Category Archives: Youth Work

Posts exploring youth work, things to try with groups & current affairs in the youth work world

10/15/09

Scripture Union & Prostitution

As I mentioned on my last post and on my twitter account this week I’ve been away on a Scripture Union schools work training week and I’m sat in the ‘chill-out’ area of the Kings Park conference centre using the wifi and taking some time out after 3 and a half days of sessions on schools work.

I very rarely get to go on conferences and things like this and so it’s good to have some time away, the sessions are useful and the food is really good however with so much to take in and a brain close to bursting I’ve decided to take some time out before tea.

Having done bits and pieces of schools work before it’s been interesting to hear what others are doing and also interesting to hear that the sorts of things I’ve been thinking of for Hunsley Christian Youth Trust seem to be along the right lines, it’s also been great to network with other people doing similar things this week.

There’s so many things I could blog on but I feel a blog on schools work perhaps isn’t what I’m aiming to do here…although I don’t think I’m doing anything as such by this post more updating.

On a complete side-note there’s been some really interesting comments on my blog on John Sentamu and Prostitution (link) and the question of ‘is it safer for prostitutes for it to be legal’ has been discussed. I think it’s a very interesting topic to consider, as a Christian I cannot possibly agree that prostitution is ok and in some ways I feel that legalising it would make a statement suggesting that it is ok however on the flip-side legalising would give us a variety of benefits.

The most important of these benefits would be that we would be able to protect the girls who are prostitutes in far greater ways than we can at the moment, police would be able to monitor and visit brothels without being a threat to those who run them and potentially helping the girls out would be far more accessible.

The real question is really one of asking ourselves whether legalising something in order to regulate it and to provide more safety for those involved should happen when the thing we’re legalising is wrong…discuss!

10/1/09

Hunsley Christian Youth Trust

I keep saying I’m going to do a blog-update on my new northern life but never get around to it, but finally (as promised) here it is!

I’ve been in South Cave for over 6 weeks I think and working exactly 1 month tomorrow and it’s been a laid back yet intensive month!

I started off with an induction which became a ‘get my heard around the trust’ day and it’s took up until now to really understand it…it seems that only in explaining to people you’re role do you realise what it is properly!

The three focuses in my first month have been branding, understanding and school.

The Hunsley Christian Youth Trust is new and I am their first and only employee (we’ll have more in a couple of years!!!) and because it’s funded by 4 churches it’s important to brand it and to keep those supporters updated so in the last month a newsletter and website has been produced (you can view the website here and also download the newsletter on it!).

Secondly I’ve been working on understanding what I’m meant to be doing, who’s in charge of what, who’s who and what’s where. This has involved meeting other youth workers in the area, chatting to various people in South Cave church and chatting to those involved from the other churches (my job is half time youth worker at South Cave and half time schools worker).

Finally making contact and meeting with the secondary school has been a massively important part of my first month and other than waiting on a CRB (bringing me up to 9!!!) all is more than good on that front, they’ve been really positive and seem really excited about having me in the school which is a real testimony to God being at work.

Anyway I think that’s a very brief update on the trust, I’m excited about what’s coming up and tonight we had a prayer meeting and about 25 people came along to pray for the trust so it’s always good to be supported!

I’m also at Brough church sunday morning plugging the trust…exciting times!

(Forgot to mention that I’m beginning to learn names and get to know young people!!!)

08/10/09

Life, Moving, Wedding and Street Invasion

So perhaps the other Italy posts never quite happened…I seriously have so much I want to blog on at the moment but so little time and I suspect next week I’ll have lots to blog, more time but so little internet!

Next Monday I move to South Cave ready to start my new job as the Youth Facilitator for the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust from September…summer seems to be flying by and I’m feeling a little sad to know that it may be a while before I see everyone I know in Yarmouth but I’m excited about the new job and having a house and being able to moan about bills and council tax!

This week contents insurance is on my to-do list alongside getting some telephone numbers to phone electricity folk next week…today I arranged for the Post Office to re-connect the phone line…and for free…cashback! (If you want a phone line re-connected the Post Office don’t charge and don’t have a contract which makes them way better than BT!).

I haven’t just been packing boxes and avoiding Italy blogs I’ve been busy working on our wedding website which is getting near to being finished (markandjoanna.co.uk) and I have done our first wedding blog on their and in the next few days will update it more as we lay down deposits on venues and churches…how exciting! If you don’t know the Mark/Jo wedding is next year on the 17th July…this time next year I’ll have a wife!!!

