A Cantankerous Old Man’s Guide To Youth Work

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When I was 15 one of my best friends was a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, called Cliff.

Being paralysed from the waist down after a bad car accident, Cliff hadn’t left his flat in 10 years. He was old, he was moody, he was racist, he smoked like a chimney (not just tobacco!), he swore like a sailor and drunk like a very thirsty fish.

Why on earth was this cantankerous old man one of my best friends? 2 reasons:

  1. He just liked having me around!

Cliff took a genuine interest in the things I cared about. He would just sit and listen to me talk about guitars and computer games. He even bought me a large power kite one day after hearing me rave about them. He didn’t try to be like me, or pretend to be ‘one of the guys,’ he just genuinely cared about me and really did like spending time with me.

When I had major surgery, he got Iceland Home Delivery to send six large crates of junk food to my hospital bed (which fed all three Children’s wards in Blackpool Victoria Hospital). When I turned 16, he paid a taxi driver to bring a magnum bottle of champagne to my front door. What a freaking legend!

  1. He gave me responsibility.

Cliff allowed me to rebuild his computers, cook him meals and do his shopping. I would tidy his house, sort his mail and charge the batteries in his wheelchair. I never had any doubt that I was valuable to him.

By the end of his life Social Services would no longer work with him. He would rage and throw things at them. I had the keys to his flat, became his next of kin and his sole carer. When Cliff died I organised his funeral – at 17. His estranged family didn’t come.

Short Safeguarding Note: For those of you with Spidey senses tingling (rightly so), my parents kept up a relationship with Cliff themselves and kept a closer eye than I was aware of.

 

Cliff’s Guide to Youth Work

In terms of healthy boundaries, this might not be the ideal job description for a youth worker. It does however, give us two very clear principles for youth work:

  1. Show young people that you genuinely value your time with them.

Don’t fake it, don’t milk it and don’t try to be one of them. Just like them, and like hanging out with them. Show them extravagant acts of love. Don’t know how – here’s 55 ideas!

  1. Give them clear genuine responsibility.

Young people don’t want to be consumers, they are wired for producing. Simple entertainment-driven youth work is now going to way of the dodo – and good riddance to bad sugar-fueld nonsense!

Get them to run things, to work on things, to lead things, to learn things, to research things, to design their own programs, to tell you what they want to learn about and to help teach each other. Let them know that they’re valuable because they are valuable, not because they boost your youth group numbers.

Let’s learn from Cliff and take the words value, extravagance and genuineness to their youth work ideals.

Thank you Cliff.

Freedom To Fail in Youth Work – Ryan Rudolph

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Guest Post By Ryan Rudolph. Youth Worker in South Africa, graduate of Oak Hill College and blogger at ryangrudolph.wordpress.com

 

I found an old note I made to myself when I first entered seminary in 2006. I was asked to write down the following question:

“If I weren’t paid to do youth ministry, would I still do it?”

At that time I wasn’t being paid. I had a dream of being a paid for, “successful” youth pastor. My dreams back then were terribly flawed, self-centred and misplaced. Sure, I wanted to “serve” God, and I wanted to make His kingdom great, but I wanted to be an important factor in all that. I didn’t, therefore, like the aforementioned question very much.

Fast forward 9 years, 3 youth ministry positions in very different contexts on two different continents – I now LOVE that question. I often “dream” in fact, of attempting to do youth ministry whilst holding down a ‘normal’ job. Hear me out.

Whilst I recognise the huge benefits of being paid to spend quality time with young people and the ability to plan events and programs, I’ve come to an understanding that “successful” youth ministry – as we traditionally know it – doesn’t necessarily require the church to carve out a paid-for position.

If my church turned around and said to me “Ryan, we’re really sorry, but we just can’t afford to pay you anymore” it would be tough at first. I’m sure I would have some difficult questions to ask them like, “why don’t you take youth ministry seriously enough?” I’d ask myself a tougher question, however: “Am I failure?”

