How (not) to be me

I'm currently preparing a training seminar on 'How to be a great team member'. Unfortunately, when I tried to save my work on my trusty computer, it decided that this was too long a title to save - so it changed it to 'How to be a great team me'! After I'd stopped chortling, it struck me that this new title summed up exactly what I do NOT want to say:

• The danger when training is to unintentionally give the impression that people need to be just like me if they want to be great children's workers. If someone goes away thinking, 'I'll never be as good a storyteller as Alison', then I've failed.
• The great thing about teams is that everyone is different. Between us we bring a wide range of gifts and experience, that no one leader can have.

So here's a question to ponder (whether you're a team leader, team member, or both):
? What are some of the things that a team member can do, that a team leader can't?
Then take your answers and use them to thank and encourage anyone who works in a team with you.

A chat about coffins

Have you designed your coffin yet? An article from this week's BBC News magazine looks at the latest options for personalised coffins - bright colours, stickers, photos or even a bespoke coffin in the shape of your favourite thing (tram? plane? piano?). The article is fascinating - and so are the reader's comments afterwards. Most focus on the here and now, and how a personalised coffin can help turn a funeral into a celebration of someone's life. Only a couple raise the question of what happens after death.

This could be a great discussion starter - with your youth group, or maybe just over a coffee with your mates. What do they think of the idea of decorating coffins? Would they do it, and if so what designs or shapes would they choose? What would they want their coffin to say about the life they have lived? You could print out some of the reader's comments, and ask if they agree or not, and why? Why do they think almost all the comments focus on here and now, rather than what happens after death? Whether you then leave the subject open, for people to muse on, or choose to develop it further is up to you. Christians have a certain hope that death is not the end, and that we have a wonderful future in the new creation to look forward to. Maybe a chat about coffins will give you an opportunity to explain this further.

You can read the article, and reader's comments, here.

Changing Sunday School - Mission Impossible?

God has created us to have imagination, curiosity and the ability to learn new things - so why are we so resistent to CHANGE??!!

• I met with a youthworker yesterday who is struggling to fit growing groups into a church building that stubbornly refuses to get any bigger. It's a problem that needs creative thinking, and a willingness by all involved to consider new ways of doing Sunday School. But the biggest problem isn't the building - it's leaders who don't want to change.

• I get regular phone calls from ministers wanting help in choosing teaching material for their church's children's work. I can make suggestions of good material to look at, but as the discussion progresses it usually turns out that at least one leader is refusing to consider using anything new.

• Today I was recommended a book by Doug Field. While checking out his website, I came across his comments about changing Sunday School, and they certainly rang a bell. As he says, 'Most youth workers couldn't change the format of Sunday School if they brought a written note from Jesus himself.'

Why are we so scared of change? Sometimes the problem is fear - as with the children's worker who doesn't want to move to a smaller room because he's scared his group will get bored if he can't play running around games with them. Sometimes the problem is time and energy - changing to different teaching material may mean more time in preparation, at least initially. Sometimes we're just stuck in a rut, doing things the way they've always been done. (I was once involved with a Sunday School that set out a table at the front every week, with two candles and a faded picture of Jesus - it was like a mini altar! They'd done it that way for the past 30 years (maybe the picture was bright when they started) and flatly refused to change.)

Change can be both good and bad. Changing things for the sake of it may just waste time and resources better used elsewhere. But we must always be ready to change for the sake of our ministry with young people. We must be willing to change plenty - the venue, the name, the timing, the programme, the age range, the music - if those changes help us to teach God's Word faithfully and reach out to those who don't know Him. We must also be ready to refuse to change - when we're pressurised to drop the Bible-study and replace it with games. Our priority should be to teach God's Word faithfully, to the Christians and non-Christians in our groups; to show God's love and care to them; to model in our own lives what it is to live wholeheartedly for Christ; and to pray fervently for the children and young people in our care. These things we should stick to like supaglue. All else is open to change.

Brushing up on your Bible reading

I once heard a speaker say that reading your Bible every day is like brushing your teeth - you don't always feel like it, but you do it because you know it's good for you. Do you agree? Or does this dismiss Bible reading as mundane and boring?

Should we be bored when we read God's Word? Not at all. This is the Living Word of the Creator God, through which He reveals Himself to us. That's awesome!

Are we sometimes bored, though? Most of us, if we're honest, would have to say Yes. Daily Bible reading is a discipline many of us struggle with. Which is why I find the brushing teeth analogy helpful, because I know it's good for me to do it daily. If you don't brush, your teeth rot. If you don't read your Bible, your spiritual life starts to rot, too.