I think so far I have 5 friends getting married next year so it seems to be a good year for weddings…2010 makes it easy to work out anniversaries!!! I have also been asked by Dave to be his best man for his wedding two weeks after mine and Jo’s which is pretty awesome and I’m looking forward to that too…all if good!

Street Invasion

Last week I was lucky enough to be involved in Street Invasion in Peterborough. Street Invasion saw 80 young people come together to serve God at 8 bases across the whole of Peterborough, doing social action, training/learning illustrations and inviting young people off the streets into an open youth club. Myself and Simon Campling (who is a genius at Newton Faulkner covers!) headed up the City Centre base and although we had less youth than the other venues what we had was perfect for St Mary’s! In other parts of the city over 50 young people would turn up to just one venue…how crazy is that? God was doing some awesome things in the lives of young people on the streets and those who were street invaders!

Anyway until I remember to blog on Italy later this week…goodnight!

07/29/09

BBC Radio Norfolk

This morning I appeared on BBC Radio Norfolk alongside  a lady from relationship counselling charity  relate. I was invited onto the show yesterday after Dave passed my name on as both a youth worker and young person who is engaged so we spent 45 minutes with the host discussing ‘young people and marriage’.

Other than my radio slot for Slum Survivor which lasted about 5 minutes it’s the only radio I’ve done and it was good fun (although I felt a little like Alan Partridge!). It was an interesting discussion which they’d picked after reading a Daily Mail (eugh!) piece on a Christian charity doing relationship lessons in school and also several articles suggesting that marriage is back ‘in fashion’.

It was a good opportunity to think back to my marriage blog from a while ago and also think on the things which influence young people’s views of marriage such as broken homes and constant bad press with various celebrity marriages ending, often in a very messy way.

It was also good to re-explore the subject now I am in the position to be getting married rather than thinking about it in a hypothetical sense and I’m sure this blog will have lots more marriage things in the next year (hopefully later this week markandjoanna.co.uk will launch too!), the interview made me reflect on the positive view of marriage the church promotes to young people too and I hope God uses that message which I tried to get across this morning

If you would like to listen to the discussion listen to the last hour of this programme – link

Finally Italy posts will appear over the next week, I’m going to schedule them so I don’t post too much at once!

06/30/09

Packing…

So other than my beautiful Macbook (which I am as in love with today as the day I got it (wonder what Jo will say to that!)) everything is packed ready to be loaded into my car tomorrow although looking at the pile I feel like I need a tardis to fit it all in!

DSC00421

Last night was my last Doodles and it was perhaps the worst of all the goodbyes…most of the young people at Doodles I’ve known since day 1 in Peterborough, I’ve seen them grow up, mature in their faith and been lucky to have been able to share in that and I hope they’ll go on doing so.

The final Doodles organised by Vicki wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, my visions of finishing off by dripping my way into the shower were a bit extreme but here were my tasks (mostly from games I’ve used in the last few years)

1 – Eat a baby-food covered piece of bread in under a minute (I failed)

2 – Drink coke through a used sock (I won, beating Chris who managed to pour half of it down himself and didn’t have a used sock)

3 – Eat custard and chocolate from a nappy (Vicki one)

4 – Not a task but get covered in flour!

During all of the above I was required to wear a large pair of ladies pants over my shorts which for one game young people had to spit jelly cubes in!

It’s been a awesome 4 years and packing up really is the final thing…other than a small group/close friends bbq tonight which I should prep for at some point soon!

06/23/09

Busy Busy Busy!

There is a serious post somewhere inside me but life has become crazy…so much for the quiet wind-down here in Peterborough. I’m currently thinking of all the things I need to do to hand over to the next student Youth Worker, the things I need to hand to others for other projects and generally clearing up 4 years of stuff.

On a side project I’m building a new website for St Andrew’s Church in Gorleston which is nearing completion too!

This week is becoming a week of lasts…at the weekend I led my final youth camp for Park Road with a very funny, inspiring and sunny weekend in Trimmingham, tonight was my last band practice and the next few days see things like last church services, youth groups and all sorts of other send-offs….it’s bizarre with 4 years in Peterborough coming to an end but I’m looking forward to some time off and the challenges South Cave has to offer.