If that were to happen, I would remind myself though of the original question: “Would I still do youth ministry if I weren’t paid?” The answer is yes!

The reason I am so confident in my answer is because I’ve come to believe three things about God and therefore any ministry position that serves Him:

God Saves, God Calls, God Does.

These three beliefs have saved me many nights of feeling like a failure. Let me show you why.

God Saves

Each person God saves is a miracle. I am a miracle of God. God saved me. My utmost priority in life is not what I do, but who I am. By understanding that who I am is based on what God has done for me – saving me, giving me new life, calling me his child, son and friend – I have become far more free in my ability to serve God in ministry.

Dear un-named youth worker,
God knows your name. It is written in the book of life. He saved you first and foremost for himself. You are not here to save the world. That isn’t your destiny. It isn’t even your job. It’s God’s job. He saves. And you, my friend, are a miracle and proof of what God can do in any life. God is Saviour so you are free to fail.

God Calls

Another freeing belief I have found is that God calls every believer to ministry. That means theoretically you should not be alone in what you’re doing.

This isn’t your ministry, it’s God’s ministry, and he calls all His people to be involved in Kingdom ministry.

It also means that you are free to do what God has called to do, therefore let God affirm you, He is all you need. Imagine you’re on Idols or X-Factor. You know you can sing and other people have confirmed your ability by saying “you can sing!” and so you’re pretty confident in your ability. As you enter the competition, however, it becomes apparent that there are others that you now need to seek the approval of, the judges! And let’s be honest, there is only one judge who’s comment really matters. Sure the others might give you good comments, but unless Simon Cowell approves of you, you will never feel like you’ve made it. Every other judge could give you a terrible comment, but if Simon gives you his approval, I’d imagine your confidence would be sky high! If Simon says you can do it, then you really can!

In youth ministry, we have a far greater reason to not feel like failures. God has given you His approval already! And whilst some days are good and other days terrible, you will never be a failure because Jesus, who has saved you, has already approved you! All you need to do is faithfully stick to the One who gives you His approval. God calls so you can be free to do.

God Does

The third freeing belief I have come to understand is that God is busy doing all the time. I’m always amazed that God does awesome stuff despite me!

I remember walking a long and difficult journey with a young person. Everything always seemed hopeless, in every conversation I felt worn down, and I wasn’t even experiencing what that young person was! One Friday I took our youth to an old-school crusade (Do we even use that word anymore?). I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that there was nothing special about this event. There were no cool lights, the music was average sounding and even I struggled to understand the message. The guy literally gave a boring twenty-minute sermon and an altar call. I have no idea what he was trying to say! To my surprise, however, God was busy doing.

A week later this same young person was asking me some pretty deep questions. You see, this student had responded to the altar call. He had more questions. God was doing something incredible in his life. Two weeks after this, he became a Christian. Isn’t God good? I didn’t do any of that! I just got to be present, answer a few questions, and be faithful in praying for this young life in every conversation we had prior.

 

Free Yourself!

In light of the God who saves, the God who calls and the God who does, ask yourself: “If I weren’t paid to do youth ministry, would I still do it?”

Free yourself. Just be where God wants you to be. Be faithful and watch God WOW you. He does!

God is saviour so you’re free to fail. God Calls so you can be free to do. God Does so you can be free to just be who he’s saved and called you to be.

About Ryan:

Ryan Rudolph is a Youth Pastor in a small city church in East London, South Africa where he enjoys the challenges of multi-cultural, urban youth ministry.

He is married to a beautiful Texan lass, is a Sharks Rugby fan, and enjoys indie-board games and even more so loves introducing these games to some of his Youth!

He holds a BA(Hons) in Youth and Children’s Ministry from Oak Hill Theological College in London, and is currently studying towards a BTH.

Ryan loves young people, loves Jesus and deeply desires to see the two connect in powerful and authentic ways.

