Ensuring our support

It is important as youthworkers that we have the right kind of support around us, enabling us to flourish in all that god has given us, and called us to be and do. We often have accountability in different ways shapes manners and forms, but ultimately we need peope around us, who will correct us, gently, nudge us in the right direction, praise us when things go well, ensure that our vision is right, ensure that we are listening t what God wants for our young people. We also need people who will release us, believing in us, and believing in our abilities, our gifts, and our calling. Ultimately we need people t be accountable too, who aren't going to tell us what to do, but endure we are doing smething. People who will keep us on the straight and narrow, without being people who will attempt to drag us along. People who will believe that we know what we are doing, and give us the freedom to get on and do it.

Strength in todays society

This is something I hear being talked about in so many different places, about hwo strong a particular person is, or a company is, and what they really mean is how they dominate others or situations. god never intended strength to be a dominant thing, but a confident thing with humility and humbleness. We can be confident in who we are, and in what God has called us to do and be, but this should not overtake us and turn into arrogance or power, or even dominance. Instead we should have a level of humility about who we are when we are with others, and also have a level of humblenss in accknowledging others. Strength isn't about us dominating, it is about us being confident and empowering.

Wholistic approach

there is a lt at the moment about health and young people in the news. It struck me tha a lot of teaching for young people suggests that God is bothered about all aspects of their life, and all issues that they face. If God is othered then shouldn't we be bothered as well? If we tell young people that God cares about all aspects of their life, then we should be too, which means we should be helping them with all issues around health, fitness, eating, homework, school, friendships, emotions, and a whole stack of others, This is the demonstration of the reality of relationship. If we have that relaitonship with Jesus, and have that relaitonship with Young people, then we should be there enabling, and making the difference in their lives, with the strength and guidence of God.

Informing our young people

I know that young people gather information from a whole range of different places, but in a survey I came across today, 20% of 10 year olds think that heroin is legal, where would they get that information from? If at the age of 10 young people are getting this kind of information then our job as youthworkers is geting harder and harder as the years go on. Let me encourage you, that many people in Jesus time thought many things baout their fath and religion, but they also had it wrong. Jesus tried to help them, and enabled a number to see the truth and reality, that is our job to point out the trth and reality, then the rest is between the young people and God.

Empowering young people

this is a mistake that a lot of people fall in to, because they include young people sometimes in the planning, but yet when it comes to presenting an event, or something in public, the adults take over. Here is the challenge, how about empowering young people not just to plan, not just to reflect, but to actually do. guess what they might even make mistakes, but how else are they going to learn, how else can they use their gifts. Hasn't God given them gifts as well as us, so let's give them the chance, the opportunites, and release hem to mae a difference in our society.

Following from values!!!!!

this one statement seems to follow on so well from my post yesterday, and some everything I said in one easy to understand, and readible statement: read it, reflect on it, and let god be so close: We cannot hope to touch the hearts of young people if we have lost our own spiritual leading.

Values

I have recdently posted on another blog about valuing life rather than just having a go at shops about selling knives to young people. And it struck me that the people who young people hang aorund, have a responsibility to demonstrate the values they hold in their lives. So here is the challenge for all of us as youthw rokers, if we hold Christian values, and vaues of the Kingodm, do we show them to the young people we work with, because the values we have, if we spend time with young people, and if we work with them properly, and they respect us, then our values and God values can rub of on them.

Do young people understand salvation?

This is something which I have found interesting lately, and have decided to write my next masters assignment which is due on the 1st of August, about this subject. What do we think young people believe salvation might mean, and what do they think they might need saving from. Do they believe they need to be reconciled?

Gig date for your diary

Just a quick posting here, to say, on Friday 26th September, Superhero are coming to Harrogate. for further information please contact superhero@rolltherock.org.uk 01423 553815

Consumouristic youthwork

This is a topic that I haven't thought through properly, ut it is something that maybe I can see happening in a few different places. youthwork should be and quite rightly so, about the young people we want to work with, and the young people we are attracting to our work, but god also needs to be at the centre of all that we are doing. Youthowrk is not just about pandering to the wants of the young people, but it is about the needs, and how God, and God through us can hlep meet those needs. Our society focusses very much upon the wants of people, and pandering to them, without proper consideration of the needs, and this is what God is more concerned about, he knows our needs, he knows exactly what , not just we need, but also the young people we work with. So let's not just focus on the wants, but theneeds, and enable the young people themselves take the initiative, and enable them to work things out with God as far as their needs are concerned.