Last night Clive and Florence came over for dinner and in july Jo and myself head off to their villa in Italy…driving to Italy through lots of places, spending 2 weeks in their villa in the Umbertide region before driving back again, sitting around last night talking about Italy over a lasagne whilst drinking red wine really makes it all sound seem that little bit closer….it’ll be my first break in years and I’m looking forward to exploring and chilling and perhaps finally getting around to reading some books!

I suppose that’s all I have to blog on this evening, I’m hoping to blog on a Christian-type subject later this week….especially as I’m at some kind of bible thing tomorrow daytime!

06/7/09

Church This Morning

Church this morning was different and for once it wasn’t my fault!

I was invited a while ago to lead the June all age as it would be my last all age…the same day the young people of one of our groups said they’d like to lead a service and so the power was handed over.

A few weeks ago we sat down at a youth group and asked the question ‘what do you think church is?’ and of course the standard answers were there but more so the idea of community emerged, it seems that for the young people at Park Road Baptist Church community is a key thing about church and so with the aim of people experiencing community and breaking down the age barriers the young people planned a community themed Cafe style service based on ideas from the early church in Acts….one young person even remarked ‘we’re not trying to change things, we’re just trying to get things back to how they used to be’.

So I spent yesterday re-arranging the church to a more cafe-style look and one young person took the sermon on board and others took other aspects of leading, we asked Graham and Carolyn to lead some laid back acoustic worship and with the help of so many people at Park Road the young people pulled off an amazing service.

Challenges

Of course the biggest challenge in all of this as a youth worker is letting go of the power and empowering the young people to lead and it has been scary but encouraging…all my worries were washed away by a fantastic sermon and a confidentially led service.

The second challenge for me came during the table discussions, one man in our group recently lost his wife and shared how in the two months she was ill every lunchtime his neighbours provided him with a meal (they are Christians) and just hearing about his story and the difference the simple act of a meal has made to him was amazing. As Christians we need to work on community if church is just about a sunday morning service then Christianity is a waste of space and worthless but if Christianity is as Christ described it when he talked about us feeding the hungry and clothing the naked then it’s the most important thing anyone could ever become part of…we just need to accept the challenge of investing in community and showing Christ’s love.

Anyway here’s a photo of the re-arranged Park Road!

Church re-arranged

06/1/09

South Cave – Life Update

I’ve just got back today from a week off which has been great. I spent a few days relaxing and catching up with people in Yarmouth and then Saturday and Sunday went to South Cave with Jo (South Cave is where I shall be working from September).

During the beautiful weekend a lot has happened…firstly in the beautiful sunshine I took some photos of the village which are in my photos section and scattered through this post.

Secondly on Sunday we went to All Saints Church in South Cave (where I shall work part time with the other half in the local secondary school) which was a lovely church with the most comfortable pews ever! It was great to be there and I know it’s gonna be a fantastic church to be a part of. We had lunch with the Rev from the church and met around 20 people who joined us for lunch and then had tea with another family, met a lot of people from other churches involved in the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust (who will employ me from September). This was followed by meeting around 20 (or more) young people at the youth club which was great and it appears they have all been on my blog…so hello South Cave readers (feel free to comment my blog).

Finally and perhaps the most exciting news from the weekend is I have a house!

Originally I’d planned to look at a few South Cave houses however all but one cancelled within the week before so there was one place to look at and one place outside the village…I have to say too that I didn’t really expect to be able to let a place this weekend with it being so soon before I want to move in however God is good!

The house I looked at in the village was ideal, just the right size, 6 minutes walk from the church and in the heart of the village…plus as a bonus a huge ideal-for-youth-work size garden…so 15th August is the date…I move to South Cave…how exciting…here’s some house photos.


As I’ve been saying for the last few blog posts I will do a more serious post soon when my brain begins to function again!

05/10/09

Community…and God

I’ve been thinking more about community lately although to an extent it’s been a big topic the last few years. One of the big passions of Oasis/Steve Chalke is getting the church back to the heart of the community which in many ways is the reason that Oasis build academy’s across the country…not just schools but community centres with churches and doctors surgeries etc. and it’s a great idea and I suppose without reasing perhaps I’ve got into that mentality a little bit.

One of my biggest frustrations over the last few years here at Peterborough is that everyone comes from so far to church, people don’t go to their local church but go to a church for whatever reason they have, a City centre church doesn’t always have a direct area to catch people from (although arguably no church does anymore) and one of the things I felt when having an interview at St Nics in Nottingham last weekend was that I’d feel the same frustrations.

