Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

Blogging therapy

Posted on by
4

I have to admit I am struggling. I have been ill now for a couple weeks, there isn’t that much wrong in the big scheme of things, bronchitis knocked me out first week and I have a weird cough and sickness that I haven’t been able to shift and I am frankly knackered and frustrated. I have tests that I am awaiting results for and high blood pressure but it isn’t anything major.

Work wise things could not have been going much better, yes I am ridiculously busy as always, but we have taken great steps forward locally and nationally. The doctor says rest, and stress but I am not the resting type and being away from work thinking about all the stuff I need to do, could do and want to do it pretty stressful. Relaxing is not a strongpoint, but I after two weeks illness then returning to work for a week, I have been signed off for a week, to recover, so trying to behave, and rest.

I love the practice of silence, prayer, listening, but ultimately this begins to spark ideas, and heads me towards work mode particularly after a couple of weeks. My usual way to relax is a walk, beech or kite flying, but I can’t do this stuff so am feeling a little sorry for myself and pretty pathetic. My mind has gone into overdrive, and the things I like, such as blogs, reading generally get me thinking mission, so I thought of a blog post in a bid to try and park this stuff, the anxiety, patheticness, restlessness, work thoughts.

I seem to go around in circles and the activist in me will not switch off so I start to reevaluate stuff, and I find myself thinking again about different options, most recently selling everything and checking out RVs on eBay yes I know this is not conducive to relaxing. It is not like I don’t reevaluate my life as I go, and the illness is giving me time to take stock, most the things floating around is stuff I have complimented before, but it is like on hyperdrive.

So here is my bid to park my brain for little while, a moaning blogpost, that is selfish, western, and individualistic in a world where I know there are people with issues far greater than mine.

I doubt it ….

Posted on by
Reply

I recall how at 18 still at college I worked nights in a printers, doing a social care course meant there was hospital bed in the tutor room to practice lifts etc. one week I had completed 2 nights and at 10am we sat down in class to watch a video I moved to the bed for a better view. My tutor woke me just before 4pm, they knew my situation and simply left me asleep, whilst extreme it was acts of kindness and compassion that got me through. The course cut me a lot of slack, gave me opportunities, and simply tried to understand. It is this lack of trying to understand, lack of compassion and basic humanity that gets to me about the current government and proposals

yesterday I asked Could the 16 year old me survive today….fleeing home today would I get support…. are there any local youth workers left I could run to…. with the erosion of EMA could I attend college… the option of working nights in the printers is gone as has so much of the manufacturing industry, the chance of another job to support myself with over a million other unemployed youth would be slim… would I even entertain the idea of Uni and all that debt in such bleak surroundings as a caravan… I doubt it…. If I did get as far a uni why would I need to return to my home area to give back what I wouldn’t have received in the first place….. and so how will cuts, stigmatisation of young people play out in the long run….

Could the 16 year old me survive today?

Posted on by

I wept this morning. I cried for young people who have been have been vicitimised, marginalised and oppressed by the governments response to the recession of cutting services, I cried with the young people who will continue to be the ones who suffer most as we enter economic recovery which the government wants to promote with further cuts. The latest government proposals on young people, demonstrate a society that has lost its way, a society of selfishness, greed and power.

I wept this morning as friends responded to my post on facebook about my own situation as a NEET (not in employment, education or training) 16 year old. I left home, not willingly, not out of choice but out of necessity after my father who had been sober for 5 years started to drink again. My sister helped, the state helped, I was not stigmatized, I had time to get my head together, I had time to start to find out who I really was, out of the shadow of my father, I survived, I flourished. As I write the tears start again for the young people I met this week on the streets who do not have the same opportunity I had, I see them in my minds eye and I am simply distraught at what the future holds if current government plans continue.

Out of the shadows of my childhood, I began to explore my vocation, and pathway into youthwork. Unsurprisingly I left school with no O’levels but at 17 I was accepted to do a further education City and Guilds course in Leisure and Recreation. A course I started late because it took a while to see if I could get a grant and benefit to live and study. I moved onto to do Social Care and an A level, with a student grant and working nights in a printers and the fabulous support of my sisters family who let me live in the caravan in the garden, I began to mature and come to terms with who I was. At 19 I thought I was ready, but quickly realized I needed to go to Uni if I was going to do the youth work stuff properly, and that meant I needed more grant support. At that time automatic vocational grants (the first to go) had been cut and I remember sitting around an appeals table in County Hall in Exeter explaining my case to a panel of 15 adults, and making a simple promise to come back to the county for at least a year once graduated to help other young people.

