Getting Ready for Commissioning – Young Kent with KIYS

Please note the leaflet for the up and coming ‘Getting ready for commissioning’ training being delivered by Young Kent (formally Kent Youth) in partnership with Kent Integrated Youth Services. If you are interested in being commissioned to deliver youth work in Kent this is for you.

These are the first four dates and the intention is to run further days including weekends. If you are unable to attend during a week day please let Kent Youth know so that they can plan for further training days.

Please note that the correct phone number is: 01622 793700

Resources for Ascension, Pentecost & Trinity Sunday children

Another brilliant collection of resources thanks to DOPCANDY and Going for Growth:

We’re coming towards the end of Easter-tide – which means Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity are nearly upon us. These might be helpful in your planning.

Ascension Day – 17th May

Because the Feast of the Ascension always falls on a Thursday (40 days after Easter) children and young people may miss out on learning about Jesus’ ascension into heaven. You’ll find plenty of ideas here (including ‘Christmas Backwards!) which could be used on the following Sunday.

Pentecost – 27th May
In England, Pentecost usually falls at the start of the summer half-term, when many families are away. This year half-term is a week later, so there may be many more people in church. The ideas here include all-age celebrations, and inviting everyone to wear something red, yellow or orange to church to represent the flames of the Spirit.

Trinity Sunday – 3rd June
The mystery of the Trinity is hard for adults to grasp, let alone children and young people. Carolyn Brown, Sharon Ely Pearson and Martyn Payne have some creative ideas to help you explore this importance Christian doctrine.

[HT once again to Ben Miz & Mary Hawes]

An example of thinking BIG – Giant Angry Birds from stuffyoucanuse.org

Whilst plainly aimed at an American audience, this How to guide on setting up a Giant Angry Birds experience is inspiring stuff!
I would LOVE to set this up for a youth group or weekend away…
The original post is here:

Thanks to Youthblog

10 ideas for creating Cross-Generational Youth Ministry [repost from DOPCANDY]

I’ve been thinking loads about intergenerational ministry recently. Inspired by Dr Graeme Codrington and his “Mind the Gap” work. I have been looking for positive input on this area. This article by Brian Kirk, whilst very American, does have some worthy insights and activities: Ben Mizen – DOPCANDY

What a great morning it had been! Most of our congregation gathered in our Fellowship Room for an intergenerational event  we call “Advent Around the Tree,” held the last Sunday morning before Christmas day.  The room bustled with church members of all ages gathered around tables, engaged in various craft activities, writing greeting cards to our shut-ins, munching on bagels, and exploring various prayer stations. And in the midst of all this, a sight that captured the entire spirit of cross-generational ministry: Over at the side of the room was a low table with little chairs set up for our children to work together coloring in a large drawing of the nativity. But there were no children at the table. Instead, on one side sat two men who are well into their 70′s and on the other side two of our teenage boys. And there they were together, two generations, engaging in the childlike ritual of coloring while talking with each and enjoying fellowship.

In many ways, that moment captures what cross-generational or intergenerational ministry can be. It’s more than just different age groups inhabiting the same space (as happens often in our worship experiences). Rather, its providing opportunities for Christians of all generations to engage each other in experiences that build relationships and a deeper sense of the Church as one body in Christ. Below you will find several ideas for engaging in cross-generational youth ministry.  Not all may work for your setting as each context is different. But perhaps these will inspire you to seek new opportunities to swim against the tide of segregated youth activities and toward a more integrated approach for your ministry.

Talk About It – Before initiating any grand scheme to develop cross-generational ministry, it can be helpful to find opportunities to speak with staff members, church leaders, and groups within your congregation about the rationale for moving away from segregated youth programming.  You’ll find some helpful information on this subject in our text Missional Youth Ministry.

Ease into It – As the cross-generational approach may be a new idea for many, it might be best to resist the urge to jump in with both feet, tossing out your old approach entirely. Start with a fellowship event or perhaps a short-term joint study opportunity for mixed ages.  Let others experiences what this new approach can be and they will hopefully become advocates for the cause.

