net builders

this thought has been with me for a while now, but only properly formalised in a conversation I had with a Church leader this morning. For a net to catch anything in a number of things need to be in place. firslty, the ropes, and then the knotts that tie the ropes the togehter. It is easy in many ways to come up with ideas for our youth work, that would be the different ropes, but somehwere along the line the ropes need to tie together and the eality is that is where relationships come in. All the ideas need to be tied together, and they need to be tied together with strength and purpose otherwise they fall apart. Two challenges to this, one build those strong ties with our young epople so that they are linked and attached to what we are doing, but also bild those relaitonsips, and put those things in place to enable the young peope we work with to be caught in what we ar doing.

Making memories!!!!!!

It is amazing when you spend a number of years in an area, and working with young people all the time, that you often get stopped by adults who remember the work you did with them. This got me thinking, that if people come up and chat to us, then we have obviously created a memory fthem, a good memory hopefully. Is it possible that we are memory makers, in the way that people as they grow older at various times think back, and look back at their lives, and if we have given them anything of substance, then the mories we leave them with can still make that difference in their lives. Let's be those memory makers and have those adults later on in life come up to us and chat about the issues and things we did when they were young epople.

using our resources

When the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt, it was interesting how the men were separated and deployed to ensure that this actually took place. Half the men were set to build the wall, wheile the other half were set to fight and defend, thuse ensuring that th wall was built. What is there in our work, in ourlives that we are aiming to achieve, and can we deploy all the resources that God has given us to ensure that we achieve that goal.

Involvement?

In previous posts I have raised the issue of certian age groups and types of people being missed from our churches, and last time I raised the issue of how people learn, and how we teach. This time I want to raise the issue of involvement, because I am very much aware that people learn, enoy, get exciteed, passionate, and even believe in things more if they are actually part of things. Maybe if we are to keep young epople, and even devope them further through our churches, we need to look at how we involve them in our churches, not just the small menial jobs, but maybe, worship, teaching, caring, the things that make an impact in peoples lives. When I say menial, I do not mean that htey do not mean anything, but we ened to look to peoples potential, promise, gifts and abilites, to ensure that htey are being used in the right places, the right areas, and that they are being developed as people.

missing the agegroups

I have recently read a poston a blog which referred to an article in a magazine by the Methodist Church which suggested we have lost the ability to relate and reach those under the age of 45. It is certainly true that the age group from 20-45 i certainly missing in a number of our churches, but why is this, and do we need to change anything about our churches? One thing I will throw out there as a thought, and I will come back to this idea again, is that maybe the way we teach is different to the way people learn. The idea of sitting sitll and listening to someone talk for 20-30 minutes or longer, is somewhat strange to maybe those are missing from our churches. If we are really and truly going to reach a new generation, then maybe one thing to do is to change the way we get our message across.

Leader, friend, or roll model?

These are just a few of the different rolls that a youth worker plays out in their relationshi with young people. The question is where do you see yourself? Are you more of a leader, or a friend to the young people, or do you even see yourself primarily as a roll model to them and how they should live. I believe that we all play out these rolls as yth workers, but there needs to be some kind of balance to the different rolls we play, and we also need to understand the implications for us in the different rolls and how we see ourselves.

Who is our inspiration?

I know that the first and obvious answer to this question, and also the right answer, is Jesus, but I was wondering about who is there in life that we look up to and why? Followingon from my posts about celebrity status and roll models, I am sure that part of the reason we do what we do as yuth workers is because of someone we have seen or come across in our past. But ho.w do we hold them, in what regard do we hold them? Are theyalso roll models, or do we place some kind of celebrity status to them? It is just something to think through, about the difference between being an inspiration, or looking to someone for inspiration, or being celebrity

Roll of the Roll model?

Following on from my post about celebrity status, it made me think about the whole area of a roll model. I have often said that roll models in society do not set themselves up to be roll mdels, it is media, and others in soceity that raise them to this lofted position. so the question is, by being youth workers, are we actually saying by our positions that we are roll models to young people, or again like actors, singers and oer famous people, are we just people whom others raise up into that lofted position?

Celebrity status?

Just something that struck me whilst lstening to the radio this morning, as they discussed how celebrities have an impact on the sexual activity of our young people, who actually makes people celebrities, and as youth workers is there a kind of celebrity status that goes with our job, and if there is how comfortable are we with that? As I walk through town time after time, so many young people come up and want to chat to me, and even shout to their mates, looks it's Andy, which gives almost a kind of celebrity status to our youh work, but is this something we should look for or something we should even fight against? Personally it is great that young people want to talk, and I would suggest that we should neve fight against that status that young people want to put upon us, but also remeber that it is God that we want the young people to know and come into relationship wh, not us.

