of God ........ oh and the Tiny tea tent!

Interestingly I probably bump into more youth ministers I know at Greenbelt than anywhere else (Soul Survivor included) so I'm not the only one who finds it pivotal in terms of what events they commit to.

See you there :-)

The Exeter DYO job is currently being advertised. If you would like to join the surreal federation of Diocesan Youth Advisers battling with (and sometimes against) the Anglican Church, to promote and enable mission among and with young people then I have the details.

The internet is a bizarre place! I was just looking at who was hot-linking (tut tut) to stuff on my blog and I found a photo of my shed? Strange but true, this piece on new semi-conductor legislation features my workshop!

Rather than being illustrative of "shedding some light" it was originally about "lighting some shed!"
Hey Ho

Thought this was worth flagging up (oh and obviously I need a female volunteer to a) go and b) let me know what it was like!). Details as follows .....

"More than survival
A conference for women in youth ministry

The cost of the conference is £95, including all meals and overnight accommodation.
Interested? Please contact Becky Ward via bward@cpas.org.uk or on 01926 458452"

Great post from Lev looking at how Church percieved problems with the young people are indicative of the actual problems which affect the whole church. I also thought this quote was helpful ...........

"When leaders in churches began to see teenager's growing disinterest with the church they responded like a good mechanic: isolate and fix...but the Christian community is not a machine. In fact the "solution" of isolation created a much worse problem. Because teenagers are an integral part of the body of Christ, perhaps we would be better off to approach this problem less as a mechanic would and more as a physician would" (Family Based Youth Ministry, p43).

This effect that Lev highlights not only affects Churches but is equally true at a societal level AND goes equally un-grasped.

The wedding preach went well and I was so thrilled to have played a part in what was a wonderful Christian wedding. The day saw so much laughter a few emotional tears shed too. Witnessing a former member of the youth group get married is so cool, in this case with the added bonus that another former Youth groupee was the Best Man and delivered THE finest wedding speech I have ever heard.

The Church was St Pauls in Salisbury which is a very cool Anglican church that's had the ditch the pews refurb and added some techno accesories too. The ambience and comfy seats were fab from a preaching point of view but the techno side was a little intimidating. It's one thing to preach, it's quite another to preach while behind you is the projection of you BUT larger, much larger.... I can't think of a more effective way of making you self conscious about gesticulation, however the magnified drops of nerve induced sweat were probably good for humility (but not great viewing). Hey Ho!

I'm preaching at a wedding tomorrow, how cool is that? Very excited because they're such a top top couple and Phil used to be in the Youth group when I was the Yoof Wurka at St Nix.. After a lot of pseudo preperation I think I've decided on the message, which will be, "Marriage is a jolly good thing!"
Way to go Hannah and Phil and I'll see you in time for the 2:30 kick off, thank you for the enormous honour of allowing me to speak at your wedding! (Especially as they know I have NEVER preached at a wedding before).

Still haven't quite resolved how you do the talking to the couple AND the congregation simultaneously thing?

In answer to the query in the comments (hi Alison, hi Tim) this is Bebo! It's a Social Networking site (other examples, Friendster and MySpace but there are lots more) where you can create an online profile for yourself and then meet and interact with other people around shared interests, music, location or entirely randomly. Social Networking is massive culturally and Friendster for example has 16 million members and that is WAY below the figures for MySpace! Members of YOUR youth group will have a profile on one of these sites, ask them about it?

This is what Bebo have to say in answer to the question, "Why would I become a member of Bebo?"

"Who wouldn't want to be a member of Bebo? Everyone who is anyone is a member of Bebo. Even the Queen is on Bebo*. (Although her homepage is private and only visible to her personal friends, footmen and corgis. You can tell when she's online though, because the internet is flown at half mast.)