He blogs over at ryangrudolph.wordpress.com

Compassion Ministry, The Future of Christian Youth Work

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Christian Youth Work is still in essence, a new principle for Churches. Unlike other areas of pastoral Church work, it hasn’t accumulated centuries of wisdom to stand upon. This is probably why it only takes a few years to be considered a ‘veteran youth leader’.

At it’s most basic level, working with young adults and children with specific needs is as old as the world itself. However, embracing youth work as project ministry with clearly defined parameters, staff, budgets and gift sets outside the immediate purview of Church elders and parents is certainly still in infancy.

As with anything in sapling stages, we must be continually open to various ideas to make sure we’re not growing against a wonky stake. A forced change in shape at this stage will simply mean deformity later.

Christian Youth Work in the west has cycled around clubs, events, mentoring, short term mission projects and in more mature ministries youth leadership. Generally we transition through incarnational youth work, into funnel models of youth work aiming at two ends of a spectrum: the large crowd event and the small discipleship group. Usually we stick a middle ground youth club in to create the funnel link (and many of us don’t go further than this). If we are developing both ends of this spectrum with reasonable consistency and are keeping a mid-layer youth group solvent then we give ourselves a hearty pat on the back and start training others to do the same.

“Compassion ministries are driven by the conviction that Jesus meets needs, heals hurts and brings the kingdom to earth – not just to church.”

Developing Unease
This has led to increasing unease in the Youth Ministry world. With further distance between the polarising worlds of church and culture, and a mighty drop off of young people church attendance we are starting to find holes in these classical methods.

For instance we keep meeting young people who really need something different and something more substantial than what these well managed systems can produce – and even more frightening we keep not meeting young people in general because they have no connection point within the models we manage.

This has led many over the last few years to wisely abandon classical youthwork in pursuit of specific mission focused projects working with marginalised young people, young people in poverty, young people from other faiths and young people with various behavioural and social difficulties.

“The future of Youth Ministry is, I believe in these compassion ministries.”

This is a colossal step in the right direction! These are compassion ministries – ministries driven by the conviction that Jesus meets needs, heals hurts and brings the kingdom to earth (not just to church).

Compassion Ministry
The future of Youth Ministry is, I believe in these compassion ministries. I want to challenge all of us to step out in faith and think about the following list, and I’d like to urge Bible Colleges and training centres to teach these things at the highest possible level:

– Support groups for those will mental health issues

– Mentoring, Counseling and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

– Art and creative therapy

– Stress and anger Management

– Conflict resolution and mediation

– Social Enterprises to get young people vocationally trained for work

– Social Enterprises to teach young people fundamentals of emerging adult life (hygiene, social interactions, literacy etc.)

– Integration and support for those with learning and social difficulties

– Social work projects for whole families

– Parenting and ‘big brother / big sister’ training

– Local social action groups

– Trusts and funds to support those 13-18% of families that are living in genuine poverty

Compassion Ministries meet genuine needs, make authentic connections and drive holistic community. They are the modern equivalent (along with others) of ‘having everything in common’ that the church in the book of Acts teaches to us.

If I could take 5 years out to ‘retrain’ as a youth worker I would study law, cbt, and conflict resolution. I would get accredited as a counsellor and mediator and would start setting up social support groups in every school and hospital I could find.

The First Steps
I have some amazing leaders who naturally get this.

One of my leaders is passionate about mental health resources for young people. I’m convinced she will do enormous things in this direction and she is starting by simply chatting, asking questions and studying what is currently missing in her local context.

Another of my leaders works as a teaching assistant in a local school for young people with various learning and social difficulties. Every morning he packs cereal bars in his bag and gives them to young people who haven’t had any breakfast.

This is the future of youth work. This is how we must move forward. Small acts of compassion aimed at meeting genuine needs in young people. Any youth work strategy that does not include these things in the next few years will be as irrelevant as the dinosaurs.

