When is ‘asking for prayer’ the same as ‘prayer’?

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One of the most fundamental things we can do with our young people is to help them develop a prayer language. And, as with any language, learning to listen for where that language is already developing on its own is essential for this to work.

My first word, so I’m told by my parents, was ‘no!’ Go figure. My brother’s first word was ‘brew!’ And if I know him, it was probably his last word too. These first words, however, were not necessarily our first pieces of language. To find our first language, we have to listen for something without a frame off reference. I might have pointed to a dog and made some kind of grunt for instance – which I then repeated with the same consistent tone and inflection every time I saw a dog. That would be recognisable language, even if not connected directly with the conventional word for ‘dog’.

Listening for where young people are starting to communicate with God is incredibly important. If instead we just wait for them to pray out loud in a narrow, conventional way then we might miss the early roots of their relationships with God. Recognisable form is rarely the first step in language.

Often, one of the first signs we see of prayer language is when a young person asks for prayer from others.

By asking for prayer, they are making an implicit admission that prayer is really a thing; that there is some value in having a person who knows God to speak to Him on their behalf; that God is available to hear and might even listen to their requests; and that God is powerful enough to potentially change or grow something in their life. Even if this comes from a place of opportunistic wishful thinking from a young person, it still includes whispers of these ingredients.

Then there is the distinct possibility that they are even praying themselves too or will do so now that they have verbalised a need for it. Asking for anything opens up vulnerability centres and has an implicit sense of humility too.

All of these elements are significant to a developing prayer language.

So, when a young person asks you to pray for them – great. Make sure that you do! But also hear that as an important step in their faith development and begin to look for natural ways to help them grow that into a more verbal relationship with God.

A young person who prays is a young person who grows – and we need more growing young people in our youth work!

All the best.

 

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

 

No, it’s not ok to use a dead animal for your games.

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Yep, you read that right, and no, I can’t believe I had to say it either. However, early last week a post surfaced on a very popular youth ministry Facebook group called ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Octopus’.

Accompanying the post was a picture of a teenage boy holding up a large – and clearly dead – octopus.

Part of me wanted to laugh, but it was a very small part of me. It’s like a joke that sounds funny when you first hear it, but then you start to really think about it and realise that it is not funny at all.

At the time of writing, the post has received over 250 likes, and around 120 comments – including from group moderators – who were on the whole very positive. One user said they played ‘squidbee’ – ultimate frisbee with a dead squid. Another said they played games with a severed cow tongue, and then – unbelievably – one other said they play sports with ‘a dead baby shark.’

Over 250 likes! Someone tell me I’m not crazy?!?

I think this is absolutely not ok. I’m a youth worker in the UK, and I’m pretty sure that this kind of use of a dead animal would be boarder-line illegal here. If I played a game like this with young people, it would be newsworthy, and probably cost the reputation of my youth work charity, and likely my job.

There are several red flags for me:

Some young people would be traumatised by the reducing of an intelligent animal for entertainment. Would we do this, for instance, with a dead cat? Why not? What’s the difference? Octopuses are immensely intelligent, emotive, and personable creatures after all.

Veganism and vegetarianism are growing at a huge rate among teenagers too – with over 25% of 18-year-olds recently reporting they won’t touch meat. So, there’s a quarter of young people that we’ve just written off for a cheap laugh.

Then there are very real health concerns with bacteria and sanitation, which – considering the fears around the pandemic – is a responsible thing to think about right now.

But above all my issue is about stewardship, as such use of animals comes with the implicit suggestion that God’s creatures are in place purely for our entertainment and domination. This sort of ‘game’ actually sends a powerful theological message to young people about a whole range of care for creation and dignity issues.

There were, in the original post’s thread, some dissenting voices asking for the reasoning behind these games. They were rebuffed pretty hard for a range of odd reasons like ‘it’s not cruelty if the animal is already dead.’ The “biblical defences”, however, were clutching at straws at best. One person said this:

“One scriptural support for this approach is the methodology Jesus used to connect with His audience: he spoke of fishing to fishermen, farming to farmers, and money to those interested in taxes. He made an effort to relate to them.

