Category Archives: youthwork

Mission in Wandsworth

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Yesterday I had the great pleasure of meeting up with a couple of people, Ray and Dione, from a church in Wandsworth. These people were full of passion to see the young people of their neighbourhood challenged with the rdical love of Jesus. They also understand the reality of urban ministry and Ray tells of some of their experiences in his article ‘Postcode Apartheid‘.

I really hope we will be able to work together and see some great stuff happening in this part of London. If you live in the Wandsworth borough and want to know more or feel you ay like to get involved why not get in touch?

Labels R4 Jars

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I attended the launch of Labels R4 Jars not young people today.
Sadly the press never showed up, despite the fact the launch was held in St Brides Fleet Street.
The campaign is asking for a more factual and positive image to be presented in the media. It seems the media did not want to come and listen to some research which evaluates the accuracy of its recording – a shame.
The research may be downloaded from the FYT website and makes some interesting findings:

adults overestimate crime committed by young people by a factor of 100%
75% adults believe youth crime is rising, when the actual yearly rate is falling
80% people think youth crime is getting worse, however there has been no growth in the level of crime committed by young people
61% said they based their view of young people on what the media portrayed

The press should have been present to hear this – we need to involve ourselves in celebrating the achievements of our young people, in portraying the mass of fantastic stuff the overwhelming majority of young people do.

In case you were wondering … the pic … it’s Bishop Roger Sainsbury in a hoody in a jar!

Job or Ministry

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I like to be challenged and reminded of why I came into ministry.
Too often today, and I think particularly in the youth ministry world, we can easily get sucked into the world of professionalism and the job / ‘contracted’ to do mindset.
That is not necessarily a bad thing – unless it becomes our God. By that I mean we always look to our contract, we alsways look to our interests, we always claim our rights.
I don’t have a job, in fact if I look back over my years of work, I’m not sure that I have ever had a job as I think I can say I have always been ministering where God has called me to be and I have always seen my calling as a ministry and not a job.
Sometimes, however, I have become whingey and acted like I’ve had a job when I have lost sight of my true calling!
Today Gordon’s writing challenged me and reminded me and encouraged me all at th same time. Gordon’s article on Job or Ministry is well worth a read.
Thanks Gordon.

a colurful day

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We had a great Full Team Meeting today in Rugby with Fuzz Kitto, who is a great guy with a mass of youth work and emerging church experience. Today Fuzz was helping us to look and think about change. As many of you know, YFC will be moving into a new building in a couple of months and we are using this opportunity to ask what our culture is, and how we can improve as we move into a new era. The temptation is to stay as we are and just move who we are from the basement into our building – but we would be missing an opportunity as we enter into a time of massive change!

Fuzz said some things today that I enjoyed hearing, was challenged by, or caused me to think. He outlined how Bruggemann talks bout change occurring. We move from a stage called orientation (where we are happy) to disorientation (which can be uncomfortable) and end up reoriented (changed) as a result. This reorientation becomes the new orientation and the whole process continues.

This was a helpful conceptual model as I have noticed over the years the cycles in youth work with things ‘coming back’ now that Sarah and I did some 20 years ago when we started in this wonderful world of youth ministry.

I also liked Fuzz’s comments about people being disillusioned. This may sound simplistic but I felt there was a good amount of truth in this short sentence. Those that become disillusioned are those that live under an illusion of God. If we have unrealistic expectations of God, or think God promises what he doesn’t (e.g. to protect us from ‘stuff’) then our illusions of God crash around us, resulting in disillusionment.

His final comment I have been thinking for a while and to illustrate this Fuzz used the Bravia bouncing ball advert. This is an example of the Brueggemann cycle. We have moved from a position of where everything was black and white (orientation) to a position where there were grey issues (disorientation) and we are now in a very colourful era where it is clear that some things are just not right or wrong, but they are different.

Before you come back at me some things are also right and wrong, just as black and white are colours, but many things which we stumble and argue or could just be colourful. I have enjoyed the embracing and inclusive outlook of today.

the rest of the day …

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On my way home from Waltham Forest it was exciting to meet up with Wulf and Jane.
I have been following Wulf’s blog for a while and it’s great to meet other members of the blogging community. It’s on days like this that I am really glad that I started to blog as it has opened up a great new network of friends as well as encouraged my discipline of writing.

This evening I ventured into youth work and had to skip a SEITE lecture. I had promised a while ago to lead a group of lads as we chatted about sex and relationships. It always amazes me how open young people are and how little they actually know about relationships generally. Tonight’s lads were fun to work with and we got a good mix of humour and serious chatting.

Fair trade video

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This U Tube video over at Pinklady is excellent.
Well done Clare’s youth group!

Habbo Hotel peak

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Wednesday night is virtual youth work night for Father Rob who runs a room for the youth group. A great way to do youth work – no need to go out, can drink beer comfortably and watch the football … while chatting with young people in a Habbo room.

Tonight the football was poor but the conversation was good and we reached an all time high of having 5 people in the room at the same time.

If you have never tried it, Habbo is worth checking out.

Pioneering youth workers

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It’s really exciting to hear that Luella has accepted the role we interviewed for on Tuesday at Basingstoke as outlined in this advert last year. This is a very exciting role with a very gifted and passionate person by God to do it.

Peninsula YFC are also looking for a pioneering youth worker. Peninsula is in Medway if you didn’t know! Check out the advert here.

Teenbridge, a YFC centre in Devon, are also looking for 2 full time youth workers.

Lots of opportunities … where are the pioneer workers?

Stop the Traffick resources

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There are some great looking resources here to support ideas for Freedom Day on March 25th.

Art of Connecting in Plaistow

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I was involved in some of the teaching of AOC in Plaisow on Saturday.

The Whole, part of Transform Newham, held this one day conference for young people who wanted to think more about sharing their faith. The day was fantastic and it was exciting to engage with these wonderful young people.

One young womans comment will stay with me for a while. After someone asked the question ‘when was the last time you shared your faith?’, she answered that she was shocked when she thought about it, because she had not shared her faith for at least …. 2 weeks!!!!

I think I must have met an evangelist!