3 Overlooked Reasons for School’s Work

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There are lots of well known and accepted reasons for school’s work, not least of which is you can kiss your youth ministry goodbye in a few years if you’re not. Here’s a few though that came to mind that are maybe sometimes overlooked:

To challenge stereotypes
Young people are several generations removed from the world of habitual church attendance and Sunday school. This leaves their systems wide open to lots of misinformation and tabloid-infused stereotypes of who Christians are and what Church looks like.

“By being present in school you can continually challenge the stereotype of what Christ-followers look like.”

Last week I asked 140 year 9 students in groups of 5 to give me a freeze frame for the word ‘church.’ The vast majority had people kneeling on the floor bowing to a vicar figure who was stood up on a chair looking posh and disinterested. A few did funerals, and one did an image of ‘togetherness.’ One in nearly 30 groups caught at least something of the heart of church.

By being present in school you can continually challenge the stereotype of what church and Christ-followers look like. Yes we look normal, we dress normal, we don’t have secret handshakes, we like good music (most of us) and some of us even have tattoos! Weird eh?

To create dynamic, tolerant conversation
Christians – being in a spiritually aware world inhabited by theologians and philosophers with a rich history – are expected to provide stimulating thoughts, deep questions and engaged conversation.

“Teaching young people how to think and how to talk cultivates the ground needed to hear the Gospel.”

Rather than coming with ‘look, here’s what I think!’ all the time, use your unique space and persona in school to develop activities and spaces that grow conversation techniques, tolerance, listening skills and opinion articulation. Teaching young people how to think and how to talk cultivates the ground needed to hear the Gospel.

We do this in North Wales by through running RE conferences that massively rely on small, dynamic conversation groups. The result is lots of young people who feel genuinely listened to, accepted and yet challenged. This means they have a memory of being respected and heard, and that memory is attached to Christian adults! Well worth it.

To constantly show that faith is not a bankrupt option
The world isn’t split into smart people and Christians. Using helpful and memorable illustrations you can allow young people the space to open their minds to possibilities beyond the mundane and quite easily back this up using classical philosophy and modern science.

You need to keep saying and demonstrating that faith is not intellectual suicide. You can do this in science classes with science teachers if you approach it properly. Develop a language in school through your involvement that allows young people – Dr. Who style – to consider more than what is simply in front of their noses.

Young people are incredibly spiritually aware so you have an opportunity to dovetail supernatural alertness into academic rigor.

Save The Pumpkins – a wee tract

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So this is the text of a tract I wrote for my younger London youth group (age 11-14) about 6 years ago. It’s not the best, it’s not incredibly well written, but it’s something. Feel free to use, change, adapt, laugh at… whatever!

Tim

 

*

Do you like pumpkins? Have you ever tried Pumpkin pie? Yum! I sometimes think it’s a shame to see what Halloween does to those poor pumpkins. Really, think about it!

We start with a lovely big fruit, full of life, yumminess, and seeds which could grow into more pumpkins. We then cut its top off, spoon out all of its tasty life-full goodness and seeds, cut a miserable looking face into it and hide a candle inside it.

It all looks a little bit dark and gloomy to me. But I guess that’s the point of Halloween isn’t it?  Halloween is all about being dark, and scared, and gloomy. You don’t think so? Then why do we dress up as ghouls and ghosts and all things evil and scary?

The ancient Celts believed that at the end of summer evil spirits could pass through into our world and we needed to dress up like them to ward them off, which is kinda why we do it today.

You may think I’m trying to be a killjoy by putting Halloween down – but I’m not at all, I promise! Evil, scary, nasty things (like the things Halloween likes) tend to kill our joy. I want to tell you about something else that could bring you real joy!

You see, I believe that God created the world. I even believe He created those delicious pumpkins! But Halloween (which prefers dead and dark things) takes God’s good creation and spoons all the good out of it – just like we do to a pumpkin!

I also believe God send His own son Jesus Christ to show us where real, deep, and lasting joy can be found.

Jesus calls himself ‘The Light of the World,’ which is a little bit like the candle you put into your pumpkin. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a candle in a really dark room? All the darkness leaves the candle – it runs away! You see, you can’t have dark and light together, light always wins!