1. Adopt-a-grandparent – Call upon your youth to adopt an elder member of your congregation and invite them to show that person special care. This could include sitting with them in worship, inviting them to come to a youth gathering, or sending them a card on their birthday or when they are ill.
2. Adopt-a-youth – The reverse idea works as well. Invite adults in your congregation to adopt youth and be part of a ministry of nurture to your teens. I’d suggest that these persons not be the same adults who already serve in your youth ministry program.  The more adults who are connected in meaningful ways with your teens, the better.
3. Everyone in Worship – A trend in the last couple of decades has been to develop youth-centric worship experiences which segregate teens into their own worship experiences away from adults.  I can think of no greater mistake that we made in the program-centred paradigm of youth ministry than this. While it’s fine to allow youth to have their own worship time, they need to be in worship with the entire congregation, too, in order to gain an understanding of what it is to be part of the whole Church. Does this mean teens may have to sit through some worship moments that are boring and don’t “speak” to them, their learning styles or musical tastes? Of course, but Church isn’t about meeting our every need and desire as consumers. When we all are gathered for worship, young and old alike, we are enacting a vision of the Kingdom where all God’s people, in all their diversity, join together as one.
4. Art Experiences – Like the guys I mentioned at the top of this post, engaging people of all ages in experiences of art-making is a great way to break down barriers.  Group art projects allow everyone to play a part while providing time for conversation and community-building. You can find lots of ideas for group art projects on this site.
5. Joint Mission Trips – I’m a big proponent for ending the “youth mission trips” that have been such a standard component of youth programming for a long time now and moving toward mission opportunities that invite all ages in the church to participate.  Nothing builds community faster between the ages than travelling together and working side-by-side to help those in need.
6. Combined Classes – Part one of this essay shared about the effort in my own congregation to combine our youth class and our senior adult class. We recently asked everyone involved if they wanted to continue and teens and seniors alike all said “Absolutely.”  If you are unsure about trying this one, perhaps find an adult class willing to give it “go” for a set period of time — perhaps just four Sundays and then see what happens.
7. Cross Generational Camps/Retreats - In the St. Louis area, the Disciples of Christ congregations are planning our second annual cross-generational church camp experience. Last summer we gathered at retreat centre for a week of camp for all ages. We had everybody from babies to senior citizens. We ate together, played together, and worshipped together while still providing opportunities for children, teens, and adults to spend time in their separate age groupings. The evaluation of the event was unanimously positive from all ages and for this summer we are developing even more opportunities to help make the event truly cross-generational.
8. Youth Leadership – One of the best ways for older teens to begin to learn what the real work of the Church is all about is to invite them to be part of your church leadership teams and ministries.  Rather than having them sit on the sidelines waiting to same day take part in work of the church, invite youth right now to lend their ideas and voices to your outreach ministry, your worship planning, your church board.  In our congregation, one of our oldest senior high youth is co-chair of the Christian education ministry team.
9. Music Experiences - A great way to cross the generational divide is through music. Create opportunities, perhaps even an old-fashioned hymn sing, in which older generations can share hymns of the past and younger generations can introduce adults to more contemporary Christian songs.  In fact, if teens share music they learned at church camp they may be surprised to find that many adults learned those very same songs at camp, too!
10. Small Groups – Many of our congregations have small groups meeting on and off the church site all the time. Why not create a few groups which are intentionally cross-generational and purposefully recruit both adolescent and adult group participants? Provide opportunities for them to study the Bible, work on a mission project or read together a book such as The Kingdom Experiment that can challenge all ages while inviting lots of conversation and meaningful fellowship.

Other ideas?

 

from RETHINKING YOUTH MINISTRY by Brian Kirk via DOPCANDY [thx Miz]

EMYP 2012: Bracelet information – uBuntu and the 5 beads

One of my highights from the Easter Monday Youth Pilgrimage this year was the EMYP gift.

We managed to get leather bracelets with five wooden beads made by a job creation and empowerment project in Cape Town, South Africa. Phambili ngeThemba, which means ‘going forward with hope’, is a non-government organisation run as a ministry of the Pinelands Methodist Church who work alongside the unemployed people of Langa township. We asked them to make us a simple bracelet that would require each recipient to turn to someone else to tie it on their wrist in order to drive home the point of the day – we cannot be human on our own. We need other people. They designed these bracelets with five wooden beads representing five aspects of the African idiom uBuntu - “People are people through other people” – to help each of us to live together as members of the Body of Christ.

