July 2009 Archives

'Normal' service resumes at the end of August

It's 10pm and I'm sitting out on the decking enjoying the lights I fitted today, I think they contribute muchly to the mellowness.

This is the final post before the blog shuts down for a summer sabbatical. Tomorrow I head out to Taize with a great group of young people from the Diocese. After that I'll be in work for a bit to catch up AND clear the desk before a two week 'staycation' with the family. A week at work and then Greenbelt, Huzzah. After that I will be mugged as expected by that brute, September! In the meantime though an adventure and a rest. I'll find it hard not to blog but I think it'll be good to have a sabbatical from wittering (for me and you).

I look forward to resuming our on-line friendship then.

Shalom

ht to Word Alive

I wasked asked to write something around resources to help young people consider the arena of giving and generous living. It looked like this .....

What resources are available (or should be) to help disciple young people into lives of generous giving?

Encouragingly young people are in many cases already generous with time and with money. A recent survey of 14-18 year olds discovered that 45% regularly volunteer their time and 80% of them give some money to charity. (for the purposes of this paper it is well worth noting that the rate of volunteering went up to 69% for those who indicated they attended 'Christian Meetings')

Clearly there is some resourcing already that is working.
Furthermore, any resources that aid the discipleship and growth of young people, that lead to Christ centred lives and Christ-like behaviour can only be a good thing.

There is a danger though of having a sub-conscious mindset that sees this resourcing question in the realms of 'what should we teach?' and 'what must young people know? It's a model that is prevalent in our churches and demonstrates the 'Modernity' mindset that aims to give information to the intellect that will then lead to changed behaviour. Teaching is not a bad thing, but for young people who live totally in a post-modern paradigm the resourcing must be about how young people learn, encounter, observe and question. An exposition of 2 Corinthians 8 (for example) may impart information but young people learn when they see it lived, wrestle with what it really means, connect it to life as they experience it.

A significant study in the United States discovered that many young people had a faith that the author described as "Therapeutic moral Deism" that is a faith that had feel-good benefits, offered some moral guidance and reached for God when there was a crisis, further discovering that this faith (in its application) generally mirrored their parents faith. This is despite the fact that many of these young people had encountered 'solid Biblical teaching' in their churches.

This brings us back to the resource question. The most significant resource we can offer to young people in aiding them to discover the Jesus transformed life of generous living and giving are adults who are themselves on a spiritual journey and invest time in relationships with young people. The results of the "Soul Searching" study cited above was that despite what young people were taught, what they tended to absorb (and reproduce) was what they saw.

Jo and Nigel Pimlot in their book, "Youth work after Christendom" point to the dualism that can occur with a failure to make the connection between the Christian story and everyday life. They argue that for a deeper discipleship to happen knowledge can only be a starting place, there needs to be a move into understanding, on into application and finally arriving at integration. They draw heavily from adult education and coaching to point to both process (which will differ for different people) and relationship as the keys.

Mark Yaconelli, author of 'Contemplative Youth Ministry' spent more than a decade working with a variety of churches to see what a more contemplative approach to youth ministry would look like ... and if it would work. One of the drivers for the experiment was his observation that young people are not blank slates and Christianity is not words, but the churches approach seemed to exist on the basis that these statements were true. His reflective conclusion was that the barrier was often that we, the adults, didn't know how to be with our kids, didn't know how to be with ourselves and didn't know how to be with God. His work concluded that the resource needed to help young people grow in all areas of their faith were adults who could be present with God and present with young people. His conclusions reinforced by a statement by a 15 year old quoted in the book,

"Young people can't just have someone reciting lines or reading a book or teaching. You want someone who's learning, someone who's alive and growing with you"

Of the resources that are currently available to help young people engage with Giving most are contained in resources produced by charities that specialise in Justice and/or environmental issues. The best resource that I can point to is the Youth Emmaus course that does provide a section called "Living it and giving it." Furthermore it is a course that takes seriously the post modern paradigm and encourages gathering around food, notes the importance of questions and discussion, as well as holding relationship and spirituality as core values of its delivery.

