Last weekend we took 25 11-14 year olds from the church youth group away on a residential weekend. It was a great time on the theme of the Parable of the Sower from [youversion]Matthew 13:1-9[/youversion]. One of the activities was for the young people to film their own version of the parable and edit it on the computer. There were ...

I can't remember the last time I was able to go out and play in the snow! We don't normally get any down here on the south coast and when we do it doesn't normally settle. Today while still away with the young people at Lodge Hill, the cold spell brought an amazing blanket of white which covered the south downs. From the vantage point of the house, we had beautiful views across the countryside. Obviously, when the young people saw the snow it quickly ...

Fuel, our youth group for 15-18 year olds is away on a residential at Lodge Hill. We've been doing some teaching on the Gospel (more on that topic soon), and the power of the Holy Spirit. God has been with us and we've already had a first time commitment to the faith! This afternoon, we spent some time doing team building and low ropes activities which was great fun (Some more photos are available on Flickr) then tonight some of the team have set up ...

I had a really great time last week. The weather was terrible and rarely did the sun shine as the photo shows, but I got to hang out with around 30 fantastic young people without having any agenda to achieve or promote - just enjoying their company. It was a good chance for me to put into practice the act of 'presence' or 'being with' people which Mark Yaconelli promotes in Contemplative Youth Ministry. The other thing I really enjoyed about Soul ...

I'm sitting in the office today catching up with various bits of paperwork before heading off the Shepton Mallett on Monday. We're taking around 25 young people along to Soul Survivor A and I'm quite excited about going because the last time I went was waaaay back in 1999. Our group is joining together with St Margaret's (another local church) and sharing our camp, food and friendship so I really hope to encourage much inter-church shennanigans. While ...

I'm currently away on our church Children's weekend retreat at Dalesdown, a Christian activity centre in West Sussex. We've got Jon Bonner leading our group times and he's doing a fantastic job of engaging them creatively. Although the weather could have been better, we've managed to avoid most of the floods and havoc caused by the downpour and were even able to get outside for football. My role for these few days is to get to know the year 6 students ...

Team building Originally uploaded by bobweasel. I'm currently away at a youth retreat, my first duty as youth and schools worker for arun community church. It's the hottest day of the year and we're in glorious countryside doing team building activities! What a great way to start a new job! ...

First, an explanation: I wrote this silly song on a youth retreat around 6 years ago because I was bet that I couldn't write a song about an Orang Utan in 10 minutes. It became one of those collective moments that the youth group remembered and has never quite been forgotten. Needless to say, I never expected to perform it on stage at Spring Harvest to 500 teenagers! And the lyrics: I had a friend who was an Orang Utan I asked him if he ...

Happy Easter everyone! Last week we were down in Minehead running Distinctive, the 11-14's venue for Spring Harvest (Week 1). This is the sixth year I've been involved in the 11-14's programme and yet again I absolutely loved being part of such an amazing and talented team! Sim has already posted on what we were up to here, but nothing can quite explain the reason for this... It was an emotional and tiring week with my personal highlight seeing ...

The BBC is running a story about a group of County Durham teenagers who were allegedly abandoned by their youth worker in the countryside at 9:30pm in the pouring rain after they were "misbehaving". A worker has been suspended pending an enquiry. They said they had been accused of misbehaving and were told to make their own way back to a Downpatrick hostel. The seven teenagers aged between 12 and 14 are from County Durham. They were on a half ...