Working with the Culture?

there are two quick things I want to say about this today, the first is working with young people is often difficult because of one thing, and that is where they come from. so many times I ve worked so hard with a young person, but then met theiparents, visited their surroundings and then everything becomes obvioulsy clear to me. So the chlallenge is for us to work witht the young person in their culture, but also haelp them to break out of their culture. the second issue with culture,is how much culture are we allowed or prepared o work with? On a personal basis there is little I am afraid of if God can use then, I will be there to put myself in Gods hands. Times move on, and things change, God knows that himself, so he also knows that he can and does use things for his purpose, so let's nt be afriad or against many things in the uclture that we live in, le's even use some of it for the furthering of Gods kingdom.

How long in post?

It is interesting when we look in various magazines that advertise for youth workers, and the average length of time for an appointment is 3 years. Te question I ask is that time really long enough to actually make a big difference. When I talk about difference, I wonder about the young people who are already there, the young people you could come into contact with, the way things are done in the Church and how you could move things on, or even esablishing youth work within the culture of the church. so many issues there, and I wonder if 3 years is really enough to make the difference, to establish the change, or even to lay the foundations?

Believing in the future!!!!!

I the book of John chapter 10 verse 10, Jesus talks about a thief coming and stealing, but yet he comes to bring life and hope in all its fullness. This is a great verse, and so much can be brought out of it, but the one thing that I have thought about and reflected so much on recently, is that people around us, today and in our pasts can steal from our future, and god does not want that to happen. Nor does he want it to happen to the young people we work with. But yet so much in the press, and elsewhere is negative and even to the point of offensive to young people. The reality is that if people can keeep ons aying things, and say them often enough then people will beive in what they say. So in a world that is negative, and even offensive, are we prepared to try and break that culture, and speak positivity into young peoples lives, so that htey can beleive they have that futre and leave the past where it is in the past. Let's enesure that noone seals the future from young people, and work thorugh those issues from the past that could steal from their futures.

Meeting together?

this is always a tough one to look at as we live in an age where veryone is always so busy doing things, and the busier we are the more people seem to want us to do. There is a strange phenomena within the christian life that the busier someone is, then they must be worth having, so we shall book them in for something as wlel, just to add to their busy lifestyle. But amongst that business we alwso need to have time where we just meet up and talk to each other. It is easy to through ourselves intour own work, our own ministry, our own church, but we all need that suport, encouragement and bonding from those who are in simialr rolls to ourselves. In the Acts of the Apostles, they always found time to meet, to support and encourage eachther, even though they all had their own particular ministry to ensure it happened. so here we are 2000 years later, and yet we struggle to meet together, and chat to each other because we have our own things to do, does anything need to change? Can we take anything from the past into the future.

Varied Life?

The more and more time I spend in youth work, and in ministry, I find that there are more and more people who just throw themselves into Church, or their ministry so to speak, but I wonder if that is what God would really expect from us? Jesus himself even took time out, for himself, he went away, he hid from others, I imagine if there were various things in those days as there are now he would have had varius interests outside of his ministry. Can I put it out out there that it is not healthy for us to totally and absolutely just foucs on our ministry during our waking hours. Can I suggest to you all that we need to have interests, passions, whether it be football, golf, films, (and not thinking how you could use the film in youth work), but let's enjoy life as well as enjoying the minstry and privilege that god has called us too.

How much will we take?

I have just been thinking this issue through on another blog that I write for young people, but also think that it is an important one for us as youth workers. How much are we prepared to put up with from our young people? When they start being awkward, not listening, not following guidence, going there own way, causing disruption, how much will we put up with? the reason why I started thinking of this was due to how much Jesus put up with. He chose 12 "friends", some argued about having the best seat in Heaven,One stole money and betrayed him, another even denied knwoing him, but yet Jesu still washed their feet, had communion with them as well. Even wth Judas who was about to betray him a couple of hours later. So if Jesus demonstrated so much by his actions, and put up with so much, what does this tell us as youth workers?

How creative are we?

I have just read another blog that I look at reguarly, and they have been looking at how you are able to fit some words from a song to the music of another song. Ad this has got me thinking how creative are we when it comes to our work. Can we take things and use them in an environment that will not just make people laugh, or entertain them, but also give them things to think about. When it comes to our youthwork, what is there that we take from other places and put into our work that iwll make a difference in the lives of the young people we work with.

Change the culture?

Following on from my thoughts about what we should take from a culture and apply to our own work, how much of our own work should be challenging certain issues within a culture and trying to transform that culture into a different one. Recently someone tried to offer a ree meal, people didn't come, I think because they were supecious fo a free meal, but why is this, if there no attachments then why be suspecious? My susggestion was to persist, and show that we can break that culture of suspecion. So if we can do it with suspecion, surely wecan change other issues withoin our culture by being the people that God wants us to be, and following principles in our lives.