Paul said, “I become all things to all men that I might by all means save some”.

It just so happens that our target audience is teens or young adults. This means relating to them through fun, social activities.”

Moving past the bonkers assumption that ‘dead octopuses’ are to ‘teenagers’ as ‘farming’ is to ‘farmers’ this is absolutely not what Paul meant in 1 Cor. 9. In the very next chapter Paul unpacked exactly what this looks like, and it was largely about being full of grace, patience and communicating clearly. It’s not about indiscriminately immersing yourself in another’s culture or becoming just like a teenager to reach teenagers – and it’s certainly not suggesting you shouldn’t have boundaries when doing so. I mean, think about it, does this mean you should become a murderer to reach murderers? So where does using dead animals for entertainment come in?

Yes, I’m all about using fun, social activities, but there’s nothing in the Bible that would make me think I need to be unscrupulous in those activities. There’s plenty of fun, creative options without pulling out a dead animal.

I’m very concerned about the original post – and the amount of support it received. I think this demonstrates a cruel, abusive, and misguided approach to youth ministry as ‘entertainment at all costs’. It might make some fun memories for the kids that come, but because there’s no end to youth work creativity, doing something that is so over the line is totally unnecessary.

This, to me, represents a mob-mentality of youth ministry. You might pull a hundred kids into a room with edgy, borderline-sociopathic, games like this. However, I’ve worked with young people for a long time, and I’m guessing for every young person that gets a kick out of this, they’ll be half-a-dozen who are disgusted, hurt, or just confused – and they won’t come back. At that point, the numbers just don’t matter, because you’re actively pushing more away than pulling in, and are excluding a huge variety of young people in doing so.

I always wonder if people who pursue mob-mentality attractional youth work have ever spoken to any ‘ex-youth-group-kids’ – those who left, never came back, and grew up – and asked them what it was about youth ministry that pushed them away? It’s rarely ever the gospel – and it’s nearly always the hyped-up, inauthentic, dishonest, and frenzied traits of our projects.

Let’s do better.

 

Photo by Janayara Machado on Unsplash

Should we encourage Welsh young people to support England in the final of Euro 2020?

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I grew up in Blackpool, just three hundred yards from the local pub, and every time that England was playing in a tournament, we could hear the roar of the crowd from our living room. I remember if England scored, we would mute the volume of the TV and listen to the whole pub screaming in delight.

That was normal to me. England flags were everywhere, shops played the games over the radio, and lessons finished early so we could catch the kick-off. This carried on when I moved to London – we even ran huge World Cup viewing parties in our church. There is a level of mania about it, a fanaticism that’s all too easy to surrender to.

When I moved to Wales, I was delighted to find more football fans than I expected. Even though Rugby is really where it’s at here, there is real deep-seated passion for the national team. Ramsey, Allen, Bale truly are heroes, and the Welsh fans are great! They love their team, their country, their anthem – and you get a strong feeling of pride, no matter how far the team goes. There’s something that feels really pure about their support. I would have loved to see Wales go further!

This is a different shape and style of support than I’m used to in England though. In England it’s all peaks and troughs; emotional extremes of highs and lows. If England win then they’re the greatest team on Earth and nothing can stop them from bringing it home! If they lose, however, then they’re gutless, disjointed, and destined to keep breaking hearts, dashing dreams, and drawing out endless failure.

I used to think it was odd, and frankly spiteful, when Wales fans always seems to support whoever England was playing rather than their neighbour to the East. I’m far from an expert, but I want to speak to this a little today with a few thoughts.

Looking a little closer

Politically, Wales get little help or financial support from Westminster, and the Welsh Assembly have far less devolved powers than the Scottish Parliament. There is often a misguided sense that Wales just another limb of England, despite its very different cultural values, heritage, and national needs.