I believe that Jesus is the good news, the best news – Because he chases away darkness, just like a candle in that dark room does.

I believe that Jesus saw a dark, scary world destroying itself, he also saw all the darkness in our own lives that comes out in all the bad things we say, and think, and do – and He came to die, so that darkness wouldn’t win, but light would.

Jesus loved us so much and wanted you and me to be so full of life and free of darkness that He died for us on a cross. When Jesus died, He paid the price for all that darkness; He chased it away!

But Jesus didn’t stay dead; He rose from the dead showing that He’s bigger than death itself! He’s the light that chases away all darkness!

What an AMAZING free gift! Jesus wants to chase away your darkness, even death itself! And He wants to give you life and light itself, even eternal life after you die here! How incredible is that?!?

But to accept this we need to ask Jesus for it. We need to tell him that we believe in Him, and that we want him to forgive all the darkness inside us, and come to be our best friend, and give us light and life!

Now this isn’t something I’d expect anyone, young or old, to do without thinking a lot about it and asking lots and lots of questions about it too! Christianity isn’t a cult, its about people really searching and finding Jesus to be true.

 

Save The Pumpkins!

Teach young people to dream wild – steal the rest later!

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When I was 17 I was raising money at my church to go to Bible College. I was at a fund raising dinner that a terrific couple had organised for me, and at the end I went to the front to say what I wanted to do. They asked me what it was that I wanted to achieve and in my arrogance I said,  “y’know Billy Graham? Think him but you know… bigger!”

I’ve been pretty ashamed and embarrassed at that moment ever since I actually went to Bible College and learned about this silly little thing called humility. This is especially important when you consider that Billy Graham himself started every single one of his revival meetings by drawing a circle on the ground. Billy would then step into the circle and say Lord send revival and start with everything that you find in the circle.

It’s so easy to quench dreams with mistaken reality.

I’ve been in full time youth work ever since leaving Bible College nearly 8 years ago and in that time I discovered something about my initial overzealousness in that dinner. Looking past the arrogance, hero worship and the Christian celebrity culture there was a kernel of real goodness in that proclamation. I had a dream to tell the gospel to millions of people. Almost every adult I met afterward however, told me to shoot lower, be realistic and learn humility.

It’s so easy to quench dreams with mistaken reality. It’s so easy to pour cold water on the passions and compassions of young people because of the extra baggage, mistaken theology and missing pieces from their plan. It’s so easy to say that won’t happen because it never happened for us. It’s so easy to limit the prayers, expectancy, hopes, dreams and faith in the omnipotence of God in the hearts of young people. It’s so easy to suck so bad!

Proverbs 16:1 says “To man belongs plans of the heart but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue.” We use this passage to say that there is a fundamental disconnect between the plans in our hearts and the replies of our God. We use it as an excuse to not hold God to account for our prayers and to assume that we are not in keeping with God’s plan for our lives. We assume human nature over God’s virtue.

However if our hearts belong to God why can we not assume that many of the passions, plans and desires in our hearts originate from him?

The message of the Bible is the more you get to know God the more your heart becomes in-line with his heart.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God has placed eternity in man’s heart. Psalm 37:4 says delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. The message of the Bible is the more you get to know God the more your heart becomes in-line with his heart. God buries plans deep in our hearts when we come to know him and He spends years clearing away the dross from those plans so they have room to breakthrough and live.

Yes we do need to correct bad theology, we do need to set expectations that allow God to be God and us to be us. We do need to clear dross and teach sanctification by the Holy Spirit through his Word. However, we cannot do this at the expense of throwing the baby out with the bath water and drowning good plans in legalistic low expectation.

We must set the bar so high that only a passion filled, God honouring, driven young person could reach it.

We must concurrently teach good theology and stoke the fire of dreams and passion in the hearts of young people. We must set high expectations. We must teach that God can accomplish the impossible. We must set the bar so high that only a passion filled, God honouring, driven young person could reach it. We must allow young people to achieve far more than we ever did. We must teach them to submit their plans to God as worship, not bury those plans in legalistic pseudo sanctification.

