June 2020  |  Vol. 5PASSIONATE ABOUT RAISING THE NEXT GENERATION +Taking the gospel online
What’s the point of youth work?
Reaching out without words

YCW | June 2020 | Vol. 5ContentsRegularsFirst wordNews and commentCulture
The new normal
Q&A: Ben CuttingYouth for Christ’s digital evangelist Ben Cutting knows a thing or two about engaging with children and young people online. He spoke to us about his YouTube channel and gives advice to those looking to better reach out in the online space.
All inclusive
How inclusive is your ministry?
Safeguarding
...for training purposes
School’s work: In theory
Whither the schools’ worker
In case of emergency
Teenage rebellion
“We only need to be there for our young people and children”School's work
If one of your favourites is missing from this week's issue, there’s no need to worry. Our regular columns will be littered throughout the month, so there won't be long to wait!FeaturesTwo wise menHoward Worsely and Andrew Root are both experienced in the worlds of youth and children’s work, and both happen to have new books out about parenting. We got them together in a (virtual) room to chat.
Helping children adjust to the new normalCare for the Family give their tips on how to talk to young people and children about life in the ‘new normal’, and how to help them to deal with the difficult feelings that may arise.
AlsoOur resources are going to be spread out into weekly bite-size chunks each month. This week, children and young people explore one of Jesus’ most famous parables about ‘the sower’. Plus, we’ve included a ready to use parable and creative prayer. See our resources contents to get started.

PS We’ve tweaked all our resources to make them at-home friendly.Don’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 next week on 16th July.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE Peter KerridgeDIRECTOR OF CONTENT Charmaine Noble-McLean EDITOR  Ruth Jackson DESIGNERJohn LloydDEPUTY EDITORJessica LesterRESOURCES EDITORAlex TaylorCONSULTING EDITORSJamie Cutteridge
Andy Peck
NEWS EDITORMarcus JonesEDITORIAL OFFICEPremier Youth and Children’s Work,
PO Box 17911,
London SW1P 4YX
020 7233 6705
ycw@premier.org.uk
youthandchildrens.workADVERTISINGDave Edmondson
020 7316 1341
dave.edmondson@premier.org.uk PREMIER JOBSEARCH / CLASSIFIEDS Sally Reeves
020 7316 1413
JOBSEARCH: sally.reeves@premier.org.uk
CLASSIFIEDS: classifieds@premier.org.uk SUBSCRIPTIONSsubscriptions@premier.org.uk
Annual price: £47.99 
(UK Direct Debit),
01892 611180 Premier Youth and Children’s Work is protected by copyright and nothing within it may be reproduced wholly or in part without written permission. The acceptance of advertising does not indicate endorsement.

Premier Youth and Children’s Work magazine is published by Premier Christian Communications.

Premier Youth and Children’s Work Magazine
ISSN 2399-6889

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
youthandchildrens.work

YCW | June 2020 | Vol. 5First wordIf the (slowly easing) lockdown has created anything, it’s space. Space to spend time with the loved ones you happen to share a roof with, and now those outside of it (but only in accordance with the regularly-changing government guidelines). Space to catch up on admin and learn new skills. Space to finally binge watch Seinfeld in full.

Some of us may still be deciding what to do with that space – and the recent Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd presented us with opportunities: either to elevate our voices, or have meaningful conversations where we just listen to others. For us at Premier Youth and Children’s Work, we’ve been spending time on the latter; reading, watching and listening more to often-unheard or ignored voices.

In our collective years spent putting this magazine together, one of our favourite things are those moments when you figuratively sit at the feet of others and soak up their wisdom, and this week is no different. For those of you who have been readers for a while, you’ll know just how much wisdom Andrew Root and Howard Worsley have to offer. Andrew’s books have been youth ministry staples for years, and his recent works remain just as essential. Many of Howard’s Premier Children’s Work articles were among the best things we ever published. Both have released new books in the past few months, and both talk a lot about the role of parents, from youth work, children’s work and parenting angles. So we got them together to chat, to share ideas and to listen to one another. Our feeling is that both went away changed, with something new to wrestle with, from the encounter, and our hope is that you’ll do exactly the same.

