In addition to my regular job at Arun Community Church, since April 2008, I have been the Chair of 'yarn' - the network of youth workers and managers who have been supported by the Rank Foundation's funding initiatives. This involves a number of exciting events and opportunities including meeting a wide range of brilliant youth workers doing amazing and diverse work across the UK.
Periodically, the Foundation produces publications around the ...
These are my youth work, youth ministry, childrens ministry and schools work links for 22nd July to 24th August. For more related links, check out my links page
Youth Engagement and Social media - an online guide - A very useful and practical guide to engaging young people through online social media.
West Sussex Grid for Learning: ...
A friend recently lent me a book by Donald Miller called To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father which I have been making my way through. It's a good book that's informally written and as you would expect focuses on finding purpose and identity without a father figure. In one part of the book, Miller talks of a man called Salome Thomas-El, a teacher in Philadelphia who received acclaim as a teacher and chess coach whose students have ...
Today I spent an enjoyable day in central London at the LICC Strategic Schools Work Conference. Apart from making some new friends and listening to the excellent speakers (thanks to Chris Curtis for helping to clarify some key points), I've come away with a great deal to think about for the new schools-based initiatives we are starting here.
I'm back up to London tomorrow to visit XLP and see what I can learn from their model of schools work. I'll be ...
At our church, we are currently starting the process of evaluating our existing children's and youth work and developing a new vision for what we want to see . The first part of this process was to consult the amazing team of volunteers who deliver the vast majority of clubs and activities each week, and so on Tuesday we gathered as many of them together as we could get to start talking about what this new vision might look like.
In a practical ...
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 ...
I forgot to link to Marko's post about the top 10 most influential Youth Ministry books when he posted it a couple of weeks ago (so here it is now). Many books I've picked up recently have come as recommendations from other bloggers, so it's well worth checking out the list on his blog including the comments below to find new resources ...
This afternoon, when out for a walk in the countryside with 5 teenage boys, we wandered onto land that was not part of the public footpath. We were challenged by a lady shouting from the upstairs window of her house, who then gave us directions back to the path. It was getting quite dark and the light was on in the house, so the woman ...
Ok, Ok. So this post is around a month late, but I've had a lot to think about (and no time to write it). I was also prompted by the arrival of all the talks on mp3 yesterday. I attended the Eastbourne Conference and although the whole weekend was good, I was most struck by the speakers in the main sessions who presented some difficult challenges.
Rob Bell was impressive due to his intimate understanding of the bible and ability to give fresh insight ...
Having grown up in the evangelical/free church movement I have a rich heritage of vibrant, exciting worship and inspiring experiences of the Holy Spirit which have helped to shape my view of the faith over the years. However, although I have heard many gifted preachers and spent a lot of time in Bible Study (particular thanks to Johnny & Debs!), my understanding of the historical and theoretical background to the church has always been woefully ...