My thesis though is very much that in the area of Christian giving and living, the resource question for work with young people is better rendered as who? than what?

___________________________________________________________________

Supplemental links and Resources:

Young people and the environment
Generous.org
Fifty small acts that make a difference
The Live Simply website
The book, Simplify by Paul Borthwick
We are what we do website
Love Life-Live Lent
The Simple way website

Anyone know any teaching/learning resources that looks at 'giving and generous living' with young people? Examples and links etc GREATLY appreciated.

Shalom

One of the activities that went REALLY well at The Yellow Braces camp was Ultimate Frisbee. We were fortunate to have a leader who was not only an excellent player but REALLY good an involving, encouraging and enabling the young people to enjoy the sport.

As well as loving how much the young people got out off it though I was also struck by the values and ethos of the sport. The game has no referee and is self regulated, fair play and grace are highly esteemed. The post-game etiquette though was particularly wonderful. The captain of each team congratulates and thanks the opposing team, then one of a menu of silly games is played just to keep the whole thing in context. (The game that the teams at Yellow Braces used for the post match frippery was called 'Micro tanks!' The teams form a circle facing into the centre and all balance on their elbows and knees. They then moved forwards on elbows and knees continually chanting "I'm a micro tank, I'm a micro tank ....." The goal was to make it across the circle with much hilarity ensuing. Even funnier was that if someone fell over then they MUST continue to move their arms and legs, while lying on their sides, as if driven by an imaginary motor and continuing to chant until 'game-over' was called)

Fab stuff!

I was over at Worcester Diocese for a meeting this morning and my instructions had indicated that I could park my car at Cathedral House. I was further informed that there was a system in place for allocating car park spaces and it would be clear from the 'display' which space I should access.

I was deeply delighted to drive into the car park and find that each visitors bay had a traffic cone 'wearing' a pre-used envelope marked with the name of the guest. I thought this was great!

This seminar Led in part by young people is about suffering harm and how to prevent it.
It looks useful/interesting. Website is here

Twyford Local Ecumenical Partnership

is a church family with a passion for serving young people.
We are currently looking for a Part-time paid
Youth Discipleship Worker
To join our team of volunteer and paid youth workers

Contact me if you would like the details forwarded on to you

Having written about youth ministry for five years, has there ever been a business deal approach from a major supplier of youth work resources?
There has not!
Has the blog ever generated enquiries from marketing agencies asking about web presence for their client?
Nope!

However when it comes to sheds (a mere aside on the blog) it's a different story. I was amused and chuffed, no ... chuffed and amused yesterday to be approached by a major shed supplier with the offer of a deal. *laughing* It's true! Funny old world eh

Yours sincerely

Ian Macdonald
(shed engineer and wood-treatment consultant)

It's fast coming up to the 5 year blog birthday here on Youthblog! I started wittering (a low tech' precursor to Twitter) back in 2004 and it's been part of what I do and who I am ever since. I've loved the opportunity for discussion, fun, co-learning and exploration, it's been a great source of connection with friends/fellow practitioners all over the world*

In case you think this means I'm now retiring the blog? I'm not! But I am taking a break over the summer as the core readership is frenetically busy taking groups to: (tick as appropriate)

• Camps


• Soul Survivor


• Walsingham


• Greenbelt


• Residentials


• New Wine


• Taize

So from when I head off to Taize on Saturday (without the laptop) until just after Greenbelt, all will be quiet on the blogging front. I'll slam in a few more "witters" this week and I'll probably still be playing on Facebook over the summer. No actual posts though for the last week of July and most of August, I hope you/your RSS feed will re-connect next Term. Shalom

* England, Canada and the Isle of Wight!

Er, the whole AH1N1 (aka Swine Flu) thing? Any thoughts in terms of camps and residentials?

This is the briefing I've just had from Taize:

1. We ask everyone in Taizé to follow basic sanitary hygiene and to wash their hands well and frequently
2. We are staying in close touch with local doctors
3. We ask anyone who has been in touch with people suffering from A/H1N1 flu, or who themselves are showing flu-like symptoms, not to come to Taizé.