I’ve not stood on the stage of a revival meeting in front of millions of people. I’ve not led tens of thousands of people to Christ. I am not a bigger Billy Graham.

However, I’ve learned that the kernel of passion that I had as a teenager was not evil or wrong. Even though I only knew how to express it in that ‘bigger Billy Graham’ language, it has since been nurtured and grown by my God. He has allowed me to have a huge impact on the lives of many young people.

Young people develop abstract from concrete thinking very young, however when a young person says something that scares or challenges an adult, that adult has a tendency to only interpret as concrete thinking. I needed adults who were able to think in the abstract, see the kernel of God given truth through the fog of my imature language and help me develop my passions before God.

Priority number one – ask God to allow you to see and hear His voice through the language of young people and see what of He has placed in their hearts.

Priority number two – encourage young people’s wild, God-driven dreams.

Priority number three – give young people every opportunity to pursue those dreams.

Priority number four – teach and model the language of humility that always points back to God rather to ourselves.

Priority number five – help clear the dross and baggage of underdeveloped theology that could choke that dream.

 

Teach young people to dream wild!

Tragic loss in the metal world asks how do we respond to metal loving teenagers?

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A mainstay of the nu metal movement of the 00s, Wayne Static of Static X passed away this weekend from a drugs overdose. This is another in a long line of shocking losses from the Heavy Metal world joining the ranks of Adam Goldstein (Crazy Town), Paul Gray (Slipknot), David Brokie (GWAR) and Dave Williams (Drowning Pool).

What stuck me this time were some of the responses to the news from other well known bands, here’s a couple:

“This is so sad. Too many musicians are dying from overdoses. I’m serious, addiction is real and takes fools out. no one is invincible. So glad I live a sober life today. The number of friends that I have lost to addiction is crazy. If you are struggling with addiction, get some help before it’s too late. I know deugs and partying are part of the ‘rock ’n’ roll lifestyle,’ but damn, how many more gotta die?? F*** the lifestyle, I want life!!!! See you on other side, Wayne….” [Jacoby Shaddix, PAPA ROACH].

“Rest in peace Wayne. I’m speechless right now. I’m losing too many of my friends. I’ll see you on the other side, brother.” [Jonathan Davis, KORN].

It’s the heart cry of Jacoby Shaddix that we must hear; “I want life!!!!’

Both have seen this before, both are tired of loosing friends, both are hoping for more ‘on the other side.’ But it’s the heart cry of Shaddix that we must hear, “I want life!!!!’

Overdose and early violent deaths are synonymous with the metal scene right through to its grassroots. A few years ago, one of my best friends from high school died from a heroin substitute. He was an incredible musician, a bass player for several bands and a metal lover through and through. This was, as all the papers said, a tragedy. Surely he didn’t need to die?

My experience is the Christian youthwork world has lots to say to the heavy metal subcultures, but very few effective ways of doing so. There’s lots we can teach about value, hope, lament, mourning, truth and beauty but we can’t see past the satanic, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll stereotypes associated with the genre.

When I was growing up metal music was my whole world! Everything from Metallica through to Static X themselves. I had the clothes, the hair, the posters and I played electric guitar in a metal tribute band. As a Christian through, I was given a wide berth from the youth leaders who treated my love of the genre as something dangerous to grow out of. “But, that’s so satanic!” one of them commented when they found out. It’s like they we’re tracking my course from learning guitar riffs to the demon-fuelled overdose that was obviously impending.

My experience is the Christian youthwork world has lots to say to the heavy metal subcultures, but very few effective ways of doing so.

When I started youthwork my experience in the heavy metal world was invaluable. It allowed me relationships with young people who no one else could get near. A young lad once bought me an Iron Maiden poster that he had signed by drummer, Niko McBrain and I spent two years with him and his brother reading Romans together… as well as attending their gigs. We need to engage on this issue because they too want life!

