Here she is, the tiny addition to the Jolly family! So far, she is doing great: eating and sleeping well, and getting lots of cuddles from her dad. Big sister Hope is also very pleased.

Thanks for all the messages we’ve received so far. We really appreciate them.

I'm a Superhero... for our summer playscheme!

Hi, my name is Jon!

I thought I’d better introduce myself as it’s been a while since I posted anything on this blog. Sorry about that.

As planned, I took the summer off from blogging and got stuck into the various holiday activities that we run in the community. We did two playschemes back-to-back with a total of 360 children attending across both weeks, then the youth group went off to Soul Survivor (I only set-up and packed down for them) and our team did some arts activities locally. We’re now back into the regular routine full-swing having relaunched our kids church (87 the first week), and started a new dance club too.

Excitingly there’s some conversations occurring with various partners about delivering some generic youth work to fill the gap left by the county Youth Service. It’s very early days yet, but there could be scope for some creative working. Additionally, I’m doing some work with the National Youth Agency around the Institute for Youth Work idea (watch this space), and just turned in an article for Youthwork Magazine.

On a personal note, Jolly Junior is due to arrive at the end of October so Kirsty and I are busy preparing for this new arrival while chasing around the place after an energetic 2 year old! All this to say that I’ve had my head too full to think about blogging. I’m hoping that normal service will now be resumed though…

'Transition' by Daniel*1977 on Flickr

I have been asked to expand my oversight responsibilities to include children’s ministry as well. [Probably cuz we I have 5 of them living in my home ] This means in addition to being hands on in high school, I’ll also be overseeing the staff and volunteers responsible for our ministries that target anyone at Journey ages birth through college age. We’re officially calling it a “generations pastor”. Sounds like a lot, but we have a great paid and volunteer team that is going to be expanding some here in the near future as we hire a couple of more part-time slots and provide tons of ways for volunteers to get involved.

The whole post made me smile because I’m in a very similar position. I did mention a bit about it here, but I’ve been reluctant to say too much as we’ve been in transition for a while and it’s been vague as to what my “new” post would look like. However, things are starting to piece together and while I don’t have a clear job title, I’m taking on two main areas of responsibility:

1. The oversight and strategic direction of our childrens and youth work (much like Brian talks about above)
2. The general oversight and management of the church activities.

The second point is the fuzziest and involves some staff management (including everyone’s favourite tech blogger Dave Johnson), HR responsibilities, project oversight, representing the church in various partnerships, office management, etc, etc.

While all these new responsibilities are important and exciting, my passion is still work with young people. When these changes settle down, this role will give me more of an opportunity to direct, assess, and develop what we do at a strategic level.

Perhaps most importantly, with me out of the way “on the ground” it will give more opportunities for our staff and volunteers to develop their own ideas and practices in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before. My hope and prayer is that this transition allows other people to step into their own gifts

How about you? Where are you at and where do you want to be?

'Time for change' by David Reece on Flickr

I got 23 responses to the poll, with 15 people (65%) saying that I should stick with using jonjolly.com. I also had a couple of comments from friends on Facebook saying just to leave it alone!

So I guess the consensus is that we stay as we are! I will continue to use this name for the foreseeable future and blog just as I have been. I hope that’s OK!

'New Year 2011 - Greetings' by valcanno on Flickr

I hope you’ve had a relaxing and fun Christmas break. I thought I’d share a couple of the gifts I got with you. The first is this beauty (the T-shirt, not the guy). My fantastic wife Kirsty bought it off Threadless, and when I opened it on Christmas day, she said: “I’ve got a confession. I liked it so much I bought myself one too!” So you might just see us out and about sporting matching shirts now!

The other great gift I got was also from my wife. She tracked down one of these very cool items! (the sticker, not the macbook) which I’ve now adhered to the front of my laptop if you ever need to identify me when I’m sitting in Starbucks!

What was the best gift you got or gave this year?

Anyway, back to the new year. Over the past few months I’ve been trying to get into a rhythm of posting particular things at certain times of the month to try and give more continuity to the blog. Sadly due to the consolidation of Youth Work Now into Children & Young People Now Magazine, my regular column has come to an end and there will be no more YWN Articles posted. Instead, I hope to continue with one of the following each week; Guest posts, Mistakes I’ve Made, Free Resources, From the Archive reflections, and a series looking at Youth Work Basics. This will all be thrown in with the usual random posts on youth work related news items, links, thoughts and reflections.

Although I aim to post at least once a week, please bear with me and maybe even give a gentle nudge if things start slipping! Welcome to 2011.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622

I pray you enjoy a peaceful and refreshing time.

The Best Coded WordPress Theme Ever.

If you visit this site directly (rather than via a feed reader) you may have noticed a new design being sported. Apart from the purely aesthetic side, this was for a very practical reason: I found out I was losing subscribers!

By randomly checking my Google Analytics stats the other day, I noticed my regular readership was tailing off. After running a few tests, I found that a number of WordPress plugins on the site were causing errors in the rss feed and email subscriptions meaning that a number of people simply weren’t getting my posts.

To combat this problem, I’ve taken the plunge and purchased one of the best coded WordPress themes out there: Standard Theme. In addition to being really well written, it has a number of features directly integrated so you don’t need to use additional plugins (and bulk out code loading). Logo upload, layout options, social sharing buttons, breadcrumbs trail, SEO optimisation and advertising options are all included out-the-box among other great features. Even better, it’s fully customisable so you can make it look how you want (by changing the css options).

I plan to slowly tryout the various options and get it looking how I want, but I’m really happy so far as the previous errors are now all fixed! If you’re looking for a bloat-free, fully customisable theme, I can highly recommend Standard Theme!

