Approaching The Dating Topic With Some Help From Plato
Approaching the topic of dating in the Youth Group can be a snake pit of misconstrued ideals, worldly concepts and our own sporadic histories. We need to fundamentally challenge the build up on nonsense that’s sewn into the fabric of Western Society before we can get anywhere. Our modern, 21st-century view of dating can be […]
Epistemology of Youth Work
Epistemology, technically speaking, covers one third of all philosophical enquiry, and it is the branch most concerned with faith. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is always asking questions like, how do you know that, how do you know anything, what is knowledge, what signifies knowledge as fact as opposed to an opinion? How to […]
So … You want to set up a youth cafe? – On Premier Youth and Children’s Work
Great to have another post on Premier Youth Work blog this week. This time I was talking about the immensely popular ‘Youth Cafe’ project, how to make it work, and why you might not want one. Check it out here.
Facing Your Fears as a Youth Leader
Guest Post By Chloe Perrin. Volunteer Youth Worker, Musical Theatre Tutor and Youth Charity Trustee. About three years ago, I was sat in an office telling my Supervisor that I’d love to do a gap year with the local Youth For Christ centre, provided that I only had to do background stuff like admin. […]
Youth Event Generator!
Tired of feeling creative? Need a break from the constantly spinning world of social creation? Fear Not! The Ultimate Time-Saving Youth Event Generator has you covered!
Youth Work USP
What is your Youth Work USP? What do you bring to the table that other young people’s activities don’t? Often completely alien to the compassion and chaos of the youth work world is the cold and competitive rigours of business. The latter is where USP – that’s unique service provision or unique selling point – […]
Evaluating Ministry – Post On Lead Anyone.com
A wee while back, I was approached to write a couple of articles of Leadanyone.com by it’s founder Joel Preston. The whole site is full of quality articles and I would heartily recommend it to you. The first of my articles went up online, and you can read it here. It’s a simple set of […]
Don’t forget to let the Baby Jesus out of His Cage at New Year
“Ooh! I better go take down the manger scene. If baby Jesus got loose, he could really do some damage.” [Ned Flanders]. The Beginnings Of Jesus Have you ever stopped to consider the amount of damage that Jesus can do? At Christmas we talk about his humble beginnings; coming in a feeding trough rather than […]
Changing Youth Work Jobs – Bx Belshaw
Guest post by Bx Belshaw. Full time, experienced Church-based Youth and Families worker. A great story of change, challenge and and courage as she moved from her first full time ministry position into a new job. Christmas season in a new church – and for me a new church denomination – is always a […]
A Youthworker and a Bible Walk Into A Bar
Culture and the Bible. These are the two indisputable pillars of effective youthwork. If you don’t get the former you can’t communicate the latter, if you can’t apply the latter you will make no difference to the former. “There are two fundamental necessities in Christian Communication. One is that we take the world we live […]
How To Be The Ideal Youth Worker
What makes an ideal youth worker ideal? What ingredients do you need to add to the mix? What specific traits and skills should we be developing to fill holes in our youth worker template? This was a brilliant question posed to me in a training session this morning. I’m going to attempt to summarise my […]
Youth Bible Study Techniques
There are Bible studies and there are ‘Bible studies’, the former are awesome – and the latter, perhaps not so much. It looks to me pursuing the shelves of my local Christian bookstores, that the vast majority of youth Bible study resources on the market today are the prefabricated and pre-answered formulaic type. You don’t necessarily study any Bible! Instead […]
My Youth Work Survival Kit!
Ever had to do a last minute session on the fly? Me too – and it can be a real knock to your youth work ego and savvy when you’re fumbling around trying to make a point from a can of tinned carrots and run a game using your own rolled up sock! Therefore I keep in my […]
A Cantankerous Old Man’s Guide To Youth Work
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 […]
Freedom To Fail in Youth Work – Ryan Rudolph
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 […]