Although interestingly, Flu expert Professor Peter Openshaw, of Imperial College London, says about one in every three people who become infected will not realise they have had swine flu because they will have had no or only very few symptoms.

Anyone received any other wisdom or policy advice other than that below ....

I have finally finished the decking! Today has been a mammoth effort .... but now the last screw is in place and the wood is waxed, yay! I can now return to the important business of blogging, and crucially ... about stuff that actually relates to Youth Ministry.

(Please note the fence in the background has been freshly creosoted!)

If any young people you work with are into photography then this competition being run by sight savers is WELL worth pointing them to.

It's called the i-click competition, it's for 11-18 year olds and has some great prizes. More details here

Highly successful evening as I finished cutting the joints into the bearers and assembled them into the completed frame. My daughter was not convinced that we were, as I believed, having fun lifting the pieces into place in the pouring rain.

I've now got to build the pillars into the swamp that will support the frame and decking. The rain is actually quite useful as at any given moment I can tell instantly whether the intended direction of drainage is working or not without the need to mess around with a spirit-level.

The plan is for it to be job-done by Sunday ... and we can thus move into our outdoor summer .... I just need to find the 'Beach boys' CD and the sun-lounger. (eek, just looked at the above picture; does that fence seriously need creosoting or what!)

On Tuesday night I met up with other members of our Taize group. We had a meal at an Italian restaurant (next to MY coffee shop) which was great. Scanning the 'specials' board I noticed the that there was on offer; Espresso, and Vanilla Ice Cream. I ordered what I thought was going to be a pleasant cup of coffee to have whilst, or just after, eating my ice cream. Turns out though that it is in fact, one dish. An Ice cream with a coffee poured over the top, Doh! Made me laugh.

Are there other potential misunderstanding traps that I should be aware of if eating out?

Also, is there any special knowledge I should have about eating at Taize in addition to the frightening fact that there is NO coffee. (I hadn't realised in time that I had signed up for a decaffeinated form of Monasticism!!!)

I flagged up a while back an account of Ross Brawn's leadership. I think I'm going to add John Fetterman, "The coolest mayor in America" as case study 2 on leadership. There's some awesome stuff in his story about leadership related to the person not the role; it's also a great insight into passion, commitment and vision.

Great story in the Guardian today about a report on tech' use by teens. The great part being that it was a 15 year old, Matthew Robson, who wrote the report for the bank he was doing some 'work experience' with.

It's a useful report and accords with conversations I've had with young people about their use of phones, internet and the like.

I'm surprised that the bank were surprised; but I'm delighted a young person has contributed so brilliantly to a clearer understanding of how young people consume media.

Loving this photo from the Daily Mirror today, definitely a bit of a 'Top Gun' moment:

Maverick: "Tower, this is Ghost rider requesting a flyby".
Air Boss Johnson: "That's a negative Ghost rider, the pattern is full"

or any number of other GREAT quotes ...

Stinger: "Maverick, you just did an incredibly brave thing. What you should have done was land your plane! You don't own that plane, the tax payers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash. You've been busted, you lost your qualifications as section leader three times, put in hack twice by me, with a history of high speed passes over five air control towers, and one admiral's daughter!"

From time to time I get asked advice regarding issues of 'Health and Safety' where the outlook of the volunteer/worker is at variance with others in the church.

I usually find the enquirer occupies a sensible position of managing and reducing risk; whilst creating good youth work opportunity and experience.

The tensions though come from two different ends of the safety continuum. Some volunteers/workers find that they are being seen as over-the-top as there is an inherent laissez-faire attitude. Others find that they get it in the neck for allowing anything other than a supervised stroll around the church hall (and then the inside thereof)

I don't know why I started scribbling this other than I was musing that ploughing the correct course risked criticism from two completely different stances.

I drove past an industrial building today that proudly displayed its business as a "Ventilation" company. The weather at this juncture was on the warm side. The workforce, presumably of ventilation engineers, had opened all the windows and wedged open the doors to stay cool l. I found this oddly amusing.