That’s what real listening does. If we approach a conversation, or someone else’s story, so entrenched in our own views, then we don’t truly listen and engage. Instead, we search for confirmation bias and want to remain in our own echo chambers where our views are reinforced, we’re patted on the back and sent on our way.

It’s had us wondering what our image of Jesus is when it comes to listening. It’s easy to paint a picture of Jesus as someone with all the answers, who went around dispensing wisdom like an officious church warden with antibacterial gel. But the gospel is full of stories where rather than providing answers, Jesus asks questions – somewhere close to 300 of them according to one study. While on one level, these questions may in some ways be to help followers to reach conclusions themselves, what if Jesus realised he didn’t have all the answers and was keen to draw on the wisdom of those around him? What if his view of the world was impacted by the stories of those around him? Did the experience of marginalised voices, the women, the foreigner, the leper, change his approach to ministry? This isn't to question God's omniscience, more a reminder that since the beginning of this story we've been invited to co-create with Father, Son and Spirit. While Jesus was fully divine, he was also fully human, and there is something inherently human about asking questions and about the shared narrative that emerges from the experiences and ideas of those around us.

It’s worth, then, this week asking how your ministry is set up for the questions that children and young people have. Do we meaningfully engage with them and listen deeply, or are we looking for quick pat answers? “What I want from my youth worker is somebody who’s not going to be squeaky and plastic,” Howard explains in Two wise men. “If all they’re doing is offering a conformity and cheap entertainment, it will look fake.”

The real questions that children and young people have are messy and don’t come with easy answers, but sometimes it’s in this space opened up by the questions that true transformation and ministry occurs. Anything less than that will sell our children and young people woefully short.
Social Media shout-outTo 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.BACK TO CONTENTS

NewsAction for Children warn vulnerable children left ‘out of sight’ by pandemic
There is a warning that the closure of schools and children’s services due to the coronavirus pandemic has led to many vulnerable children being ‘out of sight’ and not receiving the early help support they need. Action for Children, linked to the Methodist Church, has been speaking to heads of early help services, lead practitioners, and head teachers across England for a new report.

It found that the move online for child services has led to greater engagement with teenagers but access for support for young children has been made difficult and that many families have been left isolated as they have no access to a digital device or internet connection.

Action for Children is calling for local authorities and government to provide more resources to ensure that vulnerable children can get the right support early, before problems have the chance spiral out of control.Training college commits to helping youth and children’s workers tackle post COVID world
As the Institute for Children, Youth and Mission (CYM) moves to its new base in Leicester, it’s renewing its commitment to helping those working on the front line of ministry. The specialist college for training in children’s and youth ministry says the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic is going to pose many problems for the country’s children and young people.

Dr Sally Nash, Head of the Institute of Children, Youth and Mission said: “In these circumstances it is important that young people in our churches and in our wider communities can clearly hear the Christian message of hope and are supported to try and overcome these COVID-19 consequences. We will need many dedicated workers in this ministry, bringing Christ’s love to those who may well feel neglected and oppressed. The work needs specialist training by experts and the team at CYM are equipped to train Christians from a wide range of different church backgrounds to bring effective ministry to those that wider society may so easily overlook. Our new base at Leicester provides the perfect environment for teaching which supplements the practical placement experience through which our students learn how to apply what they are taught in the classroom fortnightly.’”

The college is hoping to take in new students in September although teaching may be needed to be done online if it isn’t possible to gather for study.Teenage tech prodigy to be made a Saint in the Catholic Church
A teenage computer science prodigy who died in 2006 is set to be given a sainthood in the Catholic Church. Carlo Acutis, who was born in London to Italian parents, will be beatified by Pope Francis on 10th October in Assisi, Italy.

