May 2008 Archives

I was having a great chat with a teenager youth work volunteer last night. In a conversation that ranged through philosophy, ethics and psychology (he was a very switched on A-level student) we got to talking about how rewarding volunteering is .... and musing that some people just didn't see that. We talked about how much we gain from helping others as opposed to only pursuing things that were of maximum and immediate benefit to ourselves.

Although there are some great Jesus principles in the above muse, what leapt to mind was Sidgwicks hedonistic paradox:

"The least effective way to achieve pleasure is to deliberately seek it out"

I'm not sure I can build this into a recruiting leaflet but I like it as a proposition. When we are training young leaders for camps and the like I talk about volunteering being twice the fun IF YOU can make the transition from receiving to serving. You have fun because it is fun, but you have even more fun because you see the fun others are gaining from what you are doing.

Do you ever read something and wish you'd written it? I don't mean 'cos the royalty cheque would be REALLY useful, I mean 'cos it just kinda fits with what you were thinking about. Jacob and Brian (the brains behind Rethinking Youth Ministry) have come up with a great summary of what adults should know about young people, great stuff:

1) Teens are people, too. Resist calling them "kids" (unless you mean it as a term of endearment) or speaking about them as if they aren't in the room.

5) Teens' body clocks are different from ours. Most teens need 8-10 hours of sleep a night and get much less. Additionally, most teens are not at their peak until late morning and many are "night owls."

Click through to RYM to read the full list.

More thoughts about disability inclusion, this time from the perspective of a teenager with a disability.

Including Young people

There is real frustration when people presume to know what their needs are without asking them. They hate people making decisions for them.

What you know and understand about teenagers needs, hopes, fears and aspirations still applies regardless of whether they have a disability.

Announcement that the above will go 'live' in September, the salient info is here.

Love this wisdom from Mark Yaconelli, all credit to Rethinking Youth Ministry for posting this.

Driving through an obscure Oxfordshire village last week I missed my turn and thus had to use a farm gateway to turn around. Having driven in, I had to wait before reversing back onto the road as there was a car coming. I duly waited and was highly amused was that it was my old car I was given way to, weird?

Rye observation and much truth from Dave the wibmeister

Long term reader(s) of this blog will know that blogging is not the only interest in my life, I also have a healthy (or unhealthy according to JT) interest in sheds, or at least an appreciation of their usefulness.

Anwyway the collection has now grown! I heard rumours of a perfectly good 6x4 that was going to be burned as it was surplus to requirements. Taking inspiration from Donkey sanctuarys who take in unwanted donkey's to live out their twilight years in a happy & mellow Equus nirvana, I thought why not a shed sanctuary? Why not! So off I went on a rescue mission ..........

The shed was in a neglected and undernourished state when I rescued it but after a generous feeding of Creosote (substitute) and some minor shiplap replacement surgery it is again delighting in its rejuvenated shediness. I am putting it in the top area of the sanctuary alongside a budget 5x7 which is undergoing some renovation to it's inadequate mdf flooring.

For further information about the National Shed Rescue Sanctuary or indeed to visit the Museum of Garden Outbuildings, send an e-mail

*laughing*

I was looking through t'internet for a picture to illustrate this piece and I found myself chuckling as shed manufacturers seem to have this obsession with artfully placing a few items outside of the shed to illustrate some of it's uses. (I find this as bizzare as serving suggestion photos on cornflake packets). This one was particularly chortle-worthy as I think it suggests that the owner has taken their wellies off before entry to the sheddy of sheddies!

(oh and many thanks to Wilson the feminist theologian for the generous gift of roof felt towards this 4x6 rescue project)

Sort notice I know but May 31st in the EXPO day for FUSION. It's in Thame (details here). If you want to know about community festivals and community (and faith) based work with young people theen this is well worth going to.

Over the next few days I'm going to be posting more about disability inclusion, looking from three different perspectives: The parents, the young people and the youth leader. It's taken a while to do because some of this stuff is painfully close to home for me and also because I didn't want to assume my experience (and that of H) was normative. I've been very fortunate though that Will, from a wonderful organisation called PALS, has provided significant and substantial input. I'm hoping that these pieces with the addition of comments from other practitioners, will be a useful resource:

The Parents:

There is a fear of leaving their child with someone they don't know very well. For a lot of the kids they have never been anywhere except school without their parents so the parents are unsure whether the leader will know how to look after their child.

Parents are usually happy to negotiate and discuss to find ways of making activities work and recognizing that some are not suitable.

Jonny Baker has posted a review of Chrysalis by Alan Jamieson. I was really struck by this reflective list on aspects of a journey to a deeper faith, it's a list which really resonates with my (ongoing and developing) experience:

from black and white to an embrace of black and white and greys
from dependence to interdependence
from answers to mystery and childlike wonder
from doing to being (a deep sense of being accepted by god)
from playing a role to a new giving of self for others
from trust in external authorities to an integration of internal and external voices
from effortful faith to resting faith
from martha's faith to faith that expresses mary's heart and martha's hands
from needing leaders to co-discerning with others
from external truth to communal and paradoxical truth

I think this would be an interesting list to hold alongside our youth ministry programmes for reflection.

Bishop Gavin Reid has been delivering some input to the DYO conference and was reflecting that there is only one section of the Old Testament that directly relates to youth work. The passage in question being from Second Kings:

23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. 25 And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

His reflection being that in a culture which was built around multi-generational family, this is the only example of young people being together as a peer group!

I was quite amused by the idea of this obscure episode being the only directly applicable Old Testament reference to work with young people. A bit of trawling around also revealed this passage to be among Cracked dot coms most bad-ass Bible verses.
So ............... don't 'mess' with Prophets!

Peter Kays list of 35 universal truths has been circulating the web for a few years but it still makes me laugh 'cos of it's well observed shared experiences. May favourites are:

Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones.

Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.

Anyway, re-encountering this list this morning made me wonder about ther universal truths of youth work. What generalisations would resonate with nearly everyone's shared experience of youth work? This is what I shall be pondering today when the conference I am at is running beyond my attention span BUT I'd love your ideas .........

Continuing the posts on disability inclusion, here's a DCSF Policy update on transforming the lives of disabled Children.

I love this, Flava are a teenage dance group that appeared on Britians Got talent this weekend and were really well received. You can watch the video here.

What was really encouraging though were Simon Cowell's comments:

"You have done one thing incredible, you've just made hoodies acceptable. I love that you have done it yourself, you are raw talent and you are as good as what I've seen in America. There a lot of people getting a hard time in this country at the moment, particularly young people and I just think you are an incredible representation of the good that is out there"

I'm hanging our near Ipswich for a few days at the annual gathering of all the Diocesan Youth advisers. It'll be a great opportunity for theology, prayer, laughter and perchance the odd beer! I've also got the racer with me for a little high speed down time, Oh Yeah!

Ht to the Marko-meister (and Kevin for the idea for the title)

If you are in the mood an absurd feel-good piece of pointless video then look know further.
(although I admit that if you were to pitch this as a film concept then interest for close ups of people blowing raspberries to an operatic accompaniment wouldn't make it further than the Tate Modern). Ht to Chris

This is the work of genius, possible skewed genius, but definitely genius!

I am passionate about youth ministry being inclusive not exclusive, and groups being a community of difference not a collective of sameness. This does however require an intentionality, a flexibility and an openness ..... it also means additional challenges in the outworking of this, but at the same time often leads to a greater depth, learning and understanding in the experience of the group. (I will step down from my youth-work Soap Box now)

In terms of being welcoming to young people with additional needs or disabilities though, what does this mean?

From a legislative point of view it means looking at and amending policies and practices that would prevent someone with a disability taking part. It also means being willing to make "reasonable adjustment" to enable someone with additional needs to participate.