Yellow Braces was unbelievably wonderfully fab. Will write more when I can sentence a string together :-)

My desk looks the above (a 9.5 on the Hamilton Scale), my brain is akin to the picture below, whilst even taking my body to the point where it is 85% coffee has not enabled me to think straight. (All worth it though).

Heartfelt thanks to a brilliant and creative team who delivered a residential weekend that will live long in the memories of all who took part. Shalom

Yellow Braces (the oddly named Diocesan Youth camp) starts today and I'm surrounded by lists, equipment and boxes. The build up to a residential being muchly akin to a Military operation .... but sadly without the rather useful Helicopters!

I'm a mixture of excitement and a slight nervousness. Excitement because it is a wonderful event with a very gifted and able team, nervousness because I am still struggling with an ongoing 'fatigue' problem that has taken me to the Doctor several times. It's a new experience for me going into a residential having to carefully manage how I use my energy.

We've got around fifty young people coming, a trainee group of seven young leaders as well as a great team, band and catering crew. The weekend will I think require quite a bit of adapting as we go along, as the weather looks like having a greater liquid content than I would have liked. (This makes the 'Solar heated' (and wind-chilled) pool more of a challenge :-)

Prayer for all aspects of the camp appreciated as we explore Christian community and the Story of Faith.

Am currently reading "Leading on Empty" which I will review in full later, wanted to highlight this great quote though about positively seeking solitude in order that we may re-charge, rather than end up in the situation where we instead negatively seek isolation in order to hide and avoid.

"Solitude is a chosen seperation for refining the soul.
Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first" Cordeiro

I have tickets for Greenbelt! Very excited to be going once again to the wonderful smorgasbord of celebration, retreat, conference and party that the festival is, a shot of adrenalin for the soul.

Every time I see Walkers crisps at the moment I think of Greenbelt. This is not through some sort of weird snack association process, merely that the walkers tag-line at the moment would have been perfect for Greenbelt back in the day, "Muddy Marvelous"

The line up for 09 is here
If you are going to be there, I look forward to seeing you :-)

"Stage Fright" is a project in the Diocese that has really taken off thanks to great vision and leadership. They are looking for two more people to run theatre clubs as per the attached details. Closing date is VERY soon but I seemed to have missed the advert when it came out. Theatre workshop job offer.doc

The MizMeister of Portsmouth put me on to Kore (thanks).

It is a fantastic collection of 'stuff' to aid worship and exploration; visuals, ideas, music etc etc. Fab! Their tagline is: "engaging with culture, exploring new ideas, creatively equipping the church"

Have a Look.
Highly recommended

The Children's Society have produced a 'tool kit' for youth work that is aligned with the findings of the Good Childhood enquiry. Details here: ToolkitLeafletFINAL.pdf

I am part of a group that are looking into Confirmation and Confirmation prep' in and through the Anglican Church. As part of this work the group are REALLY keen to get this on-line questionnaire answered about your/young people's experience of confirmation.

If you could encourage people to fill this in (and of added interest would be young people who were confirmed but are no longer part of the church).

ENORMOUS thanks :-)

It would be remiss of me not to mark the fact it is 'national shed week' given my role outside of Youth Ministry as a serious Sheddie. The announcement for shed of the year 2009 will be on Wednesday and you'll find all the info on Readersheds.

Idly browsing this morning though I found this wonderful example of building a shed from materials available, Genius!

I am a tutor with the 'Centre for Youth Ministry' in charge of a 'Professional Formation Group.' This is a role I love.

The group is about experiencing and helping the students to deliver 'group work' giving opportunities for reflecting on learning and practice, as well a safe place to question, challenge and think. I thoroughly enjoy seeing the students learn and grow, seeing their passion thrive at the same time as their theological thinking and their professional practice develops.

With the group that have just finished their two years with me we had a lot of conversations about 'theories' and the why, how and where of them. I described theories as the tools we keep in our toolbox, retrieving them to work in a situation where that 'tool' will help us analyse what was happening or take other people through a process of understanding.