Then of course there’s a problem with short memories. Wales have endured a long history of invasion, violence, and conquest from the English. Even in the last century, a Welsh Village near Bala was completely flooded by act of Parliament to provide water for parts of Liverpool.

English people today don’t always endear themselves to Wales either. There is very dismissive rhetoric about the Welsh language for instance – something of fundamental cultural and historic significance to a Welsh person. People still use the phrase ‘Welshing’ on an agreement, which comes from intentional propaganda to make the Welsh appear less trustworthy.

I’ve also heard, from many people, the old story of going into a Welsh pub where ‘everyone was speaking English, until I came in.’ This is a weird myth for a lot of reasons. I’ve travelled extensively across Wales for over a decade and have never experienced this. Welsh speaking areas do speak Welsh – in pubs, shops and on the streets. Welsh is not only a heart-language for these cultures, put is the language that they know the best. Did you know this is true for about twenty percent of the population? One in five people is not a small number and is way more than other groups that we rightly fight for in terms of inclusivity.

Some of the English media has also been well known to be – frankly – downright racist towards the Welsh. Sunday Times journalist Adrian Gill called the Welsh ‘immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls’ and Spectator editor Rod Liddle said those in Wales are ‘miserable, seaweed munching, sheep-bothering pinch-faced hill-tribes.’ I won’t even quote Clarkson.

Closer to home I’ve noticed just how side-lined Welsh young people feel when people on stage at conferences and festivals ask where people have come from, going through a list that invariably includes Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, but rarely Wales. It’s a sense that they’ve grown up with.

Welsh people are not entirely innocent, of course. A Welsh militant group set three-hundred English-owned homes alight from the seventies to the nineties for instance. But it’s not hard to see why Welsh nationalism has grown so intensely and why this would come out in sporting rivalries.

So, back to football.

When it comes to football, English and Welsh fans are just a little different. It can be very hard to identify with another nation’s passion, when the way that passion presents itself is just a different cultural phenomenon. This is going to be even harder when you feel that other nation has persecuted yours for centuries.

I, on the whole, would like Welsh football fans to cheer on their neighbour, England. I will be, and I know of many others who will. That said, I understand why they might not. It’s not just spite or racism. It’s rarely that simple. There is deep seated distrust and heartfelt uneasiness in Wales towards England that goes back into the roots of the two nations. This isn’t going to fixed by Sunday.

So, my instinct says that it’s not about who you support, but about how you hold yourself as a supporter. It’s not about who you support, but about how you show it.

I believe a true supporter should reach to hold a team up upon the best of humanity. They should behave with dignity, grace, and compassion – the essence of good sportsmanship. As politically fuelled as football can be, I’d urge supporters of any team to provide a fan-base for a country to be proud of.

With our young people, let’s set an example. Let’s lead with love, grace and do our best to be understanding of the complicated relational past between nations. Let’s show our support in a way that models what a true, passionate sports fan can look like.

Again, it’s not about who you support, but about how you show it. Let’s not criticise who a supporter supports, but urge them to do so with dignity, compassion, and fairness – and make sure we’re showing that ourselves.

As with all things, let’s seek the best of others, reach far and deep to be servant-hearted, and demonstrate as much extreme love for our neighbours as we can muster. All of us.

 

Photo by Thomas Serer on Unsplash

Youth workers are not supposed to know everything about youth

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I once had to free a pigeon from my window wiper on the streets of London.

I’m not sure what made the feathered fiend attempt to land on the rear window of an aging Seat Ibiza in the first place, but the only spot it could find to balance on was the rear wiper blade.

Graciously then, I turned the wiper on, not knowing that this pigeon had managed to get its clawed toes stuck in the wiper itself. The result was a squawking, flapping bird, swinging desperately from side-to-side, being dragged along by the wiper.

There have been many times in youth work where I have felt just like that desperate bird, being dragged to-and-fro, flapping widely, just trying to keep up, and waiting for somebody to save me.