Very little youthwork that I’ve seen engages directly with young people in the heavy metal world, and even less have projects and relational objectives for young people on these specific journeys.

I will spend a few posts over the coming weeks interviewing people who, just like me, grew up with one foot in the Christian Youth Work World and the other in Heavy Metal Subcultures. I will spend several posts sharing the individual observations and journeys of these youth workers who group up with a passion for heavy metal music. Each will be unique and hopefully each will feed our insights for how to look after young people in the heavy metal world.

Watch this space for the first interview.

How could we raise £25000 in 4 days for a dog, but not support youth mission?

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It was in the news this morning that Jasper the dog was rescued from Scafell Pike after he had gone missing a few days ago. I’m delighted that he’s back safely and I’m very happy he’s been reunited with his owner!

What stood out to me about this story was the £25,000 raised by 6000 people through social media since Sunday this week. This is an enormous amount of money raised in an incredibly short amount of time and – without wanting to make light of the situation, or the fantastic work to bring Jasper home – for a reasonably innocuous cause.

Humans have a much more generous nature than we give them credit for.

There are many things we can take away from this. We can possibly conclude that humans have a much more generous nature than we give them credit for. We could perhaps conclude that when people are presented with a clear need, then they are much more willing and likely to give. We could also conclude that it easier to make a decision to give to something that doesn’t talk back and doesn’t present complicated choices.

A huge part of my job is fundraising. It’s hard, it’s often embarrassing and it’s absolutely necessary. I work with hundreds of young people with an enormous spectrum of issues, difficulties and widespread lack of hope. The unfortunate truth is this that this costs money and sometimes lots of money. In order to be effective in the projects that I manage I need individuals, groups, churches, causes and businesses to support what we do financially.

In the youth work church world we are always competing for funds. It takes an inordinate amount of time, and it sometimes really is like trying to get blood out of a stone. It always shocks me to learn how much money churches give to overseas mission in comparison to local mission. It bugs me that individuals would rather give towards one specific event than regular ongoing relational work. And it does my nut in that so many people only consider giving when a project is about to close.

There are young people on our doorsteps who are desperate for the compassion ministry that only Christ driven projects could bring them.

Youth Ministry Architects say we should spend around $1000 (£630) per young person per year to be healthy. What does your youth work budget look like? How does it compare to other expenses? There is research to suggest that the average amount of church income spent on youth work is about 3% – and this doesn’t necessarily mean reaching the unreached.

Giving is an act of worship. There are young people on our doorsteps who are desperate for the compassion ministry that only Christ driven projects could bring them. If we can raise £25,000 to bring a dog home then we can dig deep in our pockets and give to the most important need in the UK: the Jesus driven health of it’s young people.

Church pastors please consider placing a high priority on local youth mission in your next budget meeting. Please don’t let us compete with Jasper the dog.

I’ll end with a story. Last year I went to speak at a women’s coffee morning. There were about twenty of them and they were absolutely lovely! I gave my usual short presentation on the work we’ve been doing in North Wales and I asked them, as I always do to consider volunteering, praying and giving to support us.

At the end they bought me a cup of tea. While drinking this cup of tea someone had walked around the sandwich bag. Moved with compassion for the young people in North Wales, these twenty lovely, elderly women dug deep into their pockets and filled the sandwich bag with all the change that they were carrying. It came to about £80. This still feels like the biggest donation we’ve ever had. This was the widows offering.

Let’s make giving to young people’s mission a priority and let’s make it so youth leaders don’t have to spend their time pleading for it. Support youth mission!

How to Line Manage Your Youth Worker

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“Behind every great man there’s a great women rolling her eyes” (Bruce Almighty), and behind every great Youth Worker there is a great support structure.

A support structure means more than just well-wishers and prayer-warriors. A support structure means work contracts, policies, accountability boards, bosses, mentors and managers… good ones, not pants ones.