A devoted Catholic, Acutis was known for his practice of daily prayer and his documentation of Eucharistic miracles, alongside a love of modern IT programming. Owing to his fascination with modern technology, the late youngster is set to be known as the ‘future patron of the internet’.

The supernatural occurrence attributed to him - which has paved the way for his sainthood - involved a Brazilian boy being cured of a rare congenital disease after prayers were made for Carlo to intervene. As is customary for any individual being considered for canonisation, two miracles must be attributed to the candidate and independently verified by a panel of experts. Hopefuls must also have been proved to exhibit ‘heroic virtue’ and be a committed ‘servant of God’.

Last November, The Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes gave a positive opinion of the miracle, and Pope Francis approved it in February. Acutis’ mother, Antonia Salzano, told CNA last year: “Jesus was the centre of his day. Carlo really had Jesus in his heart, really the pureness. When you are really pure of heart, you really touch people’s hearts.”Youthscape seek to answer: Now What?
Youth work charity Youthscape are putting on a free, online event in July, looking at what youth ministry in a post-COVID-19 world might look like.

Taking place over 24 hours on 16th and 17th July, Now What will include main sessions, seminars and coaching as they search for a positive vision in the ‘new normal’. The whole event will be free and available on catch up. For more details and to sign up click here.BACK TO CONTENTS

NewsCOMMENTYoung people around the word recently showed how they are able to have a direct impact on politics through social media. How do we harness that enthusiasm and creativity to get our teenagers engaged in politics?The other day I woke up to the news that the scheduled Trump Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma was sabotaged by TikTok users and K-Pop fans. An event that boasted over a million ticket requests only had 6,200 attendees in a 19,000-capacity arena, because of hundreds of thousands of fake tickets bought by the social media community. This was not just some friends trolling someone which went viral, it was a coordinated and strategic effort by an entire community spanning the globe. They have history in this arena and have come to be an unlikely ally to the Black Lives Matter Movement online. What is remarkable is that a global community consisting mainly of teenagers derailed a key political event of the most powerful man on the planet, just using their phones.

Whether or not you agree with this activism, it is clear that they are passionate and represent a generation with the tools to affect change in new and previously unimaginable ways. Young people in the UK are more aware of issues of injustice and their relationship to politics than ever before because information is now accessible to them through a medium they are experts in: social media. Social media platforms and the internet have given young people the voice and power that they were previously denied. The case of the TikTok trolling of Trump’s rally goes further and shows not only do they have a voice, but the imagination and motivation to use media they are experts in to a deeply political end.

The question at Christians in Politics is not whether young Christians have power and capacity to influence, but how do we equip and encourage young people eager to see kingdom values expressed through government policy? There is less need to educate and inspire young people around the social and political issues of the day, we just need to fan the flame that is already there by equipping them to channel their passion to transform the world for the better. Our response has been to set up Young Christians in Politics (YCIP), where we provide training, events, community and support. At the centre of this is a drive towards relational engagement with one another despite apparent political differences. We seek to bring those in different rooms together rather than pushing them further apart.

One of the ways we are doing this is by setting up a mentorship scheme where those in the political sphere including MPs, councillors, campaigners and civil servants are matched up locally with young people to share their wisdom and to support the young person on their own political journey. Young people are quite literally the future, but they are also active and engaging politically in the present. The sooner we wake up to that reality and can partner with them to engage effectively, the better off our world will be.
ALASDAIR HOWORTH
heads up Young Christians in Politics. For more information about YCIP email ycip@christiansinpolitics.org.uk, join the Facebook group or find them at christiansinpolitics.org.uk.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Culture
Now I don’t know about you, but just when I feel I’m starting to get used to the changes in my lifestyle due to the coronavirus pandemic, along comes another ‘new normal’ to adapt to. From not going outside, to essential trips only and then to seeing six friends at a distance (I can’t keep up…) and soon two households able to meet indoors – it’s been small steps of constant change; and what’s worse, all while we’re being fed from the media things will “never be the same again”. That this is ‘normal’ now.

