my life and youth work…
I’m finishing wrapping up the presents in front of the fire and Kirsty is making her world-famous Brownies in the kitchen. I’ve been asked to give the all-age Christmas address at church tomorrow morning so am putting the finishing touches on what I plan to say. Something about Chocolate Sprouts I think!
Enjoy your day tomorrow and I pray that you experience something of the hope that Jesus brings.
Merry Christmas
Last Sunday we ran a joint youth event with St Margaret’s Angmering and St Peter & St Paul’s Rustington called iWorship. The purpose was to hang out, have a meal and worship together allowing a chance for the youth to get to know young Christians from the other churches. It was a great event and we had a lot of fun together.
During the meal, we placed an image with corresponding scripture relating to some part of Jesus’ life onto each one of the eight tables. The young people were encouraged to read the passage while they ate. Later, as part of our worship together everyone was asked to reflect on that scripture and image, then to write or draw their personal thoughts about the passage onto post-it notes and stick it down.
Once everyone had a chance to finish, we laid out the eight images at the front in chronological order. Suddenly the young people could see a pictorial timeline of Jesus’ life and how their particular passage fitted into it. They were also able to read the various responses they had all written to what Jesus had done for them. At Christmas time, rather than just focusing on the birth of Jesus, we wanted to give them something of the significance of His life and why therefore we celebrate Christmas.
As an exercise in creative worship, it worked really well and might be something you can try with your groups throughout the year. I’ve prepared the images and scriptures we used as a download for you to print out and adapt. You can download it here (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader).
These are the eight points in Jesus’ life that we used:
And these are some of the responses the young people wrote:
It’s all about Jesus coming into the world and how the saviour of the world was born from such poverty
It’s not always easy to follow Jesus. It can be a rocky road. we need to trust Him and have faith like Peter to step out of the boat.
Jesus picked normal people, NOT people who would usually be leading or have high respect in society
Thank you for calling me! Help me to be a fisher of men
Last week I took a 15 minute assembly for Year 7 in Secondary School on the theme of Poverty. This session was only meant as a basic introduction to the theme, so is deliberately lightweight but is designed to get the children thinking about their own personal response to poverty this Christmas. This assembly plan will also be posted on the schoolswork.co.uk website as a resource, so feel free to use and adapt it for your own schools work.
As the young people arrived into the hall, I had on the stage in front of them 2 Christmas presents each wrapped up and placed inside a separate glossy paper bag. This provided a good focal point and many of them wanted to know what was inside.
Although the assembly was on poverty, I told them that I wanted to talk about Christmas. I then asked them what they were hoping to get for Christmas. Answers ranged from Playstations to High School Musical DVD’s, but it got them thinking about getting gifts.
I then pointed to the presents and invited someone to come and open the first one. They did so and were pleased to discover some chocolate inside. I then invited someone to open the second present. Inside the box it was totally empty (you could place stones, paper, etc here instead). They were obviously disappointed sitting down with nothing when someone else had received a gift.
This helpfully led me to explain about global poverty ranging from starving children in Africa, to the homeless people in their town. There are many resources you can draw on for information about poverty (Make Poverty History, Christian Aid, World Vision and Oxfam are good places to start). With poverty in mind, my challenge to all the Year 7’s in the room was this: “What are you going to GIVE this Christmas?”
I then explained that as a Christian, I believe that God has told me to help those in poverty. Jesus said “love your neighbour as yourself”(Matthew 22:39) which means ‘care for others’ NOT ’snog the person who lives next door’!
To finish, I allowed them a minute of quiet to think about what they might give that could help those in poverty this Christmas (donate money, give more thoughtful gifts, invite less fortunate people round, volunteer to help out in some way).
The assembly was well received by the staff and I had a number of comments from young people as the left about what they might do to help those in poverty. Hopefully some will go away and put it into action!
Here’s a couple of the most unique and impressive gifts I was given this year:
I Am Plastic. A great coffee table book about the designer toy explosion. A really cool gift bought for me by my ever-loving wife! Check out kidrobot for more of the same.
Zounds. Given to us by Ben & Sam, this is an amazing toy/tool/instrument thing that loops samples when you place the shaped pieces onto one of the 3 glowing dots. It’s the kind of technology that 60’s sci-fi ‘B’-Movies promised us in the future and then never happened (kind of like the Ice Crystals in Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude).
With 3 sounds for each of the 6 shapes and a cube that you can record your own sample to, there are a great number of musical combinations. Add in the tempo, reverb and echo controls and you get a wide variety of sounds from ambient chill-out through to hardcore techno and acid jazz! Totally bizarre and wildly addictive, get one now!!
Oh, and we ordered our new kitchen today!
Hanging canvas
Originally uploaded by bobweasel.
This is the main gift that i designed Kirsty for Christmas, taking pride of place in our front room! Click back to Flickr for the original design. I hope you all had a great day with family and friends.
Dominant Male Orang Utan
Originally uploaded by bobweasel.
Add notes to your flickr photos this Christmas and you can end up with some fun results! Just type “ho ho ho hat” or “ho ho ho beard” and you’ll achieve these Santa themed additions right there on your photos!
Click the Orang Utan for a demonstration!
Seeing as it’s nearly Christmas, here’s a great cartoon to get you in the spirit. (click to enlarge)
ht to YouthGuyEvan
one of these (although I don’t think Kirsty would allow it)! How cool!
Everyone keeps asking me what I’d like for my Birthday and Christmas, and being typically contradictory I’ve got loads of ideas while remaining unsure about all of it.
Check out my Amazon Wish List for some ideas, then be creative and go find something else! You could even buy a toilet or sheep through World Vision. The video ipod is compulsory though…
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