Am currently involved in an archeological dig following rumours that somewhere beneath the detrius left over from Yellow Braces and all the mail that arrived while I was away, there is a desk. Digging through the various sub-strata of papers, these are the things that can be dealt with by converting to html before binning :-)
The August edition of Youthwork is out and it is majoring on sex, big time ....... some really good articles in there! (sadly no funny job adverts this time which is bad news for this blog).
The MATRIX conference has published more details, It's March 5-7th at High Leigh conference centre. It will focus on four areas, the theologian, the leader, the missionary and the prophet. Booking forms will be in Sept/Oct Youthwork magazine.
The Grove youth series in growing and selling well. The latest title, "Can we have a chat" a look at working safely with young people one to one by Jon Langford is out, well worth a look.
Interesting article in the Guardian investigating how much personal info/photo's young people put onto Bebo, myspace etc and the danger that represents.
I'm not sure how this fell into my In Tray but if Gospel music is your bag then you may want to check the Star Awards evening thingy out! The event will be held at Symphony Hall in Birmingham at 7pm on 2 September 2006 and will be hosted by UK Gospel Music Ambassador Noel Robinson and Birmingham’s Nikki Tapper from BBC WM.

And if you are a bit too busy at the moment then this piccy will either make you laugh or cry .....

My two day cycling expedition was a blast and I won't bore you with the details here, mainly because I have a specific place to be boring at ;-)
I will post something Youth ministerially related a bit later .......

No posts for a couple of days as I'm pedalling around Wales at NON warp factor 0.000004 (it's VERY hilly) and generally boldy going anywhere that the road seems to be leading. It's kind of a a retreat, a bit of an adventure and a good chance to train for the 110 mile Cyclosportive event in the summer that I've accidently entered.

Crusaders are running a residential for DJ's and Musicians, it's called Rock School and they'd also like to develop a similar event for those interested in video/media. Paul Windo was wandering if anyone else is doing anything similar in order not to overlap and to see what they can learn from others experience, or if there are people out there interested in getting involved. The full text of Paul's question is below, e-mail him if you have any info as I was unable to contribute any contacts. Thanks :-)

While I was driving last week I was thinking about how to explain Christian community to the young people coming to Yellow Braces, how to explain Kingdom stuff in non-religious language. At camp I really want EVERYONE to experience being accepted and valued and them being an important part of the event. Whilst for the christians, I should be preaching to the converted (as it were), I really want those who don't come from a christian experience to not only understand what's happening but give them permission to live it.
As I was thinking about how I might explain, it struck me that what I was talking about was the exact opposite to Bullying, i.e Going out of your way to build people up, not knock them down. Seeking to include and value not isolate and devalue. To gain the best result for the other person, not for yourself. So I turned the word backwards and came up with a phonetic version of gniyllub ........ Gernillub!
So I told the camp about Jesus and the way that he valued and included people, the way he looked at the real person, not just what people saw. I explained how this camp lived out Gernillub and that's what I wanted them to do. Anyway, they got it and they did it. It was so cool each day to give examples of the great Gernillubing that we'd noticed. It was also a great way of discussing the difference Jesus wants to make to us and to our communities.

I thought I'd writet it up in case it's useful to anyone else.

PS: I tried to find on the web if anyone else had also had this idea? and there is this site I don't understand? and a Google page back to front? so I still don't know.

This weekend saw our annual Diocesan Youth Camp, 'Yellow Braces', happening at Hill End in Oxfordshire. It was an awesome event and I'm SOOOO tired but muchly encouraged. We had 60 teens, a team of 21 and 8 older teens on a trainee leadership programme. It was a full on weekend and not without its complexities but it came together well and the effects of living in Christian community made a great impact on the young people, it was so cool to see the barriers breaking down and young people being drawn in to the 'family' that the camp is. I had to wear a pair of yellow braces all weekend (something I've managed to avoid up until now) and the collective humour involving Emo Elmo, strange hats and rousing chorus's of "Morning has Broken" were .......... well, you had to be there!
The Water balloon volleyball was hotly contested, the pool was freezing but enjoyed, the worship rocked, the international doggy paddle race was splashing and the activities went well. Oh and we also took part in "The beat goes on" campaign with Christian Aid making an extrodinary amount of noise in a world-record-simultaneous-drumming gig to keep the 'Justice' message on the political agenda.