Pushing them forward!!!!!!

Previously this week I have spoken about consistancy, and being persistant, but today I want to talk about pushing the young people we work with forward to achieve new things. One of the keys that I have learnt fairly quickly within youthwork, is that I can have great ideas, fantastic plans, and all sorts of things, but if it isn't from the young peple themselves,or they don't catch the vision or the dream, then it won't work. god uses young peple as much, if not more than he uses adults, and I would suggest that we need to allow him to use young peple more to make a difference in poeple's lives, or else we do them a disservice and we do God a disservice as well. One of thbest youthwork things I have seen recently, is inspired by young people, and they are seeing more and more oung people making a dcision to know Jesus, and look into the Bible more, and this has come from the young people, not the adults, so there is our challenge, allow those young people o grow, push on, use their gifts, allow God to speak thorugh them, and not try and tell them all the time what they need to be doing, and hwo they wll come closer to God, god might already be using them.

Persistance

yesterday I wrote about the importance of consistancy within youthowrk, and the fact that possbily one of the reasons why most youthwork doesn't see much growth is due to a lack of consistancy by ose who have an overall authority or vision for it. If there is no cosistancy, then there is unlikely to be any great fruit seen from that work. today I want to talk briefly about persisistance. young people seem to value the fact that osmetimes there is someone or even a couple fo people, who iwll stick by them regardless of the situation. I remember walking and having some stones thrwon at me and a fellow worker, and we had to make a decision about what to do, we carried on walki otwards this group, as we knew them. The group asked us why we continued walking towards them when they were throwing stones at us, and we told them that regardless of what they did, and who they were, we would sitll love them, and god sitll loved them as well. This evening changed our relationship with those young people, and our relationship strengthened because we hd shown persistance regardless of the situation. god himself shows persistance as he never gives up on us, even though we let him down so much, so we need to show that to our young peple as well.

Consistency

Last week I looked at various issues to do with salvation, and maybe thorugh out some ideas of topics that maybe need some further exploration with our young peopl. this week, I want to maybe be a bit more contravertial in some people's eyes,a nd suggest some pointers as to what might make a successful youthwork. The first issue, I want to tackle, today, and will tackle others as the week goes on. consistency is something which I would suggest is paramount in youthwork. 1: We need to be consistant in our approach to all young people. We cannot have favourites, and we cannot treat some differently to others. 2: We have to be cnsistant ourselves: that is we need to be there as much as possible, rotas do not really work, and do not allow the possibility for relaitonship to build, how can consistancy be there if we are putting in rotas all thetime. If rotas are in place, then the young poeple won't know who they are meant to go too, and they won't know who is ith them on any particular occasion. Consistancy is like the flavour, you can tell how something tastes by the consistancy of the mixture, so where is our consistancy, as far as our young people are concerned. Let me put it to you, that Jesus was totally consistant in his approach to people, and he was there for the people who were around him. god continues this since the death and resurrection of Jesus, in that he is always there, and always cnsistant in how he treats us, deals with us, and is always there for us, maybe we need to demonstrate some of that consistancy in our approach to youthwork.

Websites for you to visit

There are a number of websites, where people have written thoughts and thwories, aproaches and ideas about youthwork, I just t thought it might be an idea for me to post some of them up here, so you can have a look if you want too. IASYM: the international association for the study of youth ministry, there is online jnernals, disucssion gorups and vairous other things here. YTC Press: Youth Theology and culture press, releases books and thesis based around youthwork. if you type either of these into google you should find them, and I reccommend them to you as study, reflection and basing your youthwork in good theology, and chalening thoughts.

