June 2020  |  Vol. 5PASSIONATE ABOUT RAISING THE NEXT GENERATION +Lucie Shuker on spiritual practice in lockdown
Lockdown, anxiety and faith
Long-distance toddler groups

REGULARS04First word06RechargeDistressed in lockdown07Comment08News13Leadership 101Leading from homeIf your favourite is missing from our contents this week, there’s no need to worry. Our regular columns will be littered throughout the month, so keep your eyes peeled for your favourites!FEATURES09Q&ALucie Shuker reveals the findings of Youthscape’s We Do God report, and explains why seeking to understand the importance of practice in Christian youth ministry can help transform young people’s faith.10Lockdown anxiety: God is with youMary Sharples offers up advice to those who are struggling, and reminds us that God is with us through the good times and the bad.11Toddler groups in lockdownJo Gordon, chief executive of parent and toddler group Daniel’s Den, explains how we can navigate reaching out to the youngest members of our congregation when we can’t meet physically.
12The new normal: what’s next for youth and children’s workers?Martin Saunders shares his ideas on what changing restrictions and living in a socially distanced world might mean for youth and children’s ministry.
FAITH AT HOME15Don’t panic – we haven’t gone anywhere! Our beloved Faith at Home section will now have its very own dedicated magazine once a month, with all the regular content and much more. Keep your eyes peeled for the next Faith at Home edition on 18th June, or see page 15 for more information.“Believing in God doesn’t mean everything will always be OK…but God is with you all the time.”
Lockdown anxiety: God is with you, p10RESOURCES16Our resources are going to be spread out into weekly bite-size chunks each month. This week, children can explore the story of Gideon, while young people focus on Samson.

Plus, we’ve included an all-age service and a movie activity based on Frozen II. Look out for all our other regulars in upcoming issues!

We’ve tweaked all our resources to make them at-home friendly.

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YCW | June 2020 | Vol. 1First wordIf there’s one thing that we can be sure about the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that we’ve had to embrace change – to our lifestyles, our habits and our ministries – at a rate that we’ve likely never deeply thought about, let alone anticipated.

Change is a difficult concept to grasp, and at times feels painful, especially when it turns up unannounced after years of refining your work; but as youth and children’s workers, and as a team here at Premier Youth and Children’s Work magazine, we know that moving with the times is inevitable, and often the best way to branch out to young people. So, we’re welcoming change with open arms in our first digital magazine.

Finding our ‘new normal’ is unlikely to be easy, as we settle into new rhythms with our families, churches and the groups we lead. “We're going to need to dig deep…to go on this journey with young people,” Martin Saunders encourages us in his look at what the new normal for youth and children's ministry might be. A sentiment echoed by Tim Alford’s Leadership 101: “You will get some things right, you will get some things wrong – but in the end, you will get through this.”

It’s OK not to know where to start, so for practical advice, look to this week’s Q&A with Youthscape’s Lucie Shuker. Based on their ground-breaking We Do God research, Lucie encourages us to look in towards ourselves as much as we do out towards others: “We need to model practice, we need to be co-disciples…spend a little bit more time thinking about broadening and deepening your own practice.”

Naturally, there is always an element of worry in the ‘new’, as our guest columnist Mary Sharples explains in her column about dealing with lockdown anxiety, but nothing that God can’t handle. “Believing in God doesn’t mean everything will always be OK or that everything in your life will work out the way you want it to,” she points out. “It means having the knowledge that even when things are not OK and everything has gone wrong – God is with you.”

In this season of adaptation, let the hope that ‘God is with us’ carry you through. We as the Premier Youth and Children’s Work team are preaching to ourselves equally here as we remind you and are continuing to pray for all of you ministering in the midst of this changing landscape. Let’s make Ed Drew’s words from Recharge be the focus this week: “We have seen Jesus leave his throne, come to us and have compassion; and we have seen him return in glory to his throne. So we can say with certainty that this current distress will finish.”

The YCW teamSocial Media shout-out
To have your tweets, posts and photos featured in our shout-out, visit our social media pages under the handle @ycwmag. We can’t wait to have you involved!

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.Get involved in our #hopefulchallenge by watching the dance lesson online and sending in a video of you and your young people having a go!
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RechargeRecharge is a Bible study just for you, to nurture your own relationship with God. So, before you even look at the rest of the magazine, take some time out to focus on him. Grab a coffee, sit, breathe and read.
GRAND LATTE – Psalm 102FLAT WHITE – Psalm 102:9-12ESPRESSO – Psalm 102:12But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever;
your renown endures through all generations.Distressed in lockdown
Our family meet weekly on Zoom to see my parents, who are old enough to need to totally self-isolate – this may be part of your new normal too. When we were a few weeks into lockdown, it seemed like the right time to ask my mum how she was feeling. When she said she was pleased, I asked: “So this feels great to you, mum?” Her answer was a straightforward “yes"!

She and I are different. She is pleased that no visitors come to the door. She has happily put her empty diary into a drawer. She is reading, sleeping and occasionally giving my dad orders in the garden. Yesterday he cut down his third tree; she’s a demanding garden manager.

Presumably there are others, like my mum, enjoying lockdown. I suspect there are relatively few of them. For the rest of us, it’s difficult. Our particular situations, personalities and struggles will mean that this is shaking down differently, but lockdown is bringing together a frightening mix of challenges to our mental health.

It might be the insecurity of being on furlough, or perhaps it’s the loneliness of being single and isolated. Maybe home-schooling has driven you to anger, frustration and impatience. Or, if you are one of the many with a history of mental illness, then these long days with your own thoughts could be an ordeal. Perhaps you are struggling to keep up with the expectations of ministry in these strange times when everyone needs a little more care. Have I covered your struggle yet? If you thought that you were fine until you read that list: sorry.
"Instead of looking at his distress, he is looking up at God and forward to the certain hope"Psalm 102 is titled, 'A prayer of an afflicted person'. It was written by someone in great personal distress. Whether we are hurting at the moment or not, these are times for taking a little longer over a psalm to care for our own hearts, to learn how to care for others, or to prepare for the inevitable day when we will struggle for answers.

For the first eleven verses, we hear the writer’s mind in very bleak days:“My heart blighted and withered like grass” – diseased, dying within me (v4).

“I forget to eat food” – lacking appetite (v4).

“Like an owl among the ruins” – a lonely owl perched among the decay of my life (v6).

“Like a bird alone on a roof” – unable to sleep. Always watchful. Always there. Never resting (v7).

“You have taken me up and thrown me aside” – it feels like God is angry with me.
Punished and thrown on the rubbish heap. Does God do this to people? I thought God was love? Whatever the truth, this is how I feel – discarded (v10).

My life feels “like the evening shadow”, that just lengthens until it fades away (v11).
"We have seen Jesus leave his throne, come to us and have compassion"These verses are hard to read, particularly if we can relate to the psalmist’s experience. This distress could be caused by so many different situations. It could be clinical depression, an eating disorder, a long-term illness, an addiction, a nagging disappointment, a broken relationship, a career that causes dread, an anxious child…

The list really is endless because living in a fallen world, among the effects of sin, means we each feel broken to some degree or other. It is often secret. People don’t put selfies on Instagram of their head in their hands crying. In lockdown, left to stew in our brokenness, with few distractions, our distress may have become more acute.
Here comes the big BUT, where the perspective changes:

“But you, Lord, sit enthroned for ever; your renown endures through all generations” (v12).

When we’re not in lockdown and our family goes to stay with my wife’s parents, I go for a run into the local town along a disused railway. It still has the rails, the sleepers and the drainage ditches down the sides. So the only way to run is on the sleepers, avoiding the soft ground between. It’s like playing hopscotch for a mile. You have to run staring at your feet, taking short steps. Every now and then you stride out and jump over two or three at a time. Sometimes you miss the sleeper and get a wet foot in the mud. You can’t look up. You can’t enjoy the fields or the sunshine. You can’t appreciate anything. You can’t think about anything else; you just concentrate to avoid turning over your ankle on a sleeper edge.