I bet that one of the top reasons youth workers quit so early and frequently is a widespread lack of understanding of the chain of command. Everyone thinks they’re your boss – parents, teenagers, councils, caretakers – everyone!

I think the holy trinity of successful youthwork support is a pastor – to include you within the wider vision, a mentor – to nurture you as a disciple, and a line-manager – to develop you as an employee. All three need to have a different emphasis but a common goal. Hypostatic union if ever I saw it!

In my first full time youthwork job I had no line manager. As a result I ended up working regular 70hr weeks, didn’t receive about half of my leave (and when I did I was granted it too late to book or save), wasn’t able to formally develop my training and didn’t receive any clear feedback on my work performance. I left – and I nearly left youthwork completely.

My next job came with an able line manager, a quality mentor, a committed trustee board and a further accountability board to check up on the trustees. I’m still there – and I’m still growing.

The holy trinity of successful youthwork support is a pastor, mentor and line manager.

There are five specific areas that a line manager should be regularly checking up on: Timesheets, Annual Leave, Training, Project Management and Admin. Anything else probably falls under the purview of the Pastor or Mentor.

Timesheets: To check how much time the youth worker is working, where they’re spending it and what – if any – gaps are showing up while keeping an eye open for over working and unsociable hours.

Annual Leave: Making sure the youth worker is taking it – including day(s) off – and booking in advance. Also working alongside the youth worker to cover projects and seek outside help when needed. Annual Leave should never be made conditional on cover.

Training: Looking together at relevant conferences, courses, conversations and a reading budget. This should include spiritual feeding and practical training. Ideally the board should set an annual budget for professional development.

Project Management: Looking at the trickle down supervision of teams and volunteers under the youth worker. Mediating and advising on conflict resolution and making suggestions to both the youth worker and wider board regarding ongoing difficulties.

Admin: Anything that is foundational to the youth worker’s work, be it HR, policies, contracts, timesheets, rotas etc. Making sure that the machine is being well oiled by the right people.

These five areas should be noted and checked up on at least once every six weeks – and minuted properly. This means minutes will include a ‘matters arising’ section to check up on ongoing items. Annual supervision meetings with Pastors/boards etc. then have some written record to go off. Minutes should be circulated only to those who need them – usually Pastor/Chair-person, Line Manager and Youth Worker.

You can also include ‘correspondence’ in your meetings. This gives the youth worker a chance to talk about extraneous, troubling or potential communications that have an impact on their work – and the line manager a chance to bring to the youthw orker’s attention conversations with other leaders about work performance or project feedback – obviously filtering out the knuckle head and spiteful stuff.

Try to keep meetings to an hour, in a reasonably comfortable and private place!

Have fun

3 Reasons Why I’m Learning Welsh as a Youthworker

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S’mae. Bore Da. Tim Dw i. Dw i dysgy Cymraeg. Dw i ofnadwy!
Y’alright? Good morning. I’m Tim. I’m learning Welsh. I’m pants!

Why am I learning Welsh? Here’s three reasons:

There are schools and areas that are first language Welsh.

Although most, if not all Welsh speakers will also speak English, this will not be the natural, native first language. It can be more difficult to find a word in English than Welsh. Some of these schools will not let you in unless you are at least reasonably bilingual. You are after all in a different country.

Welsh is the heart language of Wales.

People by nature respond better when you communicate to them in the language that is near, dear and natural to their heart. This is making a cultural effort that is always responded to well.

It gives me an immediate common learning experience with every young person in Wales.

Bar very few, every young person in Wales is learning Welsh. This means I have an immediate point of connection, of humour, of learning and of conversation. Sometimes I will start a conversation with the young person in Welsh when I meet them for the first time because you can almost guarantee you will be laughing with each other within a minute. This also means I come from an area of less knowledge and they are able to teach me. It’s humble and it’s fun.

If you’re interested in learning Welsh there are many great courses. I’m taking Bangor Universitie’s Cwrs Wlpan which is always very highly rated and recommended.