The highs and lows of youth work

I've just got back from my last "proper" session with my teens. There was only three of them, but it was nice. However, there is a story I have to tell because it sums up youth work (at least my experience of it) perfectly.

At the end, my volunteer leader, Marie (who is marvellous) suggested that the teens should pray for me. So they all prayed, thanking God for using me and for the impact I've had in their life. It was very difficult not to cry. I then prayed, thanking God for the blessings the teens had been to me. It was a beautiful moment; which was quickly ended when one of the teens, only seconds after I had uttered "Amen", said, "When Marie was praying, I coughed and I wet myself a bit."

Now that's a yarn and a half.

The end is nigh

As I wrote a while back, I have been offered a place to do a PGCE in September. This means that I will be stepping down as youth worker at my church. I will still be very much involved in Exilio and Mosaic, but due to the intensity of the course I won't be able to commit to working with the teens. My last youth group will be on 20th July. I'll probably cry.

I'm going to write a post about my three years as youth worker, but if you have any questions for me please write them below. This could be about what I've done, what I've enjoyed or the next steps.

Also, another thing is, do I change the name of my blog and the url? If I'm no longer a youth worker do I need to rebrand, or hang up my blogging hat?

Exilio Explained

Some things you need to know about my church. It's a bit unusual. First, its name is unusual. Exilio. It's Latin, or Spanish, or Portuguese for that matter, for Exile.

Another way we're unusual is the way we meet. Most churches meet once (or twice) a Sunday and that is their main meeting. Everyone gets together for that one-and-a-half hour slot and then there are extra things within the week you can plug into. Exilio, however, does not meet all together once a week. Instead, we meet in small groups we call clans. There are six clans, and they're all define by a particular trait, value or purpose.

Our clans (in alphabetical order, not to reveal favouritism) are:

Living Lordswood
This is our geographically focused clan. They live in Lordswood, an area in Southampton. They're also united by a love of nature and they are heavily involved in cleaning up the area.

Mosaic
Mosaic is an ageist clan. It is for the 18-30s (although the age keeps creeping up as James gets older). We meet weekly on a Wednesday and Sunday. Our Sundays vary from car washing, BBQs or just hanging out at Trago Lounge. We also go to the Trago Lounge pub quiz every fortnight (where we have varying success). We're exploring what it means to be a missional community (what does it mean? I would quite like to know) and how we should fulfil John 13:34-35 in our lives:

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

Revitalise
This clan is exploring how God brings wholeness, in spiritual and physical wellbeing. They hold pamper evenings, go on walks and provide support for those who are struggling. They often hold events for the Polish group that one of the group teaches.

Solace
Solace provides a place of belonging to those who need support and time to rebuild their lives. This might be through relationship breakdown, health, poverty, or just about anything. They often have breakfast together on a Sunday, and are involved with other charities such as the Depression Alliance and SCRATCH.

Treehouse
This is the group for families with children under 10. They meet weekly to explore the Bible together but also spend time building up the family both spiritually and practically.

x:cell
The teens! As led by the youthwork (a.k.a. me). You'll read a bit more about what we do through the whole blog, so I won't write too much here.

So they're the six clans. We all meet together about once a month, in what we call "The Gathering of the Clans". This often involves food (gingerbread men one time, cupcakes another), songs and a little bit of craziness.

Quick Questions

1. What is strange about your church?
2. What is the weirdest church experience you've had?

Resource Wednesday

Recently I've been posting quite a few videos and they're all coming from one particular site.

It's the Verge Network site. It has really good resources on being a missional community, giving us the why, how and who of proclaiming God's glory on Earth.

There's some really challenging posts, especially in my role as a youth worker. How can I remind the teens that they're meant to be trying to give people the opportunity to know about Jesus? How do I try and x:cell from being a holy huddle? How does Exilio disciple the teens to be counter-cultural but whilst also engaging with those around them?

This site may not provide all the answers, but does definitely prod and poke and encourage reflection and prayer.

The RSS feed of the site appears in my "Elsewhere on the web" side bar (when it hasn't been updated recently, click the "show all"). So if you want to know the latest, then click there.

Quick Questions

1. What resources do you use?
2. What type of resources would you like me to hunt out for you?

An atypical week in the life of a youth-worker

One thing about my church, my job and my life in general is that I don't really get typical weeks. There are elements that stay constant but the bits around the edges seem to change all the time. This used to be a source of stress as I can be a bit of a control freak but now I really like it.

As my weeks are less than typical it's hard where to start with these things. I've had some quite busy weekends so I'll probably end and finish on those.

Saturday 2nd July
I got the keys to my new house the evening before and aimed to move some stuff in during the morning, but I got up late, had an argument with my brother and was generally too tired to do it. I made up with my brother; we argue every now and again but the hurt feelings never last more than an hour. So, instead I got ready for the wedding of Erica and Andy, two people in my church. I didn't have lunch, because I was really nauseous with nerves. I was playing the piano for the service and it was the first (and hopefully last) wedding I've ever played at. It was probably my stress that had a major contributing factor to the argument in the morning.