Unsurprisingly, it’s anxiety inducing for me as an adult. I crave my routine of getting out to the office, seeing colleagues and friends and socialising with family on the weekends. Without a doubt, it’s seen my faith waver in ways I didn’t expect. First came the questions: What does this mean for my future? What is God trying to do through this? What does God want me to do through this? Before the slow decline of Bible reading and church Zoom calls as I struggled to connect, and the eventual feeling of being so totally overwhelmed by it all that I struggled to see God in any of these ‘new normals’ at all.

Luckily, with my adult brain, I can comprehend and understand (as much as is possible with the confusion) the pandemic and come up with ways in which I’ve personally responded and ideas to help me adapt: frequent socially distanced walks, Facetime calls and sitting in a queue of 35 cars to get McDonald’s, just to name a few. I’m able to pick myself up, dust myself off and accept what’s going on around me; but our children and young people may not feel able to do so as readily when facing the prospect of an ever-changing ‘normality’.

As parents, friends, youth and children’s workers, we rightly feel we need to help young people to adjust to these worldly adaptations – promising that things will be OK even if they are different, and even if that’s going to be for ever. But while it’s true that things may not be the same as they were before the pandemic – not at least for a while – and the landscape is going to be difficult to navigate along the way, it’s important we circle all of this back to Jesus to gain some perspective and lighten the mood.
“My 'new normal' won't look the same as yours - so let's allow every child to adapt in their own way”Acceptance isn’t always the answer
Early on in my faith at the end of my teenage years, if there’s one phrase I detested hearing, it was that “God will make everything OK” without acknowledgement of my involvement. I was struggling with severe mental health issues, difficulties at home and navigating my first job – so while I understood the adults in the room were trying to be helpful and what they were saying was true, I felt as though all my issues were just being swept under the rug and that I just had to accept what was going on. I had no part in everything going on around me and changing it was beyond me. Some people may find that comforting, I felt like I was losing grip on myself and control over my own life.

It feels worryingly the same to me when I hear young people being told: “Well, this is our new normal”, “It’s just going to have to be this way” and “You’ll get used to it eventually” – that we as adults are just accepting circumstances that we know are making us, and our young people, unhappy and are willing to live it day in and day out without giving them freedom of expression to disagree or do something to challenge it. If our young people are struggling with the current situation, these kind of ‘comforting’ words aren’t going to pull much – or any – weight.
It doesn’t have to be normal
Now, I’m not saying we can just decide to live differently, break the rules in place to protect us and be un-safe. We’re going to need to adapt. But Jesus wasn’t one to sweep things under the rug and ‘accept things as they are’. He didn’t tell his disciples that everything was going to be fine and dandy and that they would have peace no matter what the future held. Jesus was real about the fact that it would be a struggle and (here’s the key), not just that it ‘eventually will be OK so just accept it’, but to be courageous as we battle our way through alongside him.

In John 16, Jesus tells his disciples: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (verse 33). Jesus knew the disciples were about to enter a difficult time, when he would die on the cross – and that they would have to get used to their ‘new normal’ without him. They didn’t have to accept it, they didn’t have to like it, he doesn’t tell them that the trouble about to happen is OK or justified – he just says: “take heart”. We don’t have to accept the ‘new normal’, nor like it, and it’s not necessarily justified. Jesus asks us to stand with him.
Take heart!
What does this mean - to ‘take heart’ as Jesus instructs us to? I’d say, to live courageously and look towards him, doing what he asks of us while also pulling our own weight in the situation we’re placed in. It’s an active process we can get our children and young people involved with. We don’t just sit back and say: “It is what it is” – we get up, get going and shout along the way: “This is what’s happening but I’m being active in living the life I want to despite the limitations – despite the ‘trouble’.”