BUT
I've found the answer to boring battles with the toothbrush. I now have an electric toothbrush which rotates, vibrates and even tells me when my two minutes are up. Brushing my teeth has become FUN!!! :)

So... the question is... what's the Bible-reading equivalent of an electric toothbrush? If we truly believe spending time daily in God's Word is vital, but we struggle to actually do it, are there things that can help? Here are a few I've tried:
1. There's a wide range of Bible-reading notes out there, so I like to try something new occasionally - but do look for something that will help you engage with the Bible text, rather than just share a few thoughts.
2. Reading big chunks at a time. (This is easiest in a lighter translation such as The Message, rather than the ESV!) I prefer to read through whole Bible books anyway, to get the full picture of what that book is saying.
3. Try using children's or family notes. (Yes, I'm serious!) If the notes handle the Bible well, they'll still point you to the main point of the passage, and you'll certainly have fun! When I do this, I like to also use it as a prompt to pray for any children and/or families I know who are using the same material. I do this every year with the Advent Packs we produce at Good Book, and pray for the families in the UK and beyond who are doing the same.
4. If you're up for a challenge, why not commit yourself to reading through the whole Bible in a year? (Are there parts of the Bible you've never read??) In my own experience, the best way to do this is to get others involved too - either a group of you all committing to the same thing, or asking others to check up on you. I once told 400 people in a New Year service that I was going to read the whole Bible that year, and asked them to check I did it. That worked a treat!
5. Read it with someone else, rather than just on your own, and then discuss and pray about what you've read.
6. Instead of an electric toothbrush, how about an electronic Bible? If the fun of reading a passage online, via your PC or on a palm pilot will help you keep doing it, then go for it. You can get lots of electronic Bible helps too, with maps, dictionaries etc.
7. Be honest with God that's you're finding it hard, and ask Him to help. He will.
8. Read it while cleaning your teeth. (OK, I haven't really done that one - I was just checking to see if you'd read to the end of the blog.)

Mystery mnemonic

My boss decided to while away a few moments yesterday - this was the result:
Being faithful, God freed captive believers hardening low-down Pharaoh.

What is it you ask??? Yes, that is indeed the question! It's designed to be a helpful mnemonic - but can you work out what it's supposed to help you remember?
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Need a clue?
Which crucial Bible event does it refer to?
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Need another clue?
There are ten words in the phrase. Can you think of ten cataclysmic things linked with this Bible event?
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Want the answer?
It's a way of remember the Ten Plagues in order:
Being Faithful, God Freed Captive Believers Hardening Low-Down Pharaoh.
=
Blood, Frogs, Gnats, Flies, Cattle, Boils, Hail, Locusts, Darkness, Passover.

Aren't you glad you know that?!

News at Teen

If you're a youth or children's leader, stop for a moment and think of three words that sum up your group...

Now compare those words with the ways young people are increasingly represented in the news:
'A study published recently by Brunel University analysed how youngsters appeared in more than 2,000 television news programmes over a month and found a very bizarre picture. In 82% of news stories featuring young people, they appeared either as the perpetrators or the victims of crime, usually involving violence. For the non-crime stories, the most typical reason for showing a young person was as a celebrity.'

I wonder if you came up with 'thug', 'victim' or 'celebrity'. No? But that's how most young people are portrayed these days.

The quote above comes from a BBC News report , which goes on to say:
'The author and social commentator, Frank Furedi, sees this anxiety-ridden depiction of teenagers as a sign of deeper fault lines in society ... When all other adults and other people's children are seen as a threat, he says it means that the adult generation withdraws from any contact with young people - and bringing up children is "privatised" to the parents. Without any communication between the generations, adults become fearful and distant towards the youngsters hanging around, he says. In return, young people grow up starved of the influence of adults. "It means that adults are leaving the life of children. It's completely unnatural." '

If young people are increasingly growing up 'starved of the influence of adults', that makes our role as youth and children's leaders so important. I see two challenges here - to ourselves as leaders, in a position to 'influence' young people and with a resonsibility to do this well, and also to find ways to introduce other adults in our church or neighbourhood to the young people we know and love, so that they can see that they're not all thugs, victims or celebrities!

Eggciting

The following is an Easter idea I was given by a schools worker years ago. It works well with children, but could also be easily adpated for use with teens. You need an eggbox with six Kinder eggs in it (the plastic clip-together inserts – you can eat the chocolate!). The eggs are hidden around the room. You ask the children to find one egg at a time, at which point you open it and find what’s hidden inside it – then put the egg in the eggbox. I no longer have the original list of contents, so here’s one I’ve made up (I’ve suggested more than six, so that you can choose the ones you prefer):

• Nails (Jesus was nailed to a cross of wood and left there to die)
• Strip of cloth (The cloth that was wrapped round His body)
• Empty (A reminder of the empty tomb)
• 'Happy Easter’ sticker (The resurrection and why we celebrate it)
• Sad face (How Jesus’ friends and families felt on Good Friday)
• Crown (Jesus was God’s promised King, but He wore a crown of thorns)
• Dice (The soldiers played dice to get the cloth Jesus wore)
• Mini Scroll (These things happened exactly as God has said they would)

You don’t know which order the eggs will be found in, so you adlib accordingly. Then show all the eggs again at the end, in a helpful order, to summarise what you’ve been teaching. The eggs and contents will be quite small of course – if you have a large group, maybe you could use an OHP to throw up the silhouettes of what you’ve found so that the children can see/guess what they are.