I arrived at the wedding, played (some people said I played well, I was a bit too dazed to really notice), and went to the reception. I ceilidhed the night away. Well, actually I left at about 10.30, because I'm a light-weight. The wedding and reception was really nice. It was good to be involved in the process (not only did I play but Andy had me, half of Mosaic, the bridesmaids and most his family slaving away over the favours, Orders of Services, and name place cards).

Sunday 3rd
I got to our church's monthly gathering, about 10 minutes late. I sat there bleary-eyed and a feeling like I had a hang-over (I only had a flute of champagne and a glass of white wine during the meal. Honest). I think I got myself a bit worked up about the playing and the effects of the stress had finally hit me. Mind you, some people (mention no names) didn't even get up until the gathering was over.

I moved most my stuff to my house, gate-crashed the Bumroses for a bit, played with giant chalk crayons and then slept my first night at my new abode. I did skive off a clan-leaders meeting.

Monday 4th
It was Duncan's birthday so went over his house for pizza. I bought him The Action Bible: God's Redemptive Story. (Just to clarify, it was his 24th birthday, not his 14th. He happens to like comic books, okay? It says nothing about his reading/mental age. It's far lower than 14.)

After pizza we went to the Trago Pub quiz. There was quite a few of us so we split in to two teams. One of the teams came second. It wasn't my team, unfortunately.

Tuesday 5th
This is a "church" day. I only work part-time and Tuesdays are my office day. This Tuesday I was meeting with Pete, my boss, and Suzy, Chair of Trustees. The meeting started late and went on for quite a while, so I didn't leave until about quarter to six, nearly two hours after I normally leave.

Wednesday 6th
Mosaic night. Probably my favourite evening of any week. We were thin on the ground, Andy and Erica were honeymooning and Duncan was "ill". We're nearly coming to the end of a series looking at the book of Acts. It's been quite good. I prefered the weeks where we were asked to respond to them in a practical way, like go for a prayer-walk. Lately they've been mostly reflective and it seems too similar to what I normally do.

Thursday 7th
My "day off". It was mostly restful but I did have to bail two of my teenagers out of a soul-survivor situation they've got themselves into.

I was meant to be meeting with Duncan for accountability stuff (the technical term) but he was "tired" after being ill for the last two days. Bless him.

Friday 8th
This is my long day. I go to my sixth-form job from 8:30-4:30 (well, there abouts) and then go to church job from 5:30-10:00. A long day. It went okay. I've been doing content light session recently, mainly because the attendance hasn't been great. I think it's mainly because the sun is out, it's music festival season and parents tend to take weekend breaks about now. So we're doing bring and share sessions, where the teens have to bring and share thing to read, watch, discuss or pray about. I did kick this one off, to give them an idea of what to do. I shared a clip from Sister Act, Psalm 139:1-18, and this job vacancy of a disciple. There was also a bit of Q and A opportunity, where they got to ask about my journey with Jesus.

Saturday 9th
I moved the rest of my stuff into my house. Then I helped the Bemrose's set up Immy's 2nd birthday party. There were fifteen small people. FIFTEEN. I was exhausted by it. Steph made an amazing Pepper Pig cake. A lot of additives and sugar was consumed. There were the obligatory tears. They were mostly mine. I went home and slept for a couple of hours. Then went to my parents (I was staying the night there as I was off to Devon the next day) and went straight to bed. I slept straight through until morning. I don't know how parents do it.

Quick Questions

1. Do you have quite structured weeks? Or is it all free and easy?
2. What would you bring to a bring and share?
3. Do you feel sorry for Duncan? I give him a bit of a hard time, don't I?

GO!

Today was the start of a new series in x:cell. Over the next few weeks we're going to be looking at Matthew 28:19-20.

Before we started I asked the group what the purpose of x:cell was. I was trying to them to understand that just being a holy huddle was just like use being a ship in a harbour. It's safe but it isn't the point.

A ship in a harbour is safe, but this is not what ships are built for.

(John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic)

When then looked at the idea of "Go". We have to leave the harbour and fulfil our purpose. We often have this idea that the going is just for missionaries. They leave the comfort of the walls of the church and do bold, exciting things for the sake of the Gospel. Whereas, we normal types just do boring things confines to the walls of our church building. However, we are also called places. This may just be our street, or our school or our place of work. But we're called to bring God's glory to where we are.

Then I handed out some stickers, to remind them that we are called to bring God's glory to the world.

1. Have you ever been or wanted to be a missionary?
2. Where are you called?
3. Do you find the idea of being a missionary wherever you are exciting, scary or just daft?

Youth group or Missional Community?

Today I have decided that I no longer run a youth group called x:cell. I'm there to equip a missional community made of teenagers (incidentally, called x:cell).

A youth group is often just a small group of people at secondary school and, too me, "small group" is just a euphemism for "holy huddle". Small groups are apparently there to develop people, but develop to what? Do the small groups change, grow, get out there and fulfil the Great Commission? Generally, no, they do not.

So what is different about a missional community? I'll let Jeff Vanderstelt and Caesar Kalinowski explain.

I do not want x:cell to be a holy huddle. I do not want them to be inward looking and ineffectual. I want them to be bold. I want them to proclaim God's glory where ever they go. I want the good news of the Gospel to be on their hearts and on their lips. I want them to be a missional community.

Quick Questions

1. Are you fed up of holy huddles?
2. Do you think the church has become ineffectual?