That’s how it is in the first part of this psalm. No looking up. One step at a time. Fearful of putting one foot wrong. Moments away from disaster all the time. Very little joy is available. Living is surviving.

But it all changes. When I arrive at the local town on my run, I come off that railway and I run home along the straight road back. My situation has not changed. Still running. Now uphill. Still hurting. Still struggling. But I can look up. I can see where I’m going. I’ve got a new perspective. Running feels possible.In just the same way, the psalmist now has a new perspective. He is looking to God, enthroned and unchangeable. Glorious. Promise–keeping. Our writer’s circumstances haven’t changed. His struggle hasn’t gone away. He is just looking in a totally new direction. Instead of looking at his distress, he is looking up at God and forward to the certain hope.

While I may feel like grass that withers, the Lord sits enthroned; permanent, immovable and stable. One day every nation will fear the Lord (vv12,15).

While before I felt like I was perched on ruins, now I can see a day coming when God will rebuild Zion, his own city, and he will appear in glory walking among us (v16).

Before I cried out in distress, now God answers my prayers. What certainty! What joy! (v17)
Will we fight to change our perspective? Will we take our eyes off our distress to look at our enthroned Lord for as long as we can? Will we help one another to see a different perspective? Will we listen, care and find ways to support others in distress by showing them their glorious Lord?

We have seen Jesus leave his throne, come to us and have compassion. And we have seen him return in glory to his throne. So we can say with certainty that this current distress will finish as this psalm does:

“But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.
The children of your servants will live in your presence;
their descendants will be established before you.”
(Psalm 102:27-28)TakeawayIf these strange times leave us in distress, it is possible to look away from our hurt to our enthroned, glorified Lord. We can see him gently caring for us through his good purposes, worshipped by his people, offering hope for the future and the certainty of eternity with him, when there will be no more distress.
PrayDear Father,
These days are hard, with new pressures and without our usual support structures. Please allow me the courage to take my eyes from my concerns to see my Lord enthroned at your right hand. I need to see him. I need to be certain that he is on his throne and in charge of these darker days.
Amen.ED DREW
is the director of Faith in Kids. At faithinkids.org you can find details of lockdown resources: daily family Bible times, daily pre-school music and movement classes and Sunday resources for church at home.
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CommentShould schools re-open?There’s been plenty of controversy surrounding the government’s plans for schools coming out of lockdown. Teaching unions have been keen to protect the safety of their members, teachers are worried about how they will enforce social distancing, while parents are concerned about the health of their children. With many parents needing to go back to work, there seems to be no perfect solution. Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis Charitable trust, is reopening his schools and believes it’s the right thing to do.
I was always taught when I was a kid, that when the plague hit Rome (AD 249–262), it was the Christians that stayed and cared for others, risking their own lives. I was taught that it was a wonderful thing that the Church was that bold. I think the challenge for churches in our generation facing this crisis is, without being silly and taking on board all the risks involved, to care.

I really do understand the worry. There’s no obligation for any staff member who is worried, who is vulnerable, or lives with someone who is vulnerable. There’s no obligation or pressure, either, for any child to return.

Throughout the crisis, we’ve been working hard recognising that there will come a day of return so we've done individual risk assessments on every single one of our buildings. They’re all different. Some have four entrances and wide corridors, big classrooms – some not so much. So each situation is different. Wherever we work, it’s going to be different, but we feel we have an obligation and we've been asked by the Government to open our schools.

We think it’s important because this virus is easier for the middle classes than for others. I am middle class. I’m sat here in my study at home looking out on my garden. I’ve got three devices: a phone, an iPad and my computer. I’ve got lots of food. Yet many of our families don't have any of those luxuries in life so we want to do something about that. We'll start gradually, be careful, build confidence of people slowly, but we think it's important to get going and get open.
REV STEVE CHALKE
is founder of the Oasis Charitable Trust, which oversees 35 primary schools.
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NewsYoung people struggle to access mental-health support during lockdown
One in four children and young people with mental-health issues have stopped receiving help as a result of disruption caused by coronavirus. The report, published by YoungMinds during Mental Health Awareness Week, surveyed 1,850 parents and carers around the UK, 750 of which had a child who had received support in the three months prior to lockdown. Of those 750, a quarter were no longer able to access provision from the NHS, private providers, schools and charities. This report came after it emerged that the number of referrals to NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) had fallen by 30% since the pandemic began.

Emma Thomas, YoungMinds’ chief executive said: “The pandemic has turned the lives of millions of children and young people upside down. Many young people are finding it hard to cope with isolation, a loss of routine, anxiety about the future, a disruption to their education, and in some cases difficult or traumatic experiences at home. Despite huge efforts from mental-health professionals, young people with existing mental-health needs often can’t get the same level of support as they had before the crisis.”
Kids get involved in The Blessing
While all eyes were on the UK Blessing viral worship video, children from across the world have been brought together for their own version. Millions have now viewed the collaborative of UK church leaders singing the song which puts the Old Testament blessing from Numbers 6 to music, but the version produced by All Star Kids is growing in numbers. Simon Parry put it together and told Premier Youth and Children’s Work: “I’ve never cried so much – happy tears. We had videos from the Masai tribe in Kenya videos from Malawi. We were like ‘how did they find out about this’! It was an amazing response.”Faith groups should be made to register youth services, inquiry told
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been told that faith groups should be made to register with authorities if they want to provide youth provision. Safeguarding leaders claim child abuse within religious groups and institutions is still being under-reported and more action is needed.

The inquiry heard that in Birmingham, with a population of 1.4 million, there had been 3,000 child safeguarding referrals to the authorities between 2017 to 2019, with just 3.6% of those related to a faith setting. The call comes two years after the Government consulted on issues around the registration of churches and others who look after children out of school with regulator Ofsted. A number of Christian groups had raised concerns.

Speaking at the inquiry, Jasvinder Sanghera, independent chair of Leeds Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, said: “If we really mean what we say, that safeguarding is everybody’s business, it cannot be the case that preserving one's cultural beliefs and values trumps safeguarding. This is about our concerns about children and the risk to children and actually it's important all faith organisations respond to the requirements expected by the law and society. Why wouldn’t they engage in that? They've got nothing to hide.”

The inquiry was hearing evidence as part of the child protection in religious organisations and settings investigation. The inquiry, which will take a number of years to complete, is covering a wide range of issues linked to abuse. Recommendations will then be given to authorities and independent institutions in regards to creating better safeguarding of children.Minecraft used for church youth group during lockdown
Teenagers at a church in Leicester are using Minecraft to stay connected during the coronavirus lockdown. Josh Young from St John the Baptist Church has created the place of worship in block form to allow his young people to continue interacting and learning about their faith. “We created a church and then around the church, we actually attributed Bible verses which are like floating text. So as you walk around the building, you can see Bible verses. You can see for example, why we do communion, you can see why we support food banks, and some of the verses that go along with hospitality, and why we do worship, we've also got verses that support that.” Young said the youth have also started to recreate scenes relating to stories in the Bible such as Peter walking on water.The Minecraft youth group meetings have been a hit with young people asking for more than just one session a week.TikTok bishop wows in ‘switch’ video
A Church of England bishop has embraced the world of TikTok in a bid to raise funds for Christian Aid. Rt Rev Mike Harrison of Dunwich has brought much needed humour via the social media site with videos of him dancing (and swapping clothes) with his teenage daughter. Bishop Mike said: “I’d been watching my teenage children dancing all the time, and we decided it would be fun to do – and hopefully put a smile of people’s faces during this time.”

You can view the video here.
Source: RZIM/Instagram
Ravi Zacharias, one of the world’s leading evangelists, dies aged 74
World-renowned apologist and author Ravi Zacharias has died after a brief battle with cancer. He was 74. Mr Zacharias had been suffering from an aggressive form of sarcoma and was recently told that there were no more medical treatment options available to him. He passed away at his home in Atlanta on the morning of 19th May and is survived by his wife of 48 years, Margie; daughters, Sarah and Naomi; son, Nathan; and five grandchildren.

Announcing the sad news and paying tribute to their founder, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) said: “Ravi Zacharias spent the past 48 years commending the Christian faith and addressing life’s greatest existential questions of origin, meaning, morality and destiny with eloquence and grace. Through his founding and leadership of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), Zacharias launched a global team of nearly 100 Christian scholars and authors who continue to speak, resource, train and address the questions of millions around the world.”

The president of RZIM, Michael Ramsden, added: “[Ravi] saw the objections and questions of others not as something to be rebuffed, but as a cry of the heart that had to be answered. People weren’t logical problems waiting to be solved; they were people who needed the person of Christ. Those who knew him well will remember him first for his kindness, gentleness and generosity of spirit. The love and kindness he had come to know in and through Jesus Christ was the same love he wanted to share with all he met.”

In recent years, RZIM launched Reboot, a series of one-day events around the world, giving space for young people to ask their big questions about God.BACK TO CONTENTS

Q&ALucie Shuker
We Do God is the latest report from Youthscape’s Centre for Research, seeking to understand the place and importance of practices in Christian youth ministry, and how they can shape and develop faith among young people. The Youth and Children’s Work team spoke to Youthscape’s director of research, Lucie Shuker, about the report.
YCW: Why did you decide to look at the idea of practices?
Lucie Shuker: From our previous No Questions Asked research, we found that the group of young people we were talking to, who had expressed very little curiosity about faith, had barriers preventing them from expressing curiosity. Our task became generating or stimulating that curiosity, and part of the way that happened was through facilitating experiences with faith and offering spaces to reflect on them.

For young people who express no interest in church or faith, inviting them to experience something that they can own and make sense of is a really good place to start; if we want to share our story with young people, we need to build bridges across which that story can travel.

The We Do God report does a couple of things; first, it uses statistics and a big survey to sort of say: “We think there is so much more that we could be inviting people to experience of the breadth of Christian practice.” The second half of this research is really an attempt to say how you do that and why.
YCW: What does the research show about the ‘how’ and ‘why’?
LS: Existing research shows young people have less interest in propositional statements of faith, so considering a practical experience is significant. We asked youth workers what they practised, and the stuff that is right at the top of our list are the kinds of practices that you do because you attend church: singing and prayer are in the top five. But there’s a really big gap between what’s at the top and what’s at the bottom of the pile. For example, we’re much less likely to be actively exploring simplicity around how we live, or challenging injustice or resting, or forms of lament or fasting.

What we are practising is important, because that often sets the limits of what we invite others to do as well; that’s often what people copy. What we model is often what ultimately people pick up about what really is important regardless of what we say.

We then explored what we have invited young people to experience or what we’ve taught them about, both for young people in the church and those outside. The headline here is that there’s a significant gap between what we teach and what we invite young people to actively experience or practise themselves. We are much more likely to teach about forgiveness than we are to help young people practise forgiveness, or much more likely to teach about challenging justice than we are to facilitate an experience of actually doing that.
"You need the whole community to be upholding an experience-focused way of doing things"YCW: Why do we talk about things but not practise them?
LS: This might be a slight caricature, but it’s the form that many youth groups and churches take. I think there’s something about the way that we tend to organise Christian education or community which means we tend to talk about an idea, discuss the idea, think about how you might apply it, rather than corporately actually create the experience of doing it together.

Our pattern of encountering scripture is to come together as a group and do some fun stuff together, and then teach about something, a theme or an idea (such as forgiveness). So, I’ll share some scriptures with you, I will tell you my own experience of forgiveness potentially, and then we might even have a discussion where I ask you about whether anyone has ever let you down or anyone that you might need to forgive. We make a commitment to go away and forgive people. But even in the most creative way, you haven’t actually been given the experience of forgiving.

Another barrier was that we only see young people for a really limited time. If you think about how Jesus invited his disciples, he had them with him for a serious amount of time, inviting them to do things with him, as well as teaching them verbally about what he was doing. They had time together on the road and sitting around meal tables and watching him do things before then having a go themselves. If you’re a youth worker, and you have potentially 90 minutes of the person’s time a week be bold enough to organise your time around activity rather than talking.

Youth work is typically the part of the church that prioritises experience more, so I’m not saying that youth workers don’t facilitate experience. I think they think they do, but that mismatch between what the youth work is trying to do and wider church culture does makes it really challenging for a youth worker to try to create a culture of doing and experiencing and learning through first-hand experience and practice. You need the whole community to be upholding an experience-focused way of doing things. Do you have a rule of life?"If we want to share our story with young people, we need to build bridges across which that story can travel"YCW: How do we keep things practical with our children and young people during lockdown?
LS: I think that many of our practices have been thrown in the air, certainly around attendance of church in its traditional form. What we do and how we structure our lives have needed to be reformed. I think lots of people are turning to what they already know, but maybe haven’t quite got around to putting into practice around rhythms of prayer, reflection or silence or different kinds of community generosity.

I'm not sure how many people acknowledge their instincts are leaning more towards practice, but I think they might be. And I’m certainly not saying that there’s a kind of spiritual Nirvana where everybody is getting up an hour early and praying and meditating and then doing their day, because actually lots of us are experiencing ten times more pressure than we were before. But when Church habits and culture are just blown apart, it comes back to what do we do as individuals. It’s a bit of a light being shown back on what our faith really looks like to us when we can’t gather. If you can’t be in a building singing together, what are the practices that make being a Christian meaningful in this time?

The distinction between ‘doing together’ or ‘doing apart’ is an interesting one. At the moment, that could mean logging on to the Zoom call, introducing a practice, turning videos off, going and doing it for 15 minutes, and then coming back to talk about it together.

Before you invite young people and change all you’re doing, spend a little bit more time thinking about broadening and deepening your own practice. One of the lessons from this is that if we want to have integrity, we need to model practice: we need to be co-disciples. So look at those practices and talk to God about what you’re drawn to, what you've never experienced before and maybe try some new things for yourself.
For more information about Youthscape and the We Do God report visit youthscape.co.uk/research.
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Lockdown anxiety:
God is with you
It’s no surprise that children and young people are feeling anxious in lockdown, away from their friends and some family members. Reflecting on Mental Health Awareness Week last week, student Mary Sharples offers up advice to those who are struggling, and reminds us that God is with us through the good times and the bad.
I have anxiety. It took me a long time to admit it. I was worried people wouldn’t take me seriously – I’m a drama student and I was ashamed because I felt drama students shouldn’t get nervous; they should be confident and loud.

But here’s the thing – you can be full of confidence and the loudest person in the room and still have anxiety, because mental health looks different for everyone.

I find that what makes me the most anxious is the unknown. I hate uncertainty, it makes me feel helpless and my brain compensates by overthinking at such a rate that it leaves me drained and exhausted. With this in mind, it’s hardly a shock that living through a pandemic is proving difficult.
Believing in God doesn’t mean everything will always be OKWhat now seems like a very long time ago, at the start of lockdown, my housemate at university came home to find me curled up on the sofa in the living room. I’d been there all morning, somehow unable to stop myself scrolling through endless news articles about the oncoming threat of COVID-19 and it had left me paralysed with anxiety so badly that it felt like I couldn’t move!

She gave me a very long hug, told me to cancel the group meeting I had scheduled, made me a cup of tea and sat and watched Netflix with me for the rest of the day. Her simply being there next to me on the sofa, binge-watching Merlin, gave me a sense of comfort. Does this sound familiar? It’s much the same with God.

However, speaking from my own experience as a person of faith with anxiety, I think it’s important to remember that God does not cancel out anxiety, and struggling with anxiety doesn’t mean your faith isn’t strong. As Christians, we are called to trust in the Lord and navigate life with unquestioning faith, but trusting God is hard when you’re anxious, and being able to trust doesn’t mean that worry goes away.

It’s taken me a long time to realise that it’s OK to struggle with giving everything up to the Lord – it requires a lot of mental energy that not everyone with anxiety has.

Believing in God doesn’t mean everything will always be OK. It doesn’t mean everything in your life will work out the way you want it to. Being a Christian means having the knowledge that even when things are not OK and everything has gone wrong – God is with you the whole time.Make a commitment to being someone in whom others find comfortRecently, I’ve been reminding myself of Matthew 28:20, where Jesus tells his disciples: “I will be with you always, even until the end of the world”. This is the most amazing promise of friendship. Jesus promises to always be there for us no matter what, through our good times and our bad times. Whilst my mental health makes it difficult to live life without anxiety, my faith reminds me that I’m never struggling alone.

Lockdown is a strange time for everyone. There will be people experiencing anxiety, perhaps for the first time ever, all over the world. Sometimes, the best thing to do to help someone who is struggling is to simply be there for them. We are called to live like Christ, so live like Christ in your friendship with others – if you are in a position to do so, make a commitment to being someone in whom others find comfort, to being someone in whom the presence of God might reveal itself. Check in with your friends and family, write postcards to local care homes, smile at strangers on the street (from two metres away). The best we can do is be patient, open and kind – with others and with yourself, and know that God is with you always, even until the very end of the age.

If you are struggling with anxiety yourself, remember: there is nothing wrong with you. Everyone’s anxiety looks and feels different, so find what works for you. Talking to someone can be really helpful, so reach out for that cup of tea and a chat. Most importantly, you are never alone. Keep Bible verses like Matthew 28:20 close to your heart.MARY SHARPLES
is a drama student from Manchester and a social justice rep for the Methodist Church.
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Toddler groups in lockdown
Toddler groups are a great place to plant the foundations of faith with young, explorative minds, but how do we do that during lockdown, when families can’t get together? Alex Taylor spoke to Jo Gordon, the chief executive of parent and toddler group Daniel’s Den, about how to navigate toddler groups from home.
Much of the ministry of toddler groups is carried out beyond the awareness of most congregations, taking place during weekdays when most of the members of a church are at work. The groups work with families often on the fringe of a church community. “Toddler groups are the hidden treasure of this nation,” says Jo. “The impact they have on local communities and further afield is enormous. I think they're often undervalued.”

But now, under lockdown, toddler groups are becoming more visible. Many are going online and using social media channels to connect with families who would normally be part of face-to-face groups. A quick look at the ministry of the members of the London Toddler Group Network shows how much is going on. “I can’t begin to explain what's going on in Daniel’s Den since lockdown”, agrees Jo. “It’s like the Holy Spirit has just gone whoosh! God's really at work, that’s all I can say. It’s just as if we're born to be online.”

Daniel’s Den has restarted ministry it used to do years ago. “We’ve relaunched something called Daniel’s Den Praise, which we used to do every Friday,” Jo explains. “We have a Bible story, a craft based on the story and we sing lots of Christian songs. It’s been really interesting to restart that online.” Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Zoom have all been used to conduct online sessions, either live or pre-recorded.
“Daniel’s Den Praise will continue after lockdown has finished,” says Jo. “A new light, a new world has opened up to Daniel’s Den; we've gone online and we will stay online and connect.” Building community in a socially - distanced world is going to be a challenge for toddler groups. “I have no idea what the next six weeks, six months or next year will look like, not being able to meet together physically,” Jo adds. “So we are just really open to the Holy Spirit to see the ways in which we can build community online.”
"God's really at work. It's as if we're born to be online"But what about those people who can’t or don’t want to access groups online? “I recently had a phone call from a woman who lives in Notting Hill: ‘I've been on a Mum’s group and they've mentioned Daniel’s Den’,” Jo explains. “I asked: ‘Are you on Facebook?’… ‘No, I’m not on Facebook.’ ‘Are you on Instagram?’… ‘I’m not on Instagram.’”

The flourishing of online expressions of toddler groups is amazing, and many are benefiting from joining an online community. Yet, we cannot forget those who are beyond the internet’s reach. Not always, but often those families are from the less affluent parts of our parishes, networks and communities. We know that the pandemic has disproportionately affected those who are without, and this sense of enforced isolation is one aspect of that. For Jo, it’s been a challenge reaching out, but one they are tackling head on."The impact they have on local communities and further afield is enormous"“Last week, I told the story of the lost sheep at Daniel’s Den Praise. I grew up on a farm, so I really know a lot about sheep! The 99 were saved, but one was lost, and the shepherd went looking for the lost and the hard to reach. We often talk about the hard to reach families in our societies and how do we reach people and it’s something we as a charity think about all the time. There are a great many people who come to our groups, but who's not there? I’m always mindful of that person who’s got post-natal depression, that person who’s too scared to come out of their house.

“One of the things that we’re doing is working with local volunteers in business and Brent Council. We’re putting together 26 packs with lots of crafts and materials, and we’re taking them to 26 of the most vulnerable families in Brent. It’s a way of taking our toddler groups into their homes.”

We will probably be working under varying degrees of lockdown for the next few months to come. How are you reaching families who would normally be part of our toddler groups? Share your ideas with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!BACK TO CONTENTS

The new normal:
what’s next for youth and children’s workers?
Just as we’ve got used to youth and children’s ministry in lockdown, the limitations are bound to change again soon; but what might a slight ease in restrictions mean for youth and children’s ministry? Martin Saunders shares his thoughts.
Two things are certain in the internet age: firstly, if you hold any opinion on any subject or any view of the world, no matter how ridiculous, you are certain to find at least one kindred spirit online who shares your perspective. Secondly, you will also be sure to find somebody who believes that your point of view is the most cretinous and indefensible position imaginable, and they will find you and tell you just that.

During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen this manifested more clearly than ever. If there is an opinion that you are looking to see reinforced about what will happen, when and how this will end, and how the world might change as a result, you absolutely can find that online. And if you want to find someone who thinks that idea is ridiculous, you’ll also be able to find that voice. There are those who think we’ll be ‘back to normal’ in a month; there are others who believe that we’re basically entering a new ice age. What conclusion can we draw from this phenomenon? That honestly, no one has any idea how this is going to go.

Foolish is the writer then, who attempts to speak with any certainty into what kind of world might be facing us in the months ahead, and how we might seek to respond to it. And yet...this is the brief I was given. Please, take this opening disclaimer: a hefty pinch of salt that should flavour everything that comes after. I am as informed and trustworthy on this subject as the next self-proclaimed expert. Ultimately, not very."It may be that traditional discipleship needs to play second fiddle for a while to a focus on holistic well-being"That said, while I think there are some things that we can’t be sure of, we can be sure that 2020 will never be forgotten because the impact of the virus will inevitably create some lasting effects on our economies, our families and our general way of life. Some of these might be quite positive, while others will manifest as significant and long-lasting problems. We can be sure that the coming months will mean some enforced, rather than just improvised changes to our youth and children’s work practice; and we can be absolutely sure that some things will happen that none of us saw coming.

Based on all the available evidence of what we can probably take for granted about the next few months, here are seven thoughts about the questions that youth and children’s leaders are going to have to address as we emerge from lockdown. Rather than try to make accurate predictions of what exactly I think might change or be banned or permitted, I’m proposing these more as starting points. This is some food for thought for you and those you work with, as you try to figure out what your ministry will look like in the next few months.We are going to have to figure out what socially distanced youth and children’s work looks like
The two-metre rule, brilliantly expressed by the Prime Minister in the last few days as the width of three fridges, may define the next few months for us. Since the beginning of lockdown, many of us have been waiting and hoping for a time when we might be able to meet with a group of young people again, and it seems like that moment may not now be too far away. But when we can meet, we will have to observe social distancing – ruling out a host of activities that many youth and children’s workers would consider staple fare. We’re going to need to dig deep to think of games, activities and even ways of gathering in limited space which don’t cause us to fall foul of the three-fridge rule.

 For some groups, this will make physical meeting altogether impossible in the short term. Much in the same way as schools are doing, we might need to divide groups into ‘pods’, where a group of children and leaders are grouped together and then can’t meet with the rest of the group.

Perhaps one silver lining to this transition is that many of us have already had to run online groups in much this way; dividing into a manageable size, and devising activities which can be played without any physical touch between participants.We might need to think smallerWe cannot aim – at least in the short term – for numerical growth. We will actually need to keep strict limits on numbers involved in groups, and this could lead to some difficult situations. Imagine being the last young person to turn up for a group, and being told that your attendance takes the group over the allowed number. Setting limits on group size will be counter-intuitive, but if we don’t consider it, we could be left turning young people away.

We have to go on this journey with young people, especially as restrictions are lifted in other areas – our ministries could be one of the last places to get back to normal! Helping them adjust to the changes in the groups they’ve been used to for years will be crucial.

For now, we find ourselves in the unusual position of wanting to keep numbers manageable, and relieving us of the constant imperative to try to grow things might actually focus on what many of us preach, but few practise: truly focusing on those in front of us. We will need to pay attention to young people’s mental health and emotional well-beingMental-health experts are warning that experience of living through 2020 could have a catastrophic impact on the emotional well-being of a generation of young people. Some have been unable to take exams for which they have studied for 18 months. Others have been locked at home away from friends and teachers with no idea when they might see either again. Many teenagers may be facing a 20-week break from school, while also being left at home for long periods by working parents.

 Adolescence is a confusing period for everyone, but the additional stress brought about by COVID-19 will mean that this generation experience it in a completely unique way. As youth workers we find ourselves in a unique and vital position in the lives of these young people, where we may be best-placed to help them navigate the immense emotional impact of these times. In fact, as much as they need Jesus to help them in this and every other stage of their lives, it may be that traditional discipleship needs to play second fiddle for a while to a focus on holistic well-being.

Really caring about young people’s primary needs in this time might demonstrate the love of God to them far more than following up to make sure they’re still keeping up their Bible reading. Youth leaders might also want to take the opportunity now to make sure that they and their team are well briefed, trained and resourced in this area. "We will need to keep strict limits on numbers involved in groups"We’ll need to help them to reflect on the experience that they have all just gone through, and we may need to think through some answers to some very big questionsThe No Questions Asked report published by the Youthscape Centre for Research in 2018 (see our Q&A with Lucie Shuker) concluded that many young people no longer feel and verbalise the traditional apologetics questions about God, faith and the meaning of life, and many of us will identify with this in our experience. However, when young people experience trauma or crisis, those big questions are much more likely to surface. There are many indications that the unsettling nature of the coronavirus pandemic has caused a number of people to reflect on these questions – witness the increased googling of prayer etc – and this will also be true in the children and young people with whom we work.

Peter’s famous call to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15) may never have been more relevant in our lifetimes. While none of us can expect to become world-class apologists overnight, we might want to think a bit in advance about how we would answer some of the big questions about what is happening in our world (and why), before a child or young person asks us. More than ever, this is the time for unity
During the last few months there has been some amazing unity demonstrated both between individual churches, and the organisations that seek to serve them. Instead of trying to compete with or duplicate one another’s work, there have been some great examples of people signposting to each other’s work and finding new opportunities to work together in their local area (and beyond). In the time that follows – with financial restrictions a constant concern, but plenty of opportunity to serve – this precedent must continue. It’s important to dedicate some time now to what that looks like for us.

We might play a part in helping families not to try to rush back to ‘normality’
Depending on how quickly we are able to exit a world of severe social restrictions, many people may well try to reclaim everything that went before. But if there is one thing that we have all learned in this time, it’s that forcing ourselves to slow down and abstain from certain habitual pursuits is actually pretty good for us. Many families are spending much more quality time together. Having been told that they could only exercise once a day, many people decided they actually would exercise once a day! As these restrictions are lifted, we will have a prophetic voice to bring to families about not losing some of the good habits and lessons we learned during lockdown.
We’ll need to think carefully about how we continue to get the best out of online platforms
We probably all feel like we’ve had enough Zoom calls to last us a lifetime. But while the instinct to move back towards face-to-face youth and children’s work is a good one, perhaps we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Experimenting with online meeting, and other digital practices, shouldn’t just end once we’re allowed to ‘see’ each other again. The last few months have forced a helpful primer for innovation, but this certainly shouldn’t be the end of it. Many children and young people have actually found great connection through online work, and we shouldn’t just abandon them now as we seek to return to analogue methods. Instead perhaps we can learn some lessons from all this pioneering, and develop a best-of-both-worlds model which might have value for years to come.
MARTIN SAUNDERS
is director of innovation at Youthscape.
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For many of us, leadership is a by-product of youth and children's work. But we want to lead well, so each month we unpack an issue we face as leaders, and offer some guidance to traverse it.Leading from homeIf you’re anything like me, you will have spent years carefully fine-tuning your balance of work, home, ministry and rest, setting up intentional rhythms and healthy boundaries that enable you to bring the best of yourself to every environment. In recent months, without warning, all those worlds have come crashing together, making many of those long established rhythms and boundaries null and void. Your space for rest is your space for ministry, your time for family has been invaded by work, and your time for work has been invaded by family!

All this can feel chaotic. By the time our heads hit our pillows we’re exhausted, and not in the good way that follows knowing we’ve squeezed the juice out of the day. We feel busy, but not fruitful; all those balls we’ve been working so hard to juggle seem to be crashing to the ground as we start to lose our grip.

So, how do we get through this? Can lockdown life and church leadership life work together? It’s undoubtedly challenging, and I’m still figuring it out, but here are some of the things I’ve been practising that have been helping me adapt to leading from home…Start as you mean to go onLockdown should not equal lie-in! The way we start our day will have a huge impact on its fruitfulness. Set your alarm at your normal time (perhaps even earlier to get ahead before the household chaos ensues); make your bed to show yourself you are an organised and ordered person; get showered so you feel fresh and ready to go; and get dressed into clothes you would wear on a normal day (ie not joggers and tracksuits!). By doing these things you are making a powerful statement to yourself: “I am bringing my best today”.Jesus first, tech second!It’s a shocking fact that 90% of us pick up our phones immediately upon waking. We check our messages, notifications, email and social feeds while still lying in bed. This is a sure–fire recipe for a life of comparison, discontentment, fear and anxiety. Do not spend time in the morning with your phone before you’ve spent time with Jesus. Open your Bible before you open an app. Speak to Jesus before you speak to a friend. Let scripture, not your Twitter feed, set your view of the world. Let Jesus, not your phone, set your emotional equilibrium for the day."You will get some things right. You will get some things wrong. But in the end, you will get through this"Create separationThe boundaries we previously set up between work and home have come crashing down, so it’s wise to use space to create some kind of identifiable separation where possible. If you have an office or a spare room, utilise that space for work time only and shut the door when you finish. I don’t have a spare room, so I’ve set up a temporary desk in my bedroom. It’s not ideal, but I still try to create separation by shutting down my laptop at the end of the day and packing it away in my bag. It’s a small way of doing something physical to help create mental boundaries.Eliminate distractionsSimilarly, try to get all clutter, devices, piles of washing and any other distractions out of view and earshot when working. Focus is hard in this season, so as far as possible we need to take ourselves away from anything that might distract us. Though please don’t eliminate your children!Self-controlThe biggest distraction we have, even in normal times, is the phone in our pocket…but these are not normal times! During lockdown our messaging apps have gone crazy, because all those ‘corridor conversations’ have been shut down. As we find ourselves multitasking across WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, Messenger, iMessage and email, our time to focus on the important things is decimated. Turn off all your notifications and schedule into your day the time where you check and reply to messages. By setting boundaries around your phone in this way you enable yourself to focus more deeply, get more done and, most importantly, only use your phone when you need it, not when it needs you.Fight Zoom fatigueIs there anything more exhausting than spending all day on Zoom? The extended screen time is taxing, sitting down all day makes us feel lethargic, the very slight delay in response causes stress, the inability to see one another’s posture means we are unable to identify regular social cues, and constantly seeing our own face means we spend the whole time feeling overly self-conscious! Give your eyes a break from the screen and call instead, allowing you to get off your seat walk around as you talk, and even to get some fresh air by chatting outside. Keep things short and sweet, and use the ‘hide self-view’ function to get rid of your own video so you’re not constantly looking at your own face!Get outsideWe’re now allowed unlimited outdoor exercise, as long as we observe the social distancing rules, so make the most of it! Work in shorter, intensely focused blocks (30 minutes is optimal), and then go outside and walk around for five to ten minutes before returning to work again. It will boost your energy, your mood and your focus, aid your mental health and reduce stress. So if you haven’t taken up running, cycling or another form of exercise before, this would be the perfect time to build this rhythm into your life. Over-communicateThe people that we lead right now are feeling just like we do: confused, stressed, overwhelmed, uncertain. Let’s not allow the time we communicate with our teams, children, young people, and parents to diminish. Instead, seek to be a regular calming presence in their lives. This is especially the case for the people on our teams, because it’s so easy for culture to slip when separated.