Two years later, JNC youthwork qualification in hand, I returned to my sisters garden to live in her shed (the caravan was rusted away) and make good the promise I made in County Hall. At 21 I established my first detached youth work project in Devon, I worked part time and received housing benefit that helped make ends meet. I remember the young people I worked with 23 years ago, I remember them coming to the shed (my house) to plan how to establish a youth centre for the area, I recall the youth centre that was built on the basis of these proposals, and I still hear occasional stories from my sister about the work in the town. For those of you who know me, you will be familiar with the rest of my story, my long history with Frontier Youth Trust. My first paid post working and living on a difficult estate in the Midlands as part of YFC,(which incidentally encouraged my dad to shake my hand before I left Devon as he thought I had a proper job!) It was on this estate where I met real need first hand in my neighbors and began to learn what it means to be real community from them. Leaving to work for Worth Unlimited, with a job brief to make it work or close it down, but who now do an amazing job under a great CEO in Tim Evans in so many difficult areas across the country. Then more recently into StreetSpace who now meet over 8000 young people a month on the edge a month. I recall these stories, not to say look at me but to simply ask would the 16 year old me survive today. Asking this simple question causes the tears to return again as I know the answer would be no. Tears of gratefulness to my sister’s family and to the state without who I would not have survived. So the tears of thanks turn to a weeping that flows freely for the 1000s of young people I still hear about as youth worker, who share elements of my story, or far worse circumstances, growing up in a society that has lost its way…

What are you going to do today?

Posted on by
Reply

When Ferris Bueller picks up Sloane for a day bunking off school she asks:

Sloane: What are we going to do?

Ferris: The question isn’t “what are we going to do,” the question is “what aren’t we going to do?”

Cameron: Please don’t say were not going to take the car home. Please don’t say were not going to take the car home. Please don’t say were not going to take the car home.

Ferris: [to the camera] If you had access to a car like this, would you take it back right away?

[beat]

Ferris: Neither would I.

We have more than a car – what are you going to today?

Tell me why you don’t like Sundays?

Posted on by
3

(Apologies to Sir Bob Geldof and the rest of the Boomtown rats). But I want to shoot Sunday mornings down. The issue rose it’s head again yesterday and attending a sunday morning “service” and QandA with a potential minister, reinforced what I had been thinking for a long time. That Sunday gathered worship is one of the main stumbling blocks facing the organised/mainstream churches. We know that one size fits all is a myth, that learning rarely happens in large groups, that worship is more than singing, that church is gathered and scattered, that what happens in small groups, youth groups, house groups, mums groups, toddler groups, etc etc is as much church as anything else. BUT the medium of gathered sunday mornings sends a different message. The person from the front may communicate that church is more than this, the elders may believe it and even have it in their strategy documents, vision statements and business plans, but no matter how hard you try to say it, the sunday morning medium sends a different message. We know that sociologically sunday mornings are difficult for people to gather, that people are more dispersed, visit friends and families on Sundays, more people are in patchwork families so weekends can be a difficult and precious time, that with easy of travel, and different social strata, that practically it is hard for people to gather at this time, and near impossible to facilitate something that could possibly reach such a diverse group even if we could get everyone in the same place at the same time.

We know, but continue to persist in the myth and fool ourselves. So the mainstream churches continue to gather on Sundays at about 10.30 but split off the children, the youth know it so most have voted with their feet, and if they do attend are again split off, BUT because we have believed, the message that the medium of sunday mornings has communicated for the past few hundred years, and we have become indoctrinated into an approach that simply doesn’t work, we keep going.

I am not saying gathering across social strata, across different groups and ages is not important, but do something simple that works, eat breakfast, have a BBQ, have a party. Why sing a particular genre, why have the stuff people don’t get, why try to encourage learning when the majority of evidence suggests that people don’t learn much from an upfront approach, why try to exhort one another from a distance rather than across a table, and why pray generic prayers that are at best pat on the back rather than the reality of the hug that person sitting in the balcony needs.

Do the world a favour and stop. Change the medium so the real message of hope can be heard.

The method of the kingdom will match the message of the kingdom. The kingdom will come as the church, energised by the Spirit, goes out into the world vulnerable, suffering, praising, praying, misunderstood, misjudged, vindicated, celebrating…Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright pg 123

Character and Mode…..

Posted on by
Reply

Taff has moved the conversation on via his post here. He is helpful is distinguishing between the Character (eg incarnational relational, etc) and what I would call the Mode (eg youth work, youth ministry) but he calls approach. He suggests that we can indeed drop the Mode/Approach wording and focus on the Character. There is a lot to be said for this distinction between Mode and Character and certainly it is helpful as often the Character is present in lots of other Modes eg Community work, Childrens work.

I do not disagree that we do need a lot more work on the Character aspect generally across all areas of human liberation, and growing a flourishing community. So the Character is very important, BUT for me (Taff disagrees) the Character and Mode are often two sides the same coin and particularly in the case of Youth work . The way in which you approach the Mode could easily undermine the Character, the method and the message must match. The nature and context of working with young people who are in transition, growing, and changing, makes the connection of the Mode and Character vital.

However Taffs the separation of the concepts has been really helpful and I think I will play more the notions of Unfolding habitas as core to the character and how this ends up I am yet to work out.

