All the stuff needed to support life – theology, church, youthwork
On the plane to Australia I had the chance to catch a few films, including the recent film “Sing street“. The film centres on a group of young people being young people in Ireland, during the nineteen eighties. As I watched this I thought this is a great film. Then I wondered if this would […]
So recently the world of youth ministry, (well the readers of youth work magazine) were rocked by the following bit of an interview with Mike Pilvatchi in the magazine. In answer to the question “What shifts have you noticed among youth workers over the last 25 years?” Mr Pilvatchi who is the leader of Soul […]
Over the last few days, Monday and Tuesday, I have been involved in two similar efforts be two different organisations. Both efforts tried get a similar outcome while using two different processes. The aim of this post is to try and consider both processes and critically engage with them. I am not trying to comment […]
This is a review of a recent academic conference I attended for researchers in Youth Ministry, (In general Youth Ministry means the way the church works with young people). It is a long read at 2500 words. Recently, I attended the Biennial European Conference of the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry (also […]
YouthLink Scotland yesterday hosted the YouthWork Expo. A day dedicated to “highlight and celebrate the contribution youth work makes to society, individuals and to the realisation of the programme for government”. The lead claim in the press release is A new study by Hall Aitken published today has put the value of youth work at […]
There has been some discussion over the English Department of Education policy for Out-of-school education settings: The policy is part of the UK Governments counter extremism policy. You can read the call for responses to the policy which includes the policy proposal and some questions the Government are wondering about here. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480133/out_of_school_education_settings_call_for_evidence.pdf What is this […]
It struck me today that there is very little work within christian faith based youth work literature which dealt with the changing bodies of young people. While there is a helpful focus on body image, as youth work which is focused on 12-16 year olds primarily sees the best and worst of body changes for […]
On Saturday I had my first read through of the newest of the Learn series of publications from the Church of Scotland, titled “How Will Our Children Have Faith?”. ‘How Will Our Children Have Faith?’ is a short discussion guide which explores the reasons for working with children and young people. It also works through […]
Do we do church too often? Recently I was thinking about why I really enjoy concerts. At the Barenaked ladies gig I looked around as a lot for people were singing along with almost every song, from the oldest song to the newest. As I did this I wondered about the whole idea of going […]
After my session on Wednesday the group had a wide-ranging 30mins discussion throwing about some of the topics of my talk, here are some of the notes I took of that discussion the session was on play within christian faith-based youth work as resistance to the socioeconomic commodification of young people (or something like that.) […]