Be creative with our means of communication…it doesn’t all have to be digital! How about a hand-written letter or card through the post? In a time when people are starved of physical connection, this kind of personal touch might be just the thing they need to encourage them right now. Be real‘Authentic’ is an overused buzz word, but there can be no doubt we need some reality right now. When I meet with my team, I am seeking to intentionally share the areas that I’ve been finding personally difficult in the week. This creates permission for everyone else to not be OK, to share where they have been struggling, which in turn creates a bond through compassion, empathy and affection. This is not a time for you to come across as a superhero who is breezing through these days unaffected, or even as a guru who as all the answers – which is demoralising, not inspiring, for the people you lead. Be flexibleIn the past hour, I have had to stop three times to go and assist my wife with misbehaving children…not something I have to do when I’m in the office. Yet these are not days where we can simply transfer our pre-lockdown rhythms and assume it’s going to work. I have to be flexible. I start work earlier in the morning and usually work later at night after the kids are in bed so I can give a bit of time during the day to home-schooling (which doesn’t always work out the way we want it to, either!).
Be kind to yourselfWe are all in uncharted territory and it is going to take some time for us to work it out. Yes, we want to bring our best to each day, but that doesn’t mean we punish ourselves when things don’t go to plan. Jesus loves what you do because of who you are, not who you are because of what you do. He takes great delight in you when you smash it and even when it smashes you! So be kind to yourself. You will get some things right. You will get some things wrong. But in the end, you will get through this.
We have launched a new video series based on 'Leadership 101'. Watch it here for free. TIM ALFORD
is national director of Limitless and youth ministry specialist lecturer at Regents Theological College.
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Faith at Home is our monthly resources for those seeking to develop children’s faith at home. We know that raising the next generation of Jesus-followers isn’t easy, so we provide ideas and stories that can help us all along the way.

While Faith at Home would normally feature in each monthly magazine, we’re switching things up for our digital editions. Our beloved Faith at Home section will now have its very own dedicated magazine once a month, with all the regular content including Story for home and faith ritual, plus, interviews, features and much more.

Keep your eyes peeled for the first Faith at Home digital edition on 18th June, but if you can’t wait until then, head to youthandchildrens.work/faithathome where you can look through old content to print and share.BACK TO CONTENTS

First Steps TogetherGrowing TogetherJourneying TogetherReady to use all-age serviceReady to use movieWHAT'S IN THIS WEEK?This week children explore the story of Gideon, while young people meet Samson.

In this issue, you'll find one session of First Steps Together (for young children), one session of Growing Together (for older children) and one session of Journeying Together (for young people). The three other sessions for each age group (and PDF versions of all sessions) are available for download at youthandchildrens.work/together.

We also have an all-age service on Gideon and a movie activity all about Frozen II. Look out for all our other regulars in upcoming issues! HOW DO I USE THEM?During this period of lockdown, First Steps Together and Growing Together are designed to be used at home in a family environment. Journeying Together has been written to be used over a video call. BACK TO CONTENTS

First Steps Together - For younger childrenSession 1 of 4GideonMEETING AIMTo think about how we can chat to God whatever we’re feeling, and that he hears us.
BIBLE PASSAGEJudges 6:1-24BACKGROUNDWe find the Israelites seven years into being oppressed by the Midianites, who came in and took over, ravaging the land and leaving little behind. The Israelites cried out to God and he heard them.

Often in the story of Gideon we focus on how God works in unexpected ways, uses unexpected people (Gideon was “the least in” his family, Judges 6:15) and makes us brave. These activities do not touch on that but focus instead on how we can chat to God about whatever we are feeling and how he hears us.STARTING OUT - 5 minsStart your time together with some simple refreshments and chat about what your children have found exciting today (or yesterday, if you’re doing this in the morning). Ask the children how they are feeling today. Happy? Brave? Sad? Excited?PLAY - 10 minsYou will need: small toys, sweets or snacksHand out your toys, sweets or snacks unevenly, making sure some of the family have none and some have lots. Ask everyone how they feel. Is it fair? What do you want to do when things feel unfair? Explain that you’re going to discover a story today all about a time when some people thought things were unfair and what happened when they chatted to God.BIBLE STORY - 10 minsYou will need: toys to be Gideon and the angelBefore you start, hide one toy in a box or gap in the furniture. Then tell this story:

Gideon was an Israelite. He and all the Israelite people were in trouble. They’d stopped listening to God and now they were scared of the Midianite people.

The Midianites camped on the Israelites’ land and they didn’t leave any food for the Israelites to eat.

Hang on, where’s Gideon? Pretend to look. Can anyone find him? Ask your children to hunt for the toy you’ve hidden already. Once found, all move over to where the toy ‘Gideon’ is hiding.

Here’s Gideon. Gideon was an Israelite. Because the Midianite people were so powerful the Israelites made shelters on the edges of mountains and in caves. They tried to hide from them like Gideon was hiding.

It felt unfair. It probably felt scary. How else do you think they might have felt? Ask your family to make ‘it’s not fair’ faces.

The bad Midianites were taking all the Israelites’ stuff. The Israelites were so desperate and hungry. They asked God to help them.

God saw them. He saw what was happening. He sent an angel to come and speak to Gideon. Place the other toy near Gideon, who is still in his hiding place.

The angel told him that God with would be with him, that the people needed a leader and he was to go and fight the Midianites and win.

Gideon was very surprised. He wasn’t the biggest or the oldest, he didn’t think he was the right choice to be a leader. He wanted the angel to give him a sign so he could be really, really sure.

In those days the people would give offerings to God. Often they’d give animals or prepare a meal, like a gift to tell God how much they loved him.

Gideon prepared a meal and placed it in front of the angel. Then the angel did something surprising. He touched the meat and the bread and it set on fire!

Gideon knew it was God. And he believed what the angel was saying.

Gideon, and the Israelite people, told God when they felt that things weren’t fair. And Gideon told God when he wasn’t sure if he believed, when he felt confused. God listened to everything they said. God hears us when we tell him how we feel.CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsChat about the story using these questions:

• What was your favourite part of the story?
• How did the Israelites feel?
• How did Gideon feel?
• Do you ever feel like things are unfair? Do you ever feel sad?