Youth work, like anything else, comes with the pesky Dunning-Kruger thing: you don’t know what you don’t know. The more I learn and experience, the more I realise just how much I haven’t learned or experienced. Not only do I not know everything, but I’m coming to understand that I’ll never know everything!

However, this is not always clear – to us, or to those we work with.

We often feel like (or made to feel like) we are supposed to know everything about young people, youth culture, and youth work – not to mention child psychology, cognitive development, event management, project growth, mediation, conflict resolution, social media, logo design, safeguarding, budgets, how-to-run-a-game-for-300-kids-with-nothing-but-a-shoelace! … etc.

Is this possible, and – even if it is – Is it healthy?

A missing convention

In most care-related careers there is a professional assumption that the person in post will not be an expert across their entire field. A doctor, for instance, will train for years but will never have a full encyclopaedic knowledge of, or practice experience with, the entire human body or psyche.

Reaching out for help in these instances is seen as professional practice. This is an expectation not a concession. In fact, if a doctor does not refer to a specialist, or reach out to a consultant, then they are creating a risk that the patient might not receive the best possible care.

Doctors call specialists, assign treatments, recommend support groups, draw in pharmacists, nurses, and healthcare groups. There is an expectation that patient care be shared among a team – not dominated by a single individual.

In youth work, however, the worker is often the lone-ranger, superhero, jack-of-all-trades. There can be external expectations from churches that the youth worker will necessarily know all about young people and do all the youth work. Then there are internal expectations from the youth worker that says, ‘I’m supposed to know all and do all.’

Not only is this unhealthy for the church and a recipe for burnout for the youth worker, but it is likely to be denying the young people themselves the best possible support and care.

Youth work (like a lot of ministry) is missing an expectation or convention that is found in many other places. We’re not meant to know all and do all; we’re meant to facilitate a team to help young people have the best possible chance to grow as a healthy follower of Jesus.

It’s not only bad practice to keep everything to ourselves, but in terms of ‘seeking the best’ for young people, it’s actually quite selfish.

The power of specialisation

Thinking back to doctors, they of course specialise. There are psychologists, anaesthetists, paediatricians, cardiologists, etc. and by working together they are able to offer deep expertise in specific areas for particular patients.

What about us? Youth workers simply cannot understand everything needed to bring all young people the best discipleship journeys by themselves, so what can we do instead?

First, know the special areas of interest and personalities in your church and network. This allows you to connect young people up with others in a healthy and specific ways. Facilitate the wider body to bear upon the walks of young people.

Second, utilize resources that you don’t do well. Not every church needs a youth club, especially if there’s a good one around the corner that you can plug into. Not every youth worker needs to run a camp, or write all the resources for every meeting, or develop their own mission trips, or do all the school’s work. Develop links with other youth workers locally and resource groups nationally and design a project calendar using those partnerships. We need to be less clingy, less grabby, and frankly less tribal in our approaches.

Third, be a specialist. What is it that you’re good at or are well resourced to do? Dig deeper into that. Not every youth worker needs to reach every young person, so look for local, untapped needs, and match them with what you could resource, and specialise in those areas.

Forth, say ‘I don’t know how’ more often. Help the culture around you understand that you’re not a one-stop fix to all things youth work. This has the knock-on effect of helping us recalibrate where to spend our time, how to focus, and where to seek training.

Keep a balance

This idea of specialisation is not a ready-made excuse to neglect needed ministry that we’re not skilled at (or enjoy), and it’s not a reason to bypass training.

We should always work with those that God has laid before us, even if that takes us out of our comfort zones. We need to keep a balance between needs and skills. This is not an easy balance to strike, but when you begin from the place of ‘I don’t know all and can’t do all’ then it becomes a much more honest and pragmatic issue to explore.

You’re not supposed to know everything, and you’re not supposed to do everything. So, what has God called you to do, locally, in your area, with your young people, using the resources available to you? Start there.

 

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash