Merry Christmas: an invitation from Jesus to worship. He’s always worth it!
Merry Christmas everybody! Jesus came, lived, died, rose, ascended and is coming back. He is the light of the world that no level of darkness can extinguish (Jn. 8:12, 9:5). He is the bread of life sustaining our every deepest need (6:35-48). He is the gate for the sheep (10:7), selflessly putting himself before the […]
10 times not to plant a church
Here’s ten times that I’d encourage a would-be church planter to slow down and think twice before stepping out to start a church. I wouldn’t necessarily say these are hard-and-fast rules, but they should at least be reasons to step back, bring in some outside wisdom, and tread with more care before jumping in. Being […]
“I’m not a numbers guy”, yea, but are you?
Have you ever waited by the door at 7.05 silently pleading for cars to arrive? Have you looked around at the empty chairs in the room with that sinking feeling? Have you tried to explain attendance figures away in a colourfully worded report? Have you felt a gnawing press of guilt in the back of […]
Have youth workers become too good at ‘conjuring’ God up?
One of the most essential things that we can do for a young person is help them take responsibility over their own faith. The problem, however, due in no small part to our hero complexes, is we can be more inclined to make our faith their faith. Our job is not to conjure God up […]
What if schools stop teaching RE?
The place of Religious Education in schools has been diminishing for decades now. Which is leaving many Christians (and vocal Christian organisations) with some questions. Where will young people learn about the Christian faith? Is secular humanism winning in our Education system? What will form the basis for our young people’s morality? Will Christianity be […]
How subtle shifts in ‘identity culture’ are changing the shape of our youth work
Let’s start with an exercise, which of the following statements do you associate with, 1) when you were a young person yourself, 2) when you first started youth work, or were taught youth work 3) what you teach today: ‘You can do anything you want to ’ ‘You can be anything you want to ’ […]
Do you understand ‘youth culture’ or ‘young people’?
Those are actually two very different things. Understanding a boat is not the same as understanding the sea. Of course, a response to that is ‘sure, Tim, but the boat doesn’t create the sea, whereas youth culture is a direct product of young people.’ Fair point, but is it though? To what extent is youth […]
What is my PhD about?
Some folk have been asking me about my research recently, and I kinda dread the question. It’s a mixture of complicated to explain and difficult to justify. So, I thought I’d take a few minutes to answer some questions for those who are interested. What’s your research title? ‘An exegetical and socio-historical examination into the […]
One of the most serious yet neglected reasons youth workers quit.
They’re not truly part of the body. This sounds like an odd thing to say, but let me give you a story and you tell me if you think I’m right. In my first youth and childrens’ work position Sunday mornings were immensely busy. I was often the first person to arrive in church and […]
Let’s talk about toxic people…
*Deep breath* ‘Toxic people’ in and of itself, is a toxic phrase. It can too easily lead us to write off huge swaths of needy, afraid, and hurting people by cavalierly labelling them and subsequently downgrading their social status in our minds. That seems a wee bit rude does it not? So, let’s start with […]
My biggest youth work confessions
I never studied youth work. I did two modules in youth ministry at Oak Hill, and one in youth mission at Cliff College. That’s it. I don’t have a degree in youth work, a JNC, or any other youth-related qualifications. Nada. Instead, I trained as a pastor and a church planter. I’ve read widely, but […]
17 little observations and reflections on my first month as a PhD student
I’m just over one month into my part-time New Testament PhD with Manchester University’s Centre for Biblical Studies. Here are some random and still under-digested thoughts from my first month of PhD life. I have no doubt that these experiences and reflections will be different from many others, and with added COVID restrictions, I can’t […]
‘Preach the gospel in and out of season’ might have bigger ramifications for our practices than we realise.
I believe the unfortunate buzzword for the last six decades of youth ministry has been ‘relevancy’, a word that I think we only have a cursory understanding of at best. What we usually mean by relevancy is relating what we do to what young people do. So, by immersing ourselves in the world of young […]
‘When two or three are gathered…’ does not mean what you think it means
Sometimes verses get so caught up in our quirky Christian landscape that we just accept common usage without question. Matthew 18:20 is one such verse. It says, ‘For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’ The way we frequently interpret this is when two of three gather in Jesus […]
Why did we ban energy drinks at our youth clubs?
I came across a Facebook post today asking about energy drinks in youth clubs, particularly Monster, Rockstar and Red Bull. What surprised me was the overwhelming amount of responses saying they gave them out freely as refreshments, or sold them in tuck shops, and didn’t see a problem with doing so. That bugged me a […]