CREATIVE TIME - 10 minsYou will need: a mirror; paper; art and collage materialsGod hears us when we tell him how we feel; if we’re angry, sad, happy, or if life’s not fair, we can chat to God and he listens. Invite your children to make faces in the mirror and draw their own facial expressions. Write on each piece of paper: “I can chat to God when…” and fill in the emotion chosen by the children. Stick the pictures around the house to remind you of what you have discovered.PRAYER - 5 minsYou will need: pictures from ‘Creative time’Use your children’s pictures to pray and thank God that he hears when we’re feeling all of the things they’ve explored. Invite the children to spread out and find their own space and ask them to think of a time when they felt something was unfair. Invite them to chat to God about how that felt. Thank God that he hears everything they’re feeling and that we can always chat to him.ANNIE WILLMOT
is a funeral chaplain and mum of two boys. She recently published Cold Cups of Tea & Hiding in the Loo: An honest look at parenting (CWR). BACK TO CONTENTS

Growing Together - For older childrenSession 1 of 4GideonMEETING AIMTo discover that God is with us when we have to step out for him.
BIBLE PASSAGEJudges 6:1-24BACKGROUNDGideon is the next in a long line of leaders whom God raised up to rescue his people from their enemies, this time the Midianites. We meet Gideon working in a hole, hiding from the Midianites so that they won’t steal his harvest. God transforms Gideon from a nervous member of the “weakest [clan] in Manasseh” (v15) to a mighty leader. For children, life can be full of worries and dangers, both in their situations and the wider world. Help your children to see that God is with them at all times.
STARTING OUT - 5 minsStart your time together with some simple refreshments and chat about what your children have enjoyed the most about today (or yesterday, if you’re doing this in the morning).PLAY - 10 minsPlay a game of hide-and-seek using your whole house and garden, if you have one. Choose one family member to be the seeker and send everyone off to hide. After a certain length of time, the seeker should go off to find the everyone. Can anyone remain undetected?

Once everyone has been found, chat about why you might feel the need to hide. If you have time, play the game again.BIBLE STORY - 10 minsYou will need: Bible; scrap paper; felt-tip pensExplain that at this time, the people of God – Israel – weren’t very good at following him. They would follow God for a bit and then start ignoring him, doing all the things they wanted to do. God was sad, and sent other nations and kings to control Israel. Eventually, the people of God would realise that they were better off following God, not these mean and nasty kings, so they asked God for help and he sent a leader to help them. Read verses 1-7 to your children and wonder together what might happen next. What will God do?

Share out some paper and felt-tip pens. Read Judges 6:11-24. Stop after each of the verses below and ask the children how Gideon feels. Everyone should draw an appropriate emoji on a piece of paper that matches their suggestion. Then ask what might happen next:

• Verse 12
• Verse 14
• Verse 16
• Verse 22
• Verse 24

Outline the next part of Gideon’s story to the children. He tears down the altar to Baal (a god that the Israelites had started to worship) in Judges 6:25-32 and defeats the Midianites (Judges 6:33-8:21). Emphasise how God was with Gideon as he fought God’s enemy.CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsChat about the story using these questions:

• Why did Gideon doubt that God would be with him and help him?
• What does this story tell you about God?
• Have you ever had a time when you have felt that God was with you? (Have an example ready from your own life to get the ball rolling if necessary.)
• When you feel scared, what do you do? Who helps you feel better?
• Have you ever asked God to help? When and why?

CREATIVE TIME - 10 minsYou will need: a friend with a story about God helping them in difficulty; pens and paperBefore the session, find a friend who has a story about God helping them in a scary situation. It needn’t be a life or death story, one that children might identify with (school bullying, difficulties at home or a scary journey) would be appropriate. Invite them to join you via video or voice call. Make sure they have practised telling their story in a way that your children will understand.

Tell your family who is coming and encourage them to think of questions that they might ask your friend. Try to steer the children towards questions about God’s role in the story. However, allow some fun questions too! You might like to write them down if that would help your family remember.

Welcome your friend and invite them to tell their story. At the end, encourage your children to ask their questions. Finally, thank your friend for their time and encourage your family to pray for them before they leave.
PRAYER - 5 minsYou will need: reflective music and the means the play itRemind the children of where we find Gideon at the start of the story – he was hiding in a hole because he didn’t want the Midianites (his enemies) to see him. Invite your family to find a place in your house where they can sit, just as Gideon was hidden. Play your reflective music and invite the family to chat with God about the things that scare them or they would like him to help with. This could be things about their immediate lives, such as family or school, or more general worries, such as the environment or coronavirus.

Finish by reading verse 12 and thanking God for being with you and helping you when things are scary.
ALEX TAYLOR
is resources editor for Premier Youth and Children’s Work.
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Journeying Together - For young peopleSession 1 of 4SamsonMEETING AIMTo explore spiritual gifts and their place in leadership.
BIBLE PASSAGEJudges 15BACKGROUNDThese sessions are designed for you to do online in a group video call (on something like Facetime or Zoom). Make sure you have parental permission to do this, as well as following your church’s safeguarding procedure.

This is a brutal story, but God is at work in it and through it. Samson is given power in the Spirit to punish the Philistines, killing 1,000 men. This can be a difficult thing for young people (and us) to process. Acknowledge this, and spend some time thinking about it if the group would like to, but emphasise that the Spirit gives us gifts to build up each other and the Church. How do you see the Spirit at work in your own life, and the lives of the young people you work with?
JOINING THE SESSION - 5 minsAs people join you online, ask them to share what they have been doing during the past seven days. Ask the group if they have had to show their physical strength in the past week. Did they carry bags of shopping, help with DIY, or learn a difficult dance move?
INTRO ACTIVITY - 10 minsYou will need: pictures of different popular giftsBefore the session, find pictures of different popular gifts and crop them so only a part of the picture can be seen.

Show the pictures using your video conferencing software and ask the group to guess what the gifts are. Ask the young people how it feels to receive a gift. What positive experiences of gifts have they had? Why did they like the gift so much? What could they do with it? Why was it important to them?BIBLE EXPLORATION - 10 minsYou will need: Bibles; paper; pensMake sure everyone has a Bible, a piece of paper and a pen. Ask the young people to look up Judges 15. Read the passage together. Invite the group to draw a gingerbread person shape on their paper and fill the shape with words that describe Samson in this passage. Then ask them to turn the person over and write down what they think God is doing in this story. Ask the young people to share what they have written and why. Were there any areas where everyone wrote the same thing? Or any areas of disagreement? Emphasise that God blessed Samson with a special gift of strength which was given to him when the Spirit came on him. The God-given gift of strength helped him in his leadership to overcome the Philistines.

In smaller groups (if your video conferencing software allows; work together if you have a small group), give each group one of the passages below to look up in their Bibles. Ask them to draw out the spiritual gifts from each and list them.

• Romans 12:6-8 (Leadership, teaching, prophecy, encouragement, service, mercy, giving)
• 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 (Discernment, prophecy, faith, healing, miracles, tongues)
• 1 Corinthians 12:28-30 (Administration, teaching, knowledge, wisdom, apostleship, service)
• Ephesians 4:11 (Teaching, pastoring, evangelism, apostleship)
• 1 Peter 4:9-11 (Hospitality)

Ask the young people to feed back and build a bigger list to incorporate them all. Then ask someone to read 1 Corinthians 12:7 to the rest of the group.CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsUse these questions to carry on your discussion about the Bible passage, encouraging everyone to contribute who would like to:

• What do you think of Samson in the story? How did God use him?
• Compare how the Holy Spirit worked in Samson with the list of gifts of the Spirit you compiled. What are the similarities or differences? Why are they different?
• Do you have any of these gifts? How do you use them in your life?

CREATIVE RESPONSE - 10 minsYou will need: pens and paperMake sure everyone has a piece of paper and a pen. They should write down the names of everyone in their group in a column down the left-hand side of the paper. Next to each name, they should write a positive statement about that person. It could be a gift that they have identified from the list of ‘gifts from God’ or an encouraging message about who they are.