In many ways this is a natural outworking of our faith, and I see lots of Church groups that extend a welcome and a value to all, offering a place of being and belonging to all sorts of young people who otherwise may be marginalised. I've also been blessed, encouraged and helped by the welcome my son has received in so many places.

I do think though that it requires an intentionality, flexibility and openness. What I want to try and write then is something from the point of view of disabled young people and their parent(s), something that is practical and helpful. I am however finding it hard to write, So think of this post as the 2nd Indiana Jones film, i.e not very good but paving the way for a great part 3!

Last night I was helping a group of leaders from various youth groups in a Church to look at a number of issues and help them explore ways forward. (*laughing* I think I just lapsed into consultant speak, eeeek). As a way in, I got them to shout out all the aspects of the work where they found Joy and Fun, then to list the aspects that were a source of heaviness.
It proved a useful exercise to work from BUT I especially loved how passionate and energetic they were about the aspects of youth ministry where they encountered joy and fun. This is their two minute shout out .......

Relationships, buzz, crowd, laughter, noise, quiet, eating together, sharing, talking,
being challenged, new thoughts, team, energy, the privilege.

I think I want to write a bit this week about disability and inclusion in youth work, yes I definitely think that's what I'd like to write about. So ......

A story which I hope will serve as an introduction and form the basis for some reflection.

As a family we had the privilige of being at Butlins for a week in the Spring break. My thirteen year old son, H (who has cerebral palsy) and is passionate about driving, loves Butlins. He likes it for all sorts of reasons including the greater degree of freedom he enjoys, but most of all because of the Dodgems. If you are staying at Butlins then the fun-fair is free. For H this means packing a drink and a peaunut butter sandwich into a bag and heading down to the Dodgems. Once there it means queuing, having a drive, joining the back of the queue and driving again (and again). The staff at the Dodgems were fantastic, willing to help him put his seatbelt on and happy to wait the extra time it took for him to extricate himself from the car at the end of a session. Fab!

H's dream though was to drive a Go-kart and every day he would study the track, the karts and the drivers. This year he met the height criteria necessary to pilot a go-kart round the track and he was so excited that I'd promised him a go.

The alloted day arrived and he was actually quivering with excitement as we approached the barrier. Money ready he waited to buy his turn. Sadly the supervisor wasn't quite so keen and was point blank that H was not driving a go-kart.
"Why?," I asked
"Because he's not old enough!" came the explanation.
I patiently explained that it was height not age that was the criteria according to their own stated rules .... and beside which there were young people significantly younger actually driving on the circuit.
The answer was still an absolute no and I patiently pointed out that it wasn't fair to deny him the opportunity because he had a disability.
"It's not his disability, it's a health and safety judgment!" I was told.
Despite protestations I got no further than being told If he wanted to have a go I would have to hire the more expensive two seater and he could be a passenger.

There was no point in arguing, H and I left frustrated and disappointed.

It was so important to H though that I decided we shouldn't give up. We went back the next day in the hope that someone else was on duty, someone who'd be more willing to give H a chance despite his disability.
The guy on duty was fantastic! He was open to me explaining that I believed this was within the capability of my son and that he would really like to try. He took my son seriously and was willing to negotiate. He was happy to let H have a drive but decided that he'd prefer to not have other drivers on the circuit for safety reasons and would be happy if my son and I had 2 separate cars on a closed circuit.

H drove it brilliantly, keeping the kart under control the whole time and even managing the winding pathway back to the garage at the end of the 5 laps! The sense of enjoyment and achievement he'd experienced was massive and obvious, the gargantuan grin lasted for hours afterwards.

I was tempted to turn this into the parable of the 'Disability Discrimination Act' but then I thought, nah! I will probably write some stuff on DDA tomorrow though.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The human cost of conflict
Oxhub Speaker Series, in association with Christian Aid.

