youthwork international...

Jonny Baker highlights a new website called Youthwork International. Looks really good, especially as it grows...make sure you have a look.

two things I love...

Coldplay's new album 'Viva la Vida (or Death and all his friends)'...I was once described by someone as melancholic. Maybe that's why I love what these guys do. However, for me, this is a return to form after X+Y, which I wasn't totally head over heels with (apart from a few tracks).

Spain's football at the Euros. I picked Spain pre-competition...just forgot to mention it anywhere. In some ways an obvious choice as they've always had so many awesome players. However, for me, it's also about the culture and the language of this incredible country. Their football represents their character and culture - intricate, passionate, forceful, yet at times strangely patient. Beautiful...

you're never too old for youth work...

One of my DYO colleagues, Mark in Chester has pointed out a great youtube clip that should encourage all of us to remember that great youth work is not all about being young, cool or being 'down wit da kidz' (please...never, ever say that!) - that it's about having a heart for young people. Here's a 75 year old volunteer at Saddleback church in America.



love it!

out there...

One of the most common questions I get asked when I'm out and about ranting* about youth work in various contexts is "so, where do we start making relationships with unchurched young people?" Usually this comes after I've talked about how we're only reaching somewhere less than 10% of the young people in the UK. This is a pretty scary statistic, and makes you realise that even where we're doing good Christian youth work we're not even scratching the surface...

A few weeks ago Kay and I got a chance to visit 'the venue' in Tiverton, a youth drop in project which isn't run by a church, but is run by a group of Christian. There was a very specific need in the town centre - a common one in lots of places - basically, young people hanging out and engaging in what is called nowadays 'anti-social behaviour'. In my day it was called 'messing around' or 'being young'. However, there were issues about these young people drinking and being threatening, and a realisation that something needed to be offered to 'get them off the street'. This group decided to do that something, and have set up a great little project in a portacabin type building just off the high street. There you'll find a couple of nice pool tables, some games consoles, a couple of swish flat-screens and some comfy seating. All in all a really nice little set up. And they're doing great work - loads of young people who would never normally go to a youth club let alone a church youth club are getting involved.

The reason I mention this today is that I met with one of the volunteers this morning to see how I could support them. Our conversation went around a few areas, but one bit in particular stood out. This is that they had made a conscious choice that this wasn't going to be an evangelical activity - that there wasn't going to be a God spot. There was a recognition that these young people were miles away from being able to engage with this, and simply needed somewhere safe to hang out. So these Christians decided that the best way they could serve their community was to do something for these young people. And the exciting thing is that even though there's no agenda for it, all the young people know that the volunteers are Christians, and there's been some great conversations (I suppose you'd call it witnessing!). Most of the volunteers are people you wouldn't expect to find in a youth club - but they realised that they could give young people what they need the most - love and acceptance.

Basically - anyone can set this kind of thing up - including getting all the lovely equipment through various pots of money that are around. And you don't need to think that you have to 'force' God on anyone - simply being open about your faith and creating opportunities for relationship building - conversation will happen.

How you then help young people on their own spiritual journey will be a whole other post!

Just thought I'd share about this project...

*Steve Jones introduced me to this facilitation technique - it's got something to do with being passionate about what you're talking about, whilst also taking people along with you and creating space for people to ask questions and answer them themselves...

love Exeter...

If you're a regular visitor to the blog you may have picked up that Kay and I love our adopted home - Exeter. We've been here for 4 years now, and love it's mix of cosmopolitan and rural market town. We love the people, the culture, our friends, our jobs and our church.

I just can't believe that when the single biggest event to have happened in the recent history of Exeter (today's bomb), I was on a train on the way home from the national conference of Anglican youth officers in Suffolk! I mean come on!

I also loved the way the local news guys almost wet themselves with excitement over the fact something interesting happened in their back yard.

Thankfully there appears to have been only one injury, the bomber himself. The restaurant affected is one of our favourite places to eat. Hope it's not affected by the potential of negative publicity...

Oh, by the way, the conference was pretty cool. As was the journey with my mates Bridget and James. More to come...

Blog rusty...

This sounds like something I've been saying a lot in the last few months. I'm not sure exactly what's happened to my blogging instinct...just been going through one of those quiet periods. I've been working on something since the start of the year which means that for the first time pretty much ever I've been regularly journalling in a notebook. Perhaps that means I'm processing a lot of my thinking in that context rather than on here. In some ways that's a good thing, as I don't have to feel that I have to censor myself!

It's been a really good few months, however, with a lot of things falling into place in terms of big picture thinking. I've also had the privilege of getting out and about to a whole load of really good things. Another huge privilege is getting alongside a growing number of youth workers and supporting them as they journey with the young people that we get to work with.

One of the things I've been working on is developing the training that we offer as a Diocese. I'm hoping that before too long we'll have a foundation course in place that we'll be able to roll out across the Diocese - something that will work for anyone working with young people in any context. The course that I'm looking at has been put together by some regional colleagues, the youth officers for Bath and Wells and Bristol. We're hoping that this will really inspire and equip people!

So...God is still good, we've been seeing some really great stuff happening out our church (ENC - see right!) which we're hoping to follow up with 'the blast' tomorrow. Stuff based around seeing God at work in some really exciting ways, and how this impacts every aspect of our lives. As far as I can work out faith has to mean transformation - both of ourselves and therefore of our world. It can't just be something nice and fluffy, or a set of values. It's got to bring about deep, lasting change. Is that what we're tapping into when we work with young people?

Ian strikes gold...

Ian MacDonald is the legendary Youth Work Adviser in Oxford Diocese. His blog is internationally reknowned for many reasons...not least the kind of thing he's writing about here.

He lists 7 deadly sins of youth work. I loved them so much that I thought I'd stick 'em on here. Let me know what you think:

'Making yourself the focus of the youth ministry
Isolating the youth ministry from the life of the Church
Instilling Information not facilitating exploration
Modelling an eternal adolescence
Avoiding accountability
Not maintaining your own inner life
Thinking you have nothing more to learn'

new links...

I'm aware that I've been publicising this blog all over the place as I travel the Diocese. I thought it might be useful for us to have some links on here from websites that I use a lot, or recommend to others all the time.

If there's any that I've missed do get in touch.

Hope it's useful...to view it just keep scrolling down on the right hand side of the page...

Normal service will resume...!