 

Here is a summary of the meaning behind these bracelets!

 

CBBC Survey: Religion still matters

Religion still matters
The BBC programme Newsround surveyed 1000 children and found that over 43% of them said that religion was important to them. Read (and hear) the story here and a further response to it here.

[HT Mary Hawes!]

Introducing Parentport

Parentport

Last year the Bailey Report into the commercialisation and sexualisation of children (Letting Children be Children) was published. There is now a single website, Parentport, where anyone can register their concern about content unsuitable for children on TV, adverts, film or in magazines.

BRF news: Would you Adam and Eve it? The Bible in Cockney’s back!

Would you Adam and Eve it? The Bible in Cockney’s back!

When it was first published in 2001, The Bible in Cockney created a media storm as tabloids, broadsheet newspapers, radio and international TV stations rushed to get the good news out.

Well, it’s back.

If you missed the fun first time around, don’t miss out again!

Read how Adam and Eve make a bloomin’ big mistake; how God is not ‘appy with Jonah, how David gives a giant geezer a good kicking and why Noah built a bloomin’ massive nanny.

In Mark’s Gospel discover how God’s own currant makes a Jim Skinner for five thousand geezers with five loaves of Uncle Fred and two Lilian Gish. And how he heals Simon’s finger and thumb in law when she was Tom and Dick in Uncle Ned.

Celebrate a bit of British heritage this year!

Perfect fer all real an’ adopted Londoners yeah?

· Find out more

· Read a sample (PDF)

From The Bible in Cockney:

The Lord’s Prayer

Hello, Dad, up there in good ol’ heaven,

Your name is well great and holy, and we respect you, Guv.

We hope we can all ‘ave a butcher’s at heaven and be there as soon as possible; and we want to make you happy, Guv, and do what you want ‘ere on earth, just like what you do in heaven.

Guv, please give us some Uncle Fred, and enough grub and stuff to keep us going today, and we hope you’ll forgive us when we cock things up, just like we’re supposed to forgive all them who annoy us and do dodgy stuff to us.

There’s a lot of dodgy people around, Guv; please don’t let us get tempted to do bad things. Help keep us away from all nasty, evil stuff, and keep that dodgy Satan away from us, ‘cos you’re much stronger than ‘im.

You’re the Boss, God, and will be forever, innit?

Cheers, Amen.

Everyday Parenting Ideas: It Isn’t Easy Being a Parent…

Everyday Parenting Ideas

Brought to you by

It Isn’t Easy Being a Parent…

Parenting can be difficult and unpleasant. Most parents experience moments (or months, or years) of feeling overwhelmed. There’s a lot of information out there about what we "should" do to raise "good" kids.

In reality, there are no surefire methods for ensuring we and our children will be happy, healthy, and successful, but there is plenty of research and anecdotal evidence showing that parents can make a significant, positive difference through a number of simple approaches.

Since the 1950s, Search Institute researchers have studied the effects of various influences in young people’s lives. They’ve found that the 40 Developmental Assets clearly relate to good things — like doing well in school, serving others, engaging in the community, and forming healthy habits.

It’s important for grown-ups to help young people experience the Developmental Assets, but parents can’t do it alone. However, there are nine specific parenting strategies that help. Focusing on these nine research-based strategies provides guidance and direction in the uncertain world of parenting. And that’s something parents should feel good about. Below are the 9 Parenting Strategies that we’ve come up with based on the Developmental Assets research. Click on each icon for tips.

[HT Mary Hawes]

IDEAS: Under 5′s downloadable resources

Scripture Union send out a quarterly newsletter called Tiddlywinks:

Available on the Tiddlywinks web pages are free downloadable ideas which are taken from our range of resources for under-5s. Coming this quarter are a story for after Easter, Breakfast with Jesus (April), an interactive prayer about animals (May) and a crown-making craft (June).