When they have finished, ask the group to take a picture of their sheet (or write it up into an email or message) and send it to you. After the session, collate the statements about each person into separate documents or messages. Send these out so that each person can see what the positive, affirming things that everyone else said about them. Keep the comments anonymous.
PRAYER - 5 minsAsk the young people about the spiritual gifts mentioned in the list they compiled in ‘Bible exploration’ and ask if they would like any of them. Spend some time praying together and ask the Holy Spirit for his gifts. Remind the young people that God gave a gift to Samson to help him in the leadership task that he had, and that God gives gifts to us to help us build the Church. Everyone has a role within the Church, and spiritual gifts help with this.
This session was inspired by ideas from the Premier Youth and Children’s Work archive, adapted by ALEX TAYLOR.
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Ready to use all-age serviceGideonMEETING AIMTo explore how God calls us, even if we feel unequipped to fulfil his calling.
BIBLE PASSAGEJudges 6:1-24BACKGROUNDGideon is a young man living in fear. The Midianites have decimated Israel and when we meet, he is working in pit so that he can’t be seen by his enemies. God calls him to lead the resistance against the Midianites, but Gideon is resistant to that call. He takes some convincing, but God calms his fears, promising: “I am going to help you.”

This service is designed to be use over video-conferencing software, such as Zoom. Adapt the ideas to fit the way you are doing church during lockdown, including any songs and liturgy you are using.
SIGNING IN - 5 minsAs people join your service, welcome them and ask them about their week.
WELCOME - 5 minsOPTION ONE: Stories
Invite people to share a story of a time when they had to do something that scared them. Why were they scared? Did they feel unprepared? You might wish to prime some people to get the ball rolling. Depending on the amount of people joining your service, you may want to put people into smaller, breakout groups, for this time.
OPTION TWO: Being scared
You will need: pictures of things that might scare people (such as heights, clowns and spiders)Show the pictures on screen one by one and ask the congregation to indicate in some way (either in a chat box or using the emojis available in your software) if they are scared by each thing. Ask a couple of volunteers why they are scared by some of these things.BIBLE STORY - 10 minsYou will need: two baskets of fruit and veg; members of your household to be Midianites and Gideon (if you are alone, or only live with one other person, you could ask a larger household to tell the story for you); a large piece of materialMake sure your Midianites and Gideon are standing just out of shot. Pick up a basket of food and tell the story:

In the time of the Judges, the people of God (Israel) weren’t very good at following him. They would follow God for a bit and then start ignoring him, doing all the things they wanted to do. God was sad, and sent other nations and kings to control Israel. In this case it was the Midianites. The Midianites cheer from off-screen.

Every time the people of God planted food, the Midianites would rush in. The Midianites charge into shot, take the basket of food and run off cheering. They would steal everything! The people of God would plant more food. Pick up another basket. And back would come the Midianites. The Midianites run on, take the basket and run off cheering.

One day, God sent an angel to a man called Gideon. Invite Gideon to stand next to you. Gideon was so afraid that the Midianites would find him and steal his food, that he was preparing grain sitting in a hole. Throw the material over Gideon to hide him.

The angel told Gideon: “The Lord is helping you and you are a strong warrior!” Ask the congregation if they think Gideon looks like a strong warrior. The Midianites should jeer from off-screen. Even Gideon didn’t think he was a strong warrior. He takes off the material. He didn’t believe the angel. He didn’t think the Lord was helping his people, he didn’t think he was strong enough to defeat the Midianites, he didn’t even believe he was talking to God!

But the angel convinced Gideon, and Gideon went on to rescue God’s people with God’s help. The man who was so scared of the Midianites that he was hiding in a hole defeated his enemies and brought peace to Israel. Gideon runs off-screen shouting. The Midianites should run back and forth behind you, being chased by Gideon.
SMALL GROUPS - 10 minsIf your software allows, send everyone off into different break out rooms made up of a few households. Put these questions into each group’s chat box:

• What’s your favourite part of the story?
• Have you ever felt like Gideon? When?
• Do you think God is with you? What difference does walking with him make?

Give the groups time to chat about these questions, referring to the Bible passage as they need to.

If you can’t put people into break-out rooms, ask individual households to discuss the questions, and link up those who live on their own using another messaging or video calling app.REVIEW - 5 minsGet some feedback from the ‘Small groups’ encouraging everyone to take part who wants to.
Invite people to do one of these activities in response:OPTION ONE: Collage
People will need: A4 paper; collage materials; newspapers; scissors; glue; felt-tip pensEncourage people to respond by making a collage. They could tear out headlines or stories from the newspapers to think about scary situations in their life or the world, where they would like God to give them the power to change.OPTION TWO: Discussion
Assign some volunteers to a break-out room (if that is possible) to help guide a discussion about the story and what it might mean today.
OPTION THREE: Reflection
People will need: a candle, holding cross or other spiritual stimulusInvite people to light a candle or hold a cross, and spend some time in quiet reflection.
CLOSING - 5 minsBring everyone back together and ask if anyone would like to share anything from the response time. Thank everyone for taking part and say an appropriate blessing to close the service.
ALEX TAYLOR
is resources editor for Premier Youth and Children’s Work.
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Ready to use movieFrozen II (U)Clip: 01:09:54 – 01:17:39
SYNOPSISHaving harnessed her growing power after lifting the curse of eternal winter in Frozen, Queen Elsa rules the peaceful kingdom of Arendelle, enjoying a happy life with her sister, Princess Anna. However, a melodious voice that only Elsa can hear keeps her awake, inviting her to the mystical enchanted forest that the sister’s father told them about a long time ago. Unable to block the call, Elsa follows the voice into the unknown along with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven, intent on finding answers in the woods. Upon discovering the tribe of Northuldra, Elsa and Anna must confront some difficult truths about their past.

After the monumental success of Frozen, Frozen II had quite a lot to live up to both in terms of popularity and success. It is more complex and mature than its predecessor with the idea that the primary audience has grown up a little since the original was released.DISCUSSAsk your children or young people if anyone has seen the film before. See if anyone can recap the events and plot of Frozen to bring everyone up to speed. Chat about these questions:

• Who is your favourite character in Frozen and why?
• What is your favourite song in Frozen and why?
• What is the best bit in Frozen and Frozen II (if you have seen it) and why?
• If you could have powers like Elsa’s ice abilities, what would you choose and why?

The clip focuses on Anna and Olaf. Walking through a cave, Anna is faced with the realisation that her grandfather’s actions caused the troubles that she is facing. Olaf begins to ‘flurry’ and fade away, which tells Anna that her sister must also be in trouble. Anna collapses to the ground. However, she begins to find courage and sings a song where she encourages herself to reject the negative voices in her head, but to focus on “doing the next right thing”. Buoyed by her new-found courage, Anna exits the cave and prepares to save the day.

After watching the clip together, have a chat about what you’ve seen. You might want to use some of these questions to explore the issues:

• When Olaf tells Anna that she will have to go on alone, how do you think Anna feels? Why?
• Olaf says that he has discovered that "love is permanent". What do you think he means? Who do you love?
• How does Anna change from the start of the song to the end?
• Anna decides to be really brave at the end of the song. Has there ever been a time in your life when you have had to be brave?

If you’d like to extend this into a family Bible time, think about the story of Joseph. Summarise the story and then read Genesis 37:12-36:

• Why are Joseph’s brothers so mean in this story?
• Have you ever felt disappointed in someone? What should we do when this happens?
• How is the love between Anna and Elsa different to how Joseph’s brothers treat him?
• How do you think Joseph would have felt at the end of this passage?
• Anna has to be really brave at the end of this clip and she promises to "do the next right thing". How can you all commit to doing the next right thing in the next week?

Frozen II is on DVD now and available on Disney+ from July 2020.TOM WADE
is the head of humanities at Haileybury and Imperial Service College.
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JobsearchCONTACT
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ClassifiedsCONTACT
Tel: 0207 316 1413
Email: classifieds@premier.org.uk
Post: 22 Chapter Street, London, SW1P 4NP

RATES
£22 + VAT per single column centimetre. For example a 6cm up x 2 column across (91mm) is £264 + VAT. Charities may be VAT zero rated – ask for details.

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