Nigel Varndell of Christian Aid's Advocacy and Policy Group for the Palestinians and Israel will explain what life is like ordinary Palestinians under occupation and what Christian Aid is doing to help.

Wednesday 21 May - 8pm Magdalen Auditorium - Magdalen College

Admission Free - All Welcome Refreshments available at the end

I have now taken possession of the new Youthblog mobile office, family taxi and Kayak Carrier. It's a shiny 2004 Astra estate that is quite happy to have it's pistons fueled by petrol or LPG Gas. The LPG gas burns cleaner and with less bad-for-the-environment junk ejected from the exhaust pipe (did I ever tell you that German for Exhaust gases is auspuf ).

Not only does it churn out less muck, it uses fewer pounds too in the filling up process.
My first 200 miles required 28 litres of gas and although this is a greater amount than it would have needed in petrol, LPG is only 57p a litre and so 200 miles for £16! If you were to work out the comparative mpg on a cost basis, this is equivalent to a virtual 60mpg.

This is very good news indeed and means that I have switched to a car that is four years newer at no net cost (the repayments each month are less than my fuel savings!)

LPG, you should try it, it's a gas!

I use the Google language translator a fair amount and it's a really useful app, particularly to check stuff. I thought this was great though, translate your writing into genuine tweenage Bebo text talk. Great fun! I know a couple of parents who read this who will, I'm sure, use this for a bit of fun!

I UES TEH GOGLE LANGUAEG TRANSLA2R A FARE MOUNT AND ITS A RILLY UESFUL AP PARTICULARLEY 2 CHAK STUF!!!1! WTF LOL I THOUGHT THES WAS GRAAT THOUGH TRANSLAET UR WRITNG IN2 GANUIEN TWENAEG BBO T3XT TOK!!1!!1!!! OMG LOL GR3AT FUN!1!1!1! WTF I KNOW A COUPLE OF PAERNTS WHO R3AD THES WHO WIL IMM SURE UES THES FOR A BIT OF FUN !!!1!11!! OMG

Scripture Union launched Light live yesterday, it's a bank of online ideas and links to help plan and resource groups. It's all free (but donations are encouraged). Have a look ....

Picture was subject to copyright and has been removed

On the 21st May (yes, short notice) there is a consultation in London looking at strategy and development of youth and children's work (faith based). The day will include some scenarios from a leading futurist and the hope is to spark collaborative, creative thinking and imagining. Due to the short notice (and the fact that the Diocesan Youth Advisers are at their national conference) it would be good to find additional experienced youth workers as part of the thinking and conversation. Expenses payed .... Can't guarantee you'll get a place but let me know if you are interested.

A story from the press this morning that is winding me up:

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith is proposing a strategy for disaffected young people that is being reported as a move involving "hounding them" and making "their lives as uncomfortable as possible". The Guardian reports that this recommendation will form part of a speech by the home secretary today!

Captain's Log Supplemental: I'm pleased to say that the actual speech was not as negative as (I presume) the press-release put out ahead of the speech that the papers picked up on. It also was not only focussed on young people which was what had been pre-presented.

A story from the press this morning that amused me:

Unsigned band, "The Get out Clause" had no money to make a video to go with their single, "Paper!" In the very best traditions of Plan B though, they headed to Manchester and at various times, set up and played to a total of eighty different CCTV Camera's. They then (and this is the genius bit) requested the footage back under "The Freedom of information Act" and voila, a video. Nice!

Here's the low down and some clips from the video.

View Publicity

If you are in transportable distance of Staines then you should have a look at this one day schools work conference (for those involved in secondary schools).

On the subject, the schoolswork web site is fantastic and has a really good training page which has the details of the Staines day and a whole bunch more.

The training day for clergy on 'confirmation preparation for young people' seems to go OK despite my pre-occurring nightmare (although I am not going to read the evaluation sheets until tomorrow).