From the Street and towards a new term

Posted on by
2

For some time I have thinking we need a new term to describe what a particular set of christian practitioners called Relational Youth Work, and I have in part been exploring this in Still Meeting Them Where Theyre At. The current thread of conversation has reinforced this. Taff’s start point about the term being redundant and Allans comments made me think again about this. Nick desire to return “street theology” also bring us towards this.

Relational youth work began in a context of practitioners largely working with young people on the edge of society, and grew to become a way of engaging more generally with those outside of church as we know it, and perhaps now as Allan suggests it is recognised that it is an anathema to not see youth work as relational. However as the strands have converged, the context has become more post christian, and the language of church is shifting, some of the informing values have evolved and some have been lost.

I spent a lot my early days talking about Incarnational Youth Work, as a metaphor that was beyond both simple contextualisation and moving into a particular area. It encompassed for me something I couldn’t articulate about my wholeness being wrapped up in the shalom of the community, the ongoing journey, the restoring of creation, and the powerlessness I feel much of the time and need to be reminded of if I am going to see the kingdom to continue to emerge. However this term is particularly christian and potentially dualistic which is something I am keen to avoid as it could undervalue places where the kingdom is emerging with young people unintentionally.

Over the past few years, I have been building on ideas around Inculturation, Transitology of Sobornost as all of these have the sense that we ourselves and our emancipation is wrapped up with other. I particularly like the notion of reciprocal approaches to youth work and mission, that together we see something new emerge. So this leaves a conundrum of which term to use, Reciprocal Youth Work, Emerging Youth Work, but probably the term that encompasses most of where I am coming from (but might mean the least to those outside) is Sobornostic Youth Work, where we journey with young people towards wholeness for all of society, creation, ourselves and others, to unfold a new way of living and being. This bring us full circle to Nicks previous post as sobornost is what I learnt from the street.

Nick’s 150 words bring us back to the street

Posted on by
6

I think you are both right and both miss the point!

I agree that when we reduce ‘relational youth work’ to the status of technique we do an injustice to both the philosophical and theological basis of ministry that seeks to occupy this space. The reliance on technique in youth work and ministry is concerning – you name some specific examples. It is concerning because as Taff suggests it implies that we approach ministry with a set of goals that we wish to achieve – and for which we have a series of techniques. In doing this we run the risk of leaving God out of the picture or bless what we want.

As such, relying on philosophy Taff to counter this isn’t enough, nor is it enough to locate our rationale for practice in a set of principles behind an approach to working with young people – however noble.

What we are talking about is a call to engage in what you Richard P once called ‘street theology’. Where is God with, coming to, and taking the young people we connect with. This requires practical wisdom and skill. Theology is an art! I’d like you to tell us what wisdom and skills you think are required…

Nick shepherd Is chief exec of CYM follow him on twitter @theonogrpaher

150 word response from Richard Davies

Posted on by
3

I don’t want to disagree that there are better and worse ways of doing relational youth work, but with the way it is being conceptualised. Youth work or youth ministry are always concerned with the achievement of outcomes (goods) beyond themselves. They are technologies in that they are particular value-laden (ideological) mechanisms for bringing about a range of potential goods for young people. These goods could be church attendance, the development of a particular type of relationship with the worker, a commitment of Christ, etc. The use of the term ‘relational’ with youth work is either redundant (youth work is ideologically relational) or indicates a ‘technique’ a particular way of doing youth work.
I would prefer an articulation in terms of Aristotelian praxis, a concern with a moral pursuit in which the outcomes cannot be spelt out in detail ahead of time and our concern is developing youth people’s ability to pursue the good life (see my DPhil thesis). In this account we do not need the term ‘youth work’ relational or otherwise.

150 words on Relational Youth Work

Posted on by
5

As Lori and I have been working on Still Meeting Them Where They’re At as follow up to my first book, I have been tweeting bits around Relational Youth Work. These have met with a bit of a response and exploration about a few relational youth work issues, that need a few more words than the 140 characters twitter allows. So to follow these conversations up I am going to start a conversation here with the first of a series of roughly a 150 word posts on the theme of Relational Youth Work, followed by Richard Davies (Taff) and Nick Shephard and then we will see how it goes.

“To reduce relational youth work to a tool to get YP into church is to miss the heartbeat of the incarnation”. I’ve become increasingly frustrated as people seem to reduce relational youth work to a tool to get young people into ‘church’, an alternative to Alpha, or the latest programme. This is compounded by the growth for outcomes based youthwork in local authorities. Both approaches can too easily undermine the intrinsic value of people, the orientation of the work becomes predicted rather than stemming from the relationship, devaluing both. Valuing humanity naturally leads to a relational approach, which was demonstrated so well by the incarnation, which in turn enables a youth work approach rooted in, emancipatory education, a discovery of equality, joint participation, and empowering of the other towards humanity, that when practiced with integrity takes us beyond the old dichotomies of kingdom and church, youth work and youth ministry etc.