Justification

This is the forth element of salvation that I wanted to tackle briefly this week. The first was propitiation, the wrath of God, the second was reconciliation, and the three different aspects of that, and then yesterday we looked at redemption and what that might mean in our youthwork. today I want to look at justification, and how we could possibly help eople knwo that they are justified in God's eyes. It is my belief that people need to know that they are justified in being who they are, they don't have to be anyone else, and they were created uniquely, specially, and and maybe even peculiarly them. Through the death of Jesus on the Cross people can be justified, in who they are, in their relationship with god, and in their relationships with other people. The challenge for us as youthworkers is for us to help our young people know that they are justified, in who they are, and that Christ has done it all for them, and that all they have to do is embrace that relationship, and that works good works at that will come out of that relationship. People cannot be justified by their works, that is a human approach, it is by faith, by that relaitonship with god, not by what they do. But what they do should come out of that relationship with god. If God is at the centre then great works will come out of them. So let us help people realise that it is not what they do, but who they are that is really special.

Redemption

so far this week I have looked at propitiation, and reconciliation as far as aspects of salvation are concerned within our youthwork. Today I quickly want to look at redemption and what that might mean for us in our work. There is noone in the world I am sure who would say that they have never done anything wrong. And everyone will admit, even if not to what, but to the fact they have done, said, thought, or imagined something that is wrong. This is in Biblical terms, sin. So we need to be redeemd from our sin, redeemed from the things we have said, done, thught, imagined, that are not good. If we ask a human to help redeem us, it simply wouldn't work, as I have already stated none of us could say we have never done anything wrong, so how could we redeem others, if we are not pure, enough ourselves, we couldn't could we? So the answer comes back to God. God through his son Jesus, and his death on the cross redeems us, so we need to bring young people close to God. Maybe a starting point within this, is helping them to realise that redemption, and forgiveness is not fully possible within humans as we continually make mistakes and screw things up, but it is possible in god. the challenge therefore is for us o fin d ways, to bring people to that pint, that realisation that they need forgivenes, they need that redemption in their lives, and thus the only way that that can fully happen is through God.

reconciliation

As you may remember from yesterday, I want to look at four elements of salvation for us as youth workers this week, and what they might mean for our work. Yesterday I looked at propitiation, the wrath of God, and what it takes for us to help young people realise that the wrtath of God has been turned away from them and us, and what we might need to do to demonstrate some of that. toiday, I want to quickly look at reconciliation, and a couple fo the different elements of reconciliation. 1: reconciliation in relationships: sometimes we need to demonstrate that relationships can be reconciled no matter what has taken place. We can show this, by our relaitonships with the young people we work with, as they will frustrate and annoy us, but yet we continue to be there for them, so by showin this, we demonstrate how relaitonships can be reconciled. 2: reconciled to themselves: Many young people will have a bad self image, some of this will come from media, some from friends, and some from otehr places, and it is our job to hlep them realise that they are created in the image of God, and therefore they are lovely, great worthy, and worth dieing for. to reconcile them to themselves is a tough one, and a long job, but it is possible to reconcile us to ourselves. 3: Reconcile us to God: Help the young people we work with reconcile themselves to God, god has done so much for them and for us, and we need to help the young people we work with that they dont' have to do things, but God loves, them and that is why Jesus died for them, because God loved them. So reconciliation takes three main elements, and I haven't done them justice here, but all three of these elements are worth looking at with our young people.

4 elements of salvation

this week I am wanitng to write about the four different elements of salvation, and how they may apply wihtin our youthwork. today, let me qucikly, and probably unjustly look at, propitiation, which in essence ensures that we don't face Gods wrath. When we are working with young people, do they see angry, frustrated annoyed people, who just take out their anger on them, or do they see happy people who are pleased to see them. I think often that young people see God through us and the work we do with them, so if we tell them that God#'s anger has been taken away, torugh the death of Jesus, that god has ensured that he will not look at us in an angry way, do we demonstrate any of that when young people play us up, when they shout at us, when they take all their own anger nd frustration out on us. Let's just remember that if we talk about Gods love, and want to see young people embrace that, and know that Gods wrath has been delt with, then we actually need to demonstrate that in our own lives in how we are with other people.