The idea that produced the most reaction today was when I was exploring that many young people felt that their confirmation happened when they were too young and hence before they were really ready. By way of illustration I reflected that some conversations with young people around sex were not dissimilar to conversations about their confirmation, comments about either could be juxtaposed:

"I was too young really"

"It wasn't as meaningful as I'd hoped"

Careforce asked for a plug ........... here it is!

Went to see Iron Man last night and loved it. Super Hero films, in my opinion, fall into one of two categories, either great or BAD. The bad ones just don't quite cohere, take themselves too seriously, too flippantly or just fail to work. Iron Man is definitely in the 'great' category though, great film and great fun.

Robert Downey Junior plays the role of 'Stark' brilliantly. The characters' journey from the playboy genius CEO of a weapons company to his role as Iron man is handled well and within the slightly different realms of Superhero films, credibly. The film delivers all the required narrative and background creatively without long unnecessary dialogue or contrived explanations. The effects are fantastic, particularly Stark interacting with the 3D CadCam design .... and the flight sequences. Can't say too much more without spoiling the film for you WHEN you go and see it!

IMHO, It's a huge, fun and cool film. Right up there with Batman Begins and Spiderman 2.

I'm not sure its healthy anthropomorphizing ones transport but I was nevertheless sad to see my old car drive off with a new owner. Even weirder though was the fact that I comforted myself with the fact that I was, for once, not abandoning a faithful chariot at the scrap-yard (where all but one of my previous rides have made a final journey to).

On Thursday I shall be the proud owner of another Astra Estate, the same in virtually every respect except that it runs on LPG. Yep, Youthblog will now be cruising the highways and byways of the Diocese powered by, what is in essence, Camping Gas! Weird huh? Sadly, despite the presence of 50 litres of Gas* it still can't be relied on to boil up a cup of tea however it's a less polluting emission .... and filling up for £0.52 a litre is going to feel pretty sweet compared to Petrol at £1.11 a litre.

* (I'm not sure how to translate this post into American. My car doesn't run on Gas (i.e Petrol), it runs on Gas (i.e Gas).

A friend has lent me a little Mazda to get about until the Astra arrives, and despite the fact that it's only as high as other cars door handles and it doesn't even have a proper roof, it is ridiculously good fun. Thanks JT

Captain's Log Supplemental: Tuesday. The MX5 is officially the most fun car on the planet! I drove to work at 07:00 this morning with the MP3 player on and the roof down. Arrived at work with a huge Grin on my face. (When I borrowed the car I wasn't sure I'd ever have the roof down, I now can't think of an occassion when I'd have the roof up, LOL)

In turn out that Blogging is potentially dangerous and our daily posts involve us exposing our self to contamination and illness! Our digital musings involve contamination via our own digits. It's true according to the BBC! So sHOULds I starTTTT TypiNG wearINGG Glovs?

ht to Ruth for this one.

One of the youth workers I was chatting to yesterday had attempted to see how near the world record he could get for the number of clothes pegs on a face. He had managed 75.
If your're bored today ..... there's a challenge! Oh and Richard if you read this .... send the photo as it's perfectly pitched for the editorial level of this blog!

Huzzah, Richard has sent me the photo and although he only!!!!! managed 75, I think bonus points are in order for the old Testament prophet look he achieves! Fab.

I had a disconcerting dream last night. In my mind it was already next Wednesday and I found myself delivering the CME (continuing ministerial education) day on "Preparing young people for Confirmation!" It was all quite convincing and the room looked exactly as it will when I actually deliver this next week APART from a huge white board that encouraged evaluation and feedback. Some of the sections had already been filled in and I was clear that the clergy had been furtively sneaking up to the board and scribbling. The comments were less than complimentary about how useful the day was proving. In the unfolding and very real drean I was trying to carry on and critically re-evaluate the content and process at the same time ..... and the anxiety was palpable. At this point I woke up!

I am clearly stressed about delivering this particular day and I don't know why? I just hope this dream is a sign of that and not some prophetic foreknowledge :-)