strategy word cloud

This is our children and youth work strategy visualised as a word cloud by wordle.

Crossover

This weekend is the 10th Crossover Festival.  Crossover is a brilliant event and I’ve been proud to be part of it.  But this year I’ve not been involved.  After the last event I felt it was time to step back and to allow others to bring their ideas and dreams to the event.

I have a sense that this might be the last one.  That would be a shame but perhaps it has run it’s course.  Only time will tell with that question.

I’ve been invited to visit and I might pop in at some point over the weekend but maybe not.  I’m not sure yet.

Christian Youth Work?

On Friday I spent the morning at a meeting of Christian Youth Workers who are discussing setting up a network. To help us think about what the network should be and how we could describe it Neil Pratt from ICC led us through a discussion on ‘what is Christian Youth Work?’.

I’ve always been a little skeptical of the term. I agree that there are youth workers who are Christian but I see little that defines youth work as Christian beyond the motivation of the worker.

We ended up in a discussion about motivation, evangelism v education. For me, youth evangelism is not the same as youth work. Youth work is educational and not dependent on young people coming to faith.

What do you think?

Youth Work and Social Networking

The National Youth Agency (England) have just published an interim report from a study into Youth Worker’s attitudes to Social Networking. The project blog is here.

Not surprisingly only 35% of youth workers felt able to help young people take advantage of the opportunities of Social Networking as opposed to 53% who felt they should focus on the dangers of the Internet.

There are a huge range of opportunities to do good, creative work with young people using online tools and social networking sites. The Internet is here to stay. Let’s get busy using it positively.

girls’ brigade

I spent last night as the guest of the girls of the 25th Edinburgh Girls’ Brigade Company at their annual display.  They entertained me and their significant adults with songs, games, dancing and the officers even performed their hilarious homage to the Spice Girls.  I’m sure there are photos somewhere…

The highlight for me was presenting the girls with their awards and prizes.  Over the year they work hard to achieve their awards and a lot of that work is unseen.  I remember parents nights and displays from my days in the Boys’  Brigade and being presented with my awards was always a highlight for me.  There is something very special about hearing your name called and walking up to the front to collect something you have worked very hard for.  So well done girls.  I was very proud to present you with your hard earned awards.

I was also asked to say a few words to the girls and the adults.

I used my few moments to encourage the girls to keep at it and work hard.  To learn more about themselves, each other and about Jesus.

I spoke to the adults about the value of volunteering.  69% of adults say they would like to volunteer to work with children but only 5% do.  Those 5% are worth their weight in gold.  The officers and helpers at 5th Edinburgh are brilliant.  They give of their time and their enthusiasm because they love working with their girls.  Many of them are young women who have been in the company from childhood and are now giving back because they know how valuable the time and energy and patience that was invested in them has been.

Across the country youth clubs, uniformed organisations, sunday school and sports clubs are closing because adults don’t volunteer.  If you are one of the 69% who think you would like invest in our children then please do!  You may never know how precious your time could be.

As someone who had adults invest in me as a child I can tell you that  every moment you spend will be beyond value.

Busy Weekend

I’m about to head off to Carberry Tower near Edinburgh for 24 hours to our Synod Programme Committees.

On the agenda for me are Children and Communion and Safeguarding as well as working with the Children and Youth Ministry Committee on our future plans for the Synod Youth Forum and some other stuff in the pipeline that I’ll tell you more about later!

church websites for URC

iChurch is, in my humble opinion, the best idea I’ve seen in ages.

If you are a URC congregation who either wants a website but think it is too hard to set up and run

or

are paying for web hosting, trying to design and update your site and all that

then ichurch is the answer!  For a one off fee of £100 you get your own website with a yourchurch.urc.org.uk address, a site that is already set up and really simple for anyone to update.  It runs from the URC server so no web hosting costs or any of that website hassle.

It’s a brilliant idea and one I think every congregation should take up.

Mark Yaconelli – Comtempative Youth Ministry

Making a difference

Ramble Alert! OK. I’m not sure where this post is going but stick with me and hopefully it will get somewhere…

I’m working on some aims and objectives for my job. I tell everyone I train to do it so it’s practice what you preach time.

The thing is… I can write down the stuff I do/will do/can do standing on my head OR I can do all that and try to do something that will make a difference. We have been talking a lot in our little Synod Team about ‘Culture Carrying’. That discussion has grown from a feeling that we have to do better than maintaining the church. To do that we need to embody something else. We need to be culture carriers.

So my quandary is twofold:

Does any of the stuff I do make a difference? And if it does, who or what does it make a difference to? And are those the right people?

What culture should I be carrying? I start where I always do. Asking for thoughts and ideas.

Headphonaught suggests I keep being me. I’m not sure I can be anything else, or that I can write that down on my forward plan!

1. Be me.

2. see 1

I think he’s right though. I need to be authentic. And so does the church. If it’s not about life and living it then what’s the point?

Avril asked me what difference the church can make to the lives of people in and out of it? I don’t really know the answer to that question. I’m sure it makes a bigger difference than we might at first think because the ‘organisation’ isn’t the be all and end all of being church thank God. The people live and move in the world, loving, caring, helping and supporting as they go. But then so do lots of others who have no involvement in church.

My thing is children and young people and the adults that work with them. At least that’s what my job is. My problem is that sometimes I have no idea what to do with that. (is that something I should be admitting?) I sometimes wonder if the church as it exists is anyplace for our children and young people? In some cases yes and in some no.

What I have noticed is that the churches that are willing to invest some time, money and most of all themselves are the ones that do well with children and young people. And yet few of our churches are growing significantly. That isn’t because they are not good places full of good people. I would recommend a number of them to anyone.

I wonder if it is because we don’t advertise our existence? Is that a confidence thing? Are we silent because we don’t know who we are or what we are for?

I wrote a chapter in a book called Inside Verdict which I began with the words “This isn’t working anymore.” Well, is it any better now? Of course some of it is. The Together@MCT project I’ve been working with people on perhaps sheds some light. Engaging worship. Discussion with no pressure. Hopefully some community building. But I’m not sure we have gotten our heads around who it is for and how we should move forward yet. We need to keep the bigger picture before us. That will come though.

The pervasive themes of personalisation and participation return to my thinking again and again. The world, my world, seems to value both of these. How does that fit with community? It seems to in the world of facebook and bebo. I can be me. I can have my personal page but I belong to the community and can participate and add and contribute. How does/could/should that work in church?

Media that targets you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.

Clay Shirky

So just a few questions to answer. I’ll get back to my aims and objectives now and see if any or all of those thoughts make it onto the page.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Really. They would.

Voices Please

Here’s a plea for all those people who are dots on the clustr map around the world.

We’re working on a project for Pentecost to collect lots of languages reading Acts 2:1-6. So, if you speak anything other than English and could record yourself reading this short passage and email it to me as an MP3 please let me know using the box below and I’ll get back to you with an email address to send it to. The link takes you to Bible Gateway where you can find the passage in loads of languages. Thanks!

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