If any of the team are reading this, THANK YOU, It was a privilige to be on a team with you :-)

Wahhooo, a new Cockburn Album! It's called Life Short Call Now and comes out on July 17th. Like a lot of long term Greenbelters I'm a huge fan of the powerful lyrical poetry and exquisite guitar playing of Mr Cockburn.

Hope an album means a tour?

"Billboards promise paradise
And tattoos "done while you wait"
Possible futures all laid out
On the sweeping curve of the interstate" First verse, Life Short Call Now

Thanks for the comments yesterday about admin. It seems that broadly speaking my thesis that youth workers are not natural administrators was correct. The good advice was appreciated as were the links, it does seem however that the tri-une neccessities for Youth work admin are the In tray, the shredder and the bin!

It actually looks quite an impressive system until you realise that the In tray is just a holding point before stuff makes the complex transition from tray to shredder to bin, or the simpler 'tray to bin' manouvre. I also note that there is a vast swathe of stuff that never even touches the In Tray!!!!!! I'll not suggest any organisations or style of literature that might be in this catergory ;-)

Further to my thesis I reckon that this is because youthwork values are applied to paperwork ...

Voluntary participation = I don't have to read that stuff
Informal education = I'll absorb the information through process not by reading and filing
Relational Approach = If its important enough, someone will tell me about it
Empowerment = I'm giving people the opportunity to take responsibility by having to find new ways of getting information to/from me

ht for above picture to amazing time management secrets via Len.

Mountaineer, Youth worker and top bloke, Hutch posed a question about admin support for youth workers and it got me thinking!

As a broad generalisation (and you can shoot me down in flames here) .....

GOOD YOUTH WORKER = NOT THE MOST GIFTED ADMINSTRATOR!

There are a few I know where they have both gifts but generally the two tend to me mutually exclusive, all youth workers can do admin BUT I reckon it's often a struggle and normally a bit chaotic!

So the question of whether youth workers should get Admin support is an intersting one! In my last Church I had a building to run as well as doing yoof wurk and didn't have any admin support. Thankfully the young people were absolutely fantastic and would regularly pitch in with inputting data, sorting stuff out or acting in a kind of consultancy role, "IAN YOU'VE FORGOTTEN TO ...... BLAH BLAH BLAH. I even had one teenager who used to review documents for me and put stuff like Grammar and spelling in (thanks Tessa).

In my current job I have a quarter of an admin person's time (in which she achieves at least double WHAT I could do administratively in that time) but I really need to take some time out to redesign my filing system, books, resources and computer folders!

Oooppps may have rambled a bit :-) BUT the point of this was, What's the best Admin tip/trick you've learnt?
Do share (I have A LOT to learn)

I know this is a commercial type site (Dove Soap) but I thought it was rather good. I'm all for stuff that tackles what a huge issue Self-worth is, and attacks the crud thats out there in terms of "what people should be"

"over 92% of girls say they want to change at least one aspect of their appearance"

Check it out: Campaign for real beauty.

As some of you know the churches in Oxfordshire have been working together on the VERTIGO project to bring young people together and inspire/enable them to live their faith. The first two events were worship, teaching type gigs but with a chance for young people to discover and meet other christians from their schools. All the teens who wanted to commit to living their faith could take some 'dog tags' on that carried the VERTIGO strap line "Don't look down" and Hebrews 4:12

Well the Saturday just gone was the chance to put faith into Action with a NOISE type project in Oxford and it was AWESOME. I'd had very little to do with this one so was absolutely gob-smacked by what the VERTIGO crew pulled off. There were about 200 young people and following on from some worship and teaching , they headed into Broad Street to help the Council with a recycling promotion before then heading off to different places around Oxford for some social action. The teen teams all travelled by public transport so there wasn't an influx of kids arriving in minibuses and promoting the wrong idea (i.e invasion rather than service). The teens then worked with people in the community on whatever needed doing where they were. Class. Just so many things came together for the project that it really felt that God was blessing the stuff that was happening.

Back at the venue later there was such a buzz. LOADSA free food (local buisness's had been SO supportive) and the footy for those who wanted it. The Sumo suits were also a big hit (literally). We also had a BIG BROTHER video diary room so the young people could recored their experiences!

Fab day: Next ordinary VERTIGO on Oct 14th