Want to be down with the kids? Try some of these words in your everyday conversation! Dizzy, dope and sick!
Monthly Archive for March, 2007
I’ve been thinking a lot about the 11-14’s age group recently (especially as Spring Harvest is coming up fast). I’ve been running the church 11-14’s group for around 5 years and always had a lot of fun doing it, but I’m seriously considering if the programme we run is delivering what this age group actually need. Although the group is thriving with around 25 each week (50 at most), a varied and fast paced programme, and a great staff team, I can’t help feeling that we’re missing something fundamental in providing them with the skills to take responsibility for their own faith.
Most of the young people that are from church-attending families have a reasonable understanding of the bible and generally engage with the programme, but there is a huge gap between their head knowledge and how it effects their lives. My passion is to see them coming to a full understanding of faith and fulfilling their potential in Him. But to do this I think we need to look critically about our whole approach to this age group; who there are and who they’re learning to be, how we teach them and what we expect of them.
My thinking on the subject has been prompted this week by two events:
The first was an invitation to attend the Reaching & Keeping Tweenagers Seminar. Although I have not yet read the book by Peter Brierley, I’ve seen the research quoted enough times to get the drift of it. I cannot actually attend the seminar, but it got me thinking about my own approach to this age group.
The second event was starting to read ‘(Pretty much everything you need to know about) Working With 11-14s‘ by Tricia Williams & John Stephenson. Although I’ve had it in my possession for a while, I’d not got round to opening it up so I dipped in. It’s an excellent resource for anyone working with this age group as it actually covers almost everything (I also like the fact it references other material for you to research further). Of particular use to me this week, it has reminded me of the difficult biological and psychological changes that this age group go through and brought home the sensitivity and stability that we need to provide them.
So does anyone else have any thoughts on how to provide for 11-14’s? Know of any good resources or theories that have been useful? Heard of any real success stories? Let me know as I’m really keen to develop my work with this age group!
Never try to remodel your kitchen while studying for a degree, moving jobs and helping organise a national conference. It gets a bit messy!
Due to my new post at Arun Community Church, I’ve been asked to write a brief profile of myself for the church newsletter this week. I thought I should post it up here too in case you’re interested:
I was born in 1979 and grew up in Littlehampton with my mum, dad, older sister Keren and younger brother Matt (Tim joined us in 1990). We started attending Rustington Christian Fellowship (as ACC was then known) when I was about 4. I have never known a time when God wasn’t in my life and I have many memories of church services and events where the Holy Spirit was present. I made a commitment to following Jesus at a very young age, and first asked about getting baptised when I was seven - David [Thatcher, the church elder] made me wait until I was twelve!
I started helping out at TAG [kids group] when I was 11 (mainly because I didn’t want to leave the group) and have worked voluntarily at various Church clubs ever since. This invaluable experience helped me to later get a job in youth work!
While studying for my A Levels, I had an opportunity to go on a mission trip to South Africa. Those three weeks changed my life! Although I’d always been a Christian and never had any major crisis of faith, suddenly away from home I had to take responsibility for my own beliefs. We had to rely on God for everything while we were there and my eyes were opened to the fact that Jesus needed to come first in my life. I’ve never looked back.
I made many friends on that trip including a young lady called Kirsty Thomas. We stayed in contact and got engaged in 1999 after clearly hearing God’s voice on our lives together. At that time I had a Uni place waiting for me, but we needed to save some money to get married. I applied for a part-time youth work job at The WIRE and although I gave a bad interview, the panel saw some potential in me and gave me the job. That was nearly eight years ago!
Through working in the community in some very extreme situations, young people and youth work has become my over-riding passion. For the last four years I’ve been studying towards a degree in Informal & Community Education which has given me a great love for education in all it’s forms. I love studying, researching and writing on youth related issues and believe strongly in equipping our young people to live out their faith.
This face may be familiar to some of you…
“Derrick” is a good friend of mine who’s doing a great job up at Soul Survivor working alongside Tim Hughes. As well as generally a great bloke, he’s also annoyingly creative. Check out Evans & Greg on mySpace.
Well, it’s been a long time coming but I can finally let you all know about my job change.
I’ve been working for Spurgeons at The WIRE since I was 19 and trained on the job as a youth and community worker. Over these 8 years I’ve learnt and experienced so much, that I can’t really express it adequately here. The main part of my role has been to run various clubs and activities for children and young people in the local area but with a focus on the disadvantaged, disenfranchised and excluded. Because of this ‘general’ role over this length of time, I know most of the families and young people in some capacity and it’s been a difficult process to close The WIRE and stop the activities.
Nevertheless, I am very excited about the future and as of April 1st I will be employed by Arun Community Church. I have a looong history with ACC having attended with my parents since I was around 3, so It’ll be good to work for an organisation I know so well. My new role will be Youth & Schools worker with responsibility for the pastoral care of the church young people (alongside other volunteers), overseeing the Extended Schools programme, and developing ongoing schools work. Due to Spring Harvest, Easter and a Residential Weekend with the youth group, my first day in the office will be Monday 16th April.
Over the next few months I hope to take some time to think, plan and pray plus I hope to visit other projects doing similar work. Let me know if you have time for me to come and visit!
Now at the risk of sounding purile, I just couldn’t resist posting this article.
Heard better? Post below (and keep it clean)!
Maybe I’ll get back to some more serious youth work related posts soon. 
ht: Digg
As a kid (and adult too) I had a great love and fascination of Transformers. I still have a huge box of the toys at my parents and the original cartoon series on DVD.
There have been many incarnations of the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons (Gen 2, Armada, Beast Wars, Energon, R.I.D., etc.) and with the new movie coming out soon they’ll be a big resurgence of interest in the franchise, but as every fan knows it’s the original Generation 1 characters that inspire awe and nostalgia in equal measure. Hence my excitement when I found this:
An Optimus Prime action figure made entirely from paper and downloadable for free! Get yours now at paperrobots1999.com
Thanks Protein Feed
PS. If you like Transformers, try these collectables
I love this picture!
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