I must have used this 'toolbox' metaphor quite a few times as for a leaving gift they bought me an actual hard hat to go with the metaphorical toolbox. Very chuffed with this!

And to the group ........................... thank you so much, I will miss you :-)

It's only one week until the Diocesan Camp, Yellow Braces. On Monday I move into the pre-event phase that I like to call 'Headless Chicken' as I dash around stockpiling stuff ready and compiling endless lists.

One thing that I really need some help with is the craft ideas. Pat (blog commenter) is going to help me BUT I'd welcome some additional recommendations of easy to use craft ideas.

So, what works? What have you come across? You get the idea ...... ideas! (and the craftier the better)

As ever, thanks SO much

I caught part of a Philosophy programme t'other evening that I thought was on radio 4 but I am unable to track down now. It was looking at 'experimental philosophy' and how environment affected moral decision making. It had some resonances with theology and living a life of contemplative discipleship that interested me.

The central tenet was that moral behaviour could not be neatly accounted for by a theoretical philosophical position, that is notions of gaining good moral judgment. That this did not take account how much external stimuli could change things for the better or for the worse.

The first experiment cited was with a bunch of trainee ministers who'd been set the task of studying "The Good Samaritan' narrative and preparing a sermon on it. The experimenters then concocted a highly plausible mix up with the ministers whereby some were individually told they were late to preach their sermon and some were not. Just off the path to the church, someone was placed who was clearly in distress. Even though the ministers had been musing on the story, only those who didn't think they were late stopped to talk/help. (It was pointed out that this experiment was slightly flawed as the minister would also be considering a congregation that they didn't want to let down).

Other experiments were even more fascinating such as the leaving of a coin in a phone box. People leaving the booth would be more likely to help if they had been in the group for whom a coin had been planted. Even more bizarrely people were more willing to give outside of the bakery where the smell of fresh bread was in the air, than outside a shop of neutral or no smell.

I wish I'd heard the whole programme. I was enjoying the discussion as to whether this was really philosophy or in fact 'behavioural science.' I thought this akin to the breaking down of theology as a academic discipline and realising that theological thinking must involve those who are experiencing it, 'liberation theology' etc

But it also made me think about the parable of the Good Samaritan and realise that living a life of thanks (experiencing the positives without finding a coin or a bread shop) that in these experiment more naturally engenders a compassionate response is vital, as is living a life with balance so that hurry doesn't preclude a human to human response.

Thinking out loud as usual so may be just rabbitting. Wondering about what it means for the discipleship of young people? Wondering about experimental theology?

In my work with Churches there's one particular phrase that makes me shudder in the way that otherwise only nails across a blackboard can achieve. Its when *cringe* I hear people talk about, "holding on to young people!" *shudder* My first inclination is to beat them with a large copy of the King James Bible (you see I can find a use for all translations)! Now I know it often comes from a well meaning sentiment but it's so depressing and in fact diametrically opposite to the gospel. Why would we hold on to young people? Will they eventually say, "Hey I've been here for long enough now, I no longer know any different, I guess I might as well stay?" Is that want we want?
I believe in the Church, I believe in the faith community! I believe that youth ministry is a whole church endeavour (where youth leaders play an important part) of discipleship, listening and enabling!
I believe that Young People need to discover a faith (with thanks to Mr Yaconelli) of Dangerous Wonder, Risky Curiosity, Wild Abandon, Daring Playfulness, Wide-eyed listening, Irresponsible Passion, Happy Terror, Naive Grace and Childlike Faith AND for their discoveries to help form the changing life of the Church. Working with young people must not be a war of attrition where they eventually conform to a inheritted religiousity!
Here endeth the first rant. Please turn to the paragraph on page 11 and join in the responses in bold:

Discipleship is about enabling young people to taste the Kingdom
We will not just hold on

Amen

Any sense of deja vu while reading this post may be because this post has been (in line with the environmental values of Youthblog) re-cycled from 2005