I know that people will come to a church from miles off and that working for a church with some kind of community around it will never stop that, to an extent I’m in no place to say it’s wrong….my family attended a church 20 minutes drive from our house.

The thing is that from September I shall be a rural person doing church work at a village church where I suspect that many of the congregation will be from the village…the youth work will probably reach out beyond the village to the other churches I’ll be partnered with through the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust but there will be people from the village of South Cave at South Cave Church…and I want to be one of them!

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the message translation of John 1 when it says ‘the word become flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood‘ and I’ve been reflecting on this in two senses.

Firstly I believe that Jesus went out and got stuck into the neighbourhood and that is what the church should do….the church should get outside of it’s four walls and middle-classness and go out into the schools, onto the streets, into the local pub or wherever people are who need to meet Jesus…Jesus went and met with people!

Secondly I’ve been reflecting on this verse in terms of being part of something…being part of a neighbourhood. I don’t want to go into a village for church or to do some youth work, I want to experience what that village is like…experience the community in the local pubs, use the post office for banking, buy meat from the butchers, experience the frustrations and joys of being part of the village, celebrate in the lack of Tesco. To serve that community more effectively as a youth worker I think I need to be part of it!

So that is where I am at the moment and it means that I will be living in a village soon and I’m liking the idea a lot…I’m gonna move into a community…exciting stuff!

P.S. Hopefully this blog will be the start of some more serious blogness in the coming weeks!

05/7/09

News!

All has been quiet on the blog-front for the last week for several reasons…firstly I’ve been finishing my dissertation and secondly I’ve been attending job interviews which I have deliberately kept quiet on the web because I figured that an empoyer may well google me (one did!) and find the blog.

So here is my last weeks catch-up…parts of which you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter!

Firstly last weekend I headed up to Nottingham and visited St Nic’s Church which, like Park Road is a City Centre church and therefore has a very scattered congregation. It was an intensive weekend interview meeting 3 youth groups, having 2 formal interviews, 2 lunches out with various leaders and attending a church service. The guest speaker was Canon Andrew White AKA the Vicar of Bagdad and it was great to meet him and have lunch with him on the Sunday afternoon, he’s a very interesting man…yet slightly odd…I suppose you have to be to become an Anglican minister in Bagdad!

St Nic’s is a great church with lots going on and lots of potential and the other job canditdate was great too (turned out we both knew someone…Christian incest) and the church informed me on Tuesday that they had decided to offer him the job.

Today I headed to South Cave, a town near Hull (20 minutes away) for an interview to become a schools worker and Church Youth Work facilitator for the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust. The trust is a partnership between 4 rural Anglican churches all very enthusiastic to work together and work in the 1800 pupil-filled secondary school. The location is beautiful yet close to main roads…and not a Tesco in sight!

Early this evening I was offered the job and after spending an hour praying and chatting to various people I accepted. Out of all the jobs I applied for this was the first and the one I got most excited about in spotting so I’m really looking forward to the new challenge from September. It’s going to be an exciting new chapter in an exciting new place and I’m looking forward to seeing what God wants to use me for!

In the meantime I hand my dissertation in on tuesday and have 2  months left here in Peterborough with only 20 hours work a week to do for Park Road so I fully intend on making full use of the Pummells gym and recording some guitar and vocals and hopefully completing a lot of tracks!

Sorry for the long post but I hope you find it interesting and if you want to visit the Yorkshire countryside from September you know who to come and see!!!

04/29/09

Not Much…

Not much happening really, I’ve had a pretty intensive few weeks but other than the proof reading being finished my dissertation is done….gotta get the changes made next week and have it bound ready to hand in on the 12th. In exploring how we integrate young people into the church for my dissertation I feel like I’ve learnt a lot and that it’s influenced the way I view young people within the church and their involvement (I shall blog on this at a later date).

In the meantime job interviews are becoming to come through which means God willing I shall know in a couple of weeks where I shall be working for the foreseeable future…it’s a scary yet exciting prospect and I’m looking forward to seeing what God’s plan for me next is. If you’re praying in the next couple of weeks then throw one up for me!

Finally tonight we went pub-quizzing, lost and won the wooden spoon…I even got a question about S Club 7 wrong!

BTW This is blog post 500….I’m not really doing anything special to celebrate such a moment but I am planning to celebrate post 1000!