There have been some changes at our church recently…

On October 10 2010, David Thatcher, leader of Arun Community Church (ACC), passed the baton of church leadership on after 27 years of loyal service. David’s eldest daughter, Becca Jupp has assumed the role of leader at ACC, supported by a wider team of leaders, which includes David himself who will continue to act as an elder and active member of the church.

Speaking about the transition, David likened his role to that of a pacemaker in a cycling race. “The pack leader pushes forward, setting the pace and direction, leading the way, causing a slip stream enabling the other riders to ride with efficiency and cohesion,” he said. “After a while, the lead exchanges, the front man drops back to allow another to lead and maintain the pace.”

“I ask that everybody gives Becca and her team every encouragement and support,” he continued, “knowing that she is taking on a noble but daunting task. I have been delighted at how she has approached this exchange, and delighted at the response from the church.”

Commenting on her new role, Becca said: “It is an amazing privilege to be given the opportunity to lead such a vibrant, exciting church.”

As an employee of Arun Community Church, these changes have had some impact on my work! I am now part of the core leadership team and have been heavily involved in the recent transition, developing systems, communicating changes, project managing the new website, and running the children’s and youth work. In addition, I have also been asked to join the board of trustees for both the church and its charitable company, something I am carefully and prayerfully considering.

From a youth work perspective, I have pulled back from a lot of face-to-face work and am now managing teams of part-time staff and volunteers to run the activities that I used to be hands on with. This has been great as it has freed up more evenings at home, but also brings fresh challenges to fully support the 50+ volunteers each week. I need to get better at this!

So my role has changed somewhat and while I’m still employed to run the children’s and youth work, it’s currently in-between project management, service delivery and strategic vision! However, I’m immensely positive about these changes and very excited about the future. I’ve got some plans for the ongoing development of our Children’s & Youth Work which I’ll post up at some point too.

In the meantime, check out the info on the new website and follow us on twitter (@arunchurch). You can also find our new vision statement here.

'Time for change' by David Reece on Flickr

The readership and community has grown significantly during the last 2 years with nearly 200 subscribed via rss, around 30 via email, at least 50 unique visitors to the site daily, and over 40 ‘fans’ on Facebook. It’s become clear that the content and discussion is generating some wider interest.

To that end, I am wondering if the time has come to rebrand the site and give it a new name. With a growing audience, it seems a bit arrogant to have the whole thing named after me (I’m not a pop star after all)! Also, I’ve started to think that jonjolly.com doesn’t really reflect the nature of the website either.

So here’s the deal: do you think I should change the name of this website to better reflect the content I write about?

Please vote in the poll below and add any thoughts in the comments. I’ll announce the result in a future post (those reading via rss, the poll is here).

Last Wednesday, Richard Hubbard international speaker, CEO of Links International, and long-time member & elder of our church passed away after a battle with cancer. I had the pleasure of knowing Rich and serving with him at the church these past few years. He was a huge influence on my faith in my early teens and continued to be an inspiration with his energetic and enthusiastic Bible teaching.

It’s really difficult to know what to say or how to respond in these times, so I will simply reproduce an edit from the church newsletter which highlights a bit more about the life of this amazing man.

…After about 5 years working in Plymouth, Rich left full-time employment, and launched out into children’s ministry. Rich and his wife Lynda moved back to Littlehampton and Rich travelled the country leading children’s meetings under the title Powerpoint. He produced a number of cassettes of children’s songs and thousands of children were affected by these, as well as by the many praise concerts and conferences he took part in, often taking a large team along with him.

Rich branched out from children’s ministry and spoke wherever he was invited. Sanga Millar asked him to go and minister in Shillong, North East India. This was the start of his international ministry. Soon afterwards he crossed paths with Norman Barnes of Links International, and Norman invited Rich to travel with him on some trips. This developed and Rich became more and more involved with the work of Links, eventually taking over as CEO in 2006. He has ministered in very many countries across the world to many thousands of people.

Rich always firmly believed in the importance of the local church, and always made it his priority. Rich joined the leadership team of Arun Community Church, and was appointed an elder in November 1993. He was an elder and part of the senior leadership team up until September last year.

In addition to his spiritual input, his wisdom and expertise in legal and financial matters were invaluable. He has helped lead the church from a small gathering to a sizeable church with a significant influence locally and beyond. He believed that the Bible was the Word of God but it needed to be read and understood in context to be understood. For the last few years he has systematically read through the whole Bible each year, and would be continually recounting what God had shown him from it.

His mother recalls a conversation with him when he was 17. He said that he was determined to be able to say on his deathbed that he had not failed to achieve all that God had for him. Rich was never one for resting on his laurels. This time last year he knew he had faithfully fulfilled all that God had called him to up until then, and he felt he should be pressing on to something further, but he was not sure quite what. God had other plans for him.

Rich has influenced so many people in so many ways across the world, but his influence began with us here. He has been a highly respected elder of this church for 16 years. He has been such a loving faithful and loyal family man. He has been a foundational builder, a pillar, a senior statesman, a loyal and faithful preacher and teacher of God‟s word, an inspiration, an example and an encourager. We have been so inspired by the way he has faced the recent illness and has been so positive and faithful to God right up to the end of his life here. I sense God say “Well done, good and faithful servant‟.

His gain is our loss, and all of us will miss him so much. We send our heartfelt love to his wife, children and to all other members of the wider family.

Thank you Rich for the life of dedication and obedience that you faithfully modelled. You will be missed.

UPDATE: A website has been setup for people to leave their thoughts, messages and memories of Rich and to share with others about his unforgettable character. www.richhubbard.co.uk