Suddenly, the anxiety of having to get used to a ‘new normal’ seems less threatening when we’re not only allowed by God to have our moment moaning about it, but also when he invites us to be part of the process. It switches from happening to us, to happening alongside us. Even as an adult, feeling included and in-the-know with Jesus is a comfort to me. I know I can turn in prayer and say: “Lord, I’m not happy right now with the way things are. It’s not OK. But I’m being brave and I’m going out there giving it my best shot.”

We have to be reminded that we need teamwork with Jesus to make the dream work (it’s a cliché, but we all know as youth and children’s workers that working together works best). As much as the adults in the room were right in telling me that “God will make everything OK” all those years ago – he will and does – I also had my part to play in this. I had to choose to actively pursue him, trust him and love him for the best results in changing my life around. It didn’t make what was happening to me OK or my 'new normal', it gave me grounds to start sharing how I feel with Jesus and adapting my life to fit what I wanted to see with his blessing.

“I have overcome the world,” Jesus reminds us in the same verse, a comfort that we don’t have to have it all sussed. Young people need to know in equal parts that God has their backs in this, and, more importantly, he is giving them the freedom to adapt as they feel comfortable, in their own time and in their own way. I know that my ‘new normal’ won’t look the same as yours, and yours to your neighbours – so let's allow every child to adapt in their own way.
JESS LESTER
is deputy editor of Premier Youth and Children’s Work.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Q&ABen Cutting
For many of us, the past few months might have been our first foray into working with children and young people online, but for Youth for Christ’s digital evangelist, Ben Cutting, this is his bread and butter. We spoke to him about his YouTube channel and what advice he’s given those looking to start engaging with young people in this space.
YCW: Tell us about your role at Youth for Christ. Why have they invested in a digital evangelist?
Ben Cutting: So the role came off of the back of a piece of research called Digital Generation that Youth for Christ did in 2018, looking into the specifics of what young people were doing when they’re online: how they spend their time, what social media platforms they’re using, and things like that. And so we set out to engage with young people in a new way, through creating a following of young people around the UK, like a YouTuber would, but using it as an opportunity to tell young people about the good news of Jesus. And so the channel, Intro Outro, was born, with the idea to introduce young people to Jesus and encourage them to live that out.

We’ve spent the first twelve months trying to work out what’s popular – we’ve put out a mix of random, fun, engaging content, and are trying to use videos to build relationships. But ultimately, the core of who we are is evangelistic and we want to tell young people about Jesus. The gospel message isn’t in every video, but it’s a huge part of what we do. YCW: So much of YouTube culture is personality driven, which is the antithesis of good youth ministry. How do you live in that tension?
BC: The way I think about it is that in the same way that James Corden hosts The Late Late Show, I very much see myself as the host of Intro Outro. So therefore, there are segments that I am involved in, but there are also other segments and videos that don’t have me in it, such as when we talk about things like faith and science, I don’t have the depth of knowledge to talk about that, so we find somebody who can add that depth. Eventually when I move on from Intro Outro, someone else will come in and host it and it’ll still be Intro Outro just like when James Corden leaves, it’ll still be The Late Late Show. “Online space is a legitimate way to reach a generation of young people who don’t know Christ at all”YCW: What difference has lockdown made to the channel?
BC: We made a decision right at the beginning that our task was to tell young people about Jesus and so we’re looking at the 95% that don’t engage with church. And so when the Church went online at the start of lockdown, there was ample stuff for Christian young people to get involved in – Zooms, Instagram lives and YouTube lives – and so we decided that we would very much stay in our lane and just continue to do what we’ve been doing.

And hopefully through that, you know, youth workers who have started to look at stuff online would see it as a signpost to send to the young people who are perhaps not engaging. In terms of numbers and engagement, it’s skyrocketed for us and we’ve grown a lot. YCW: As someone who exists in this online world, what’s it been like to see the rest of the Church try and engage people online over the last few months?
BC: I think it’s been really good. But my heart is that when this is all over, I don’t want to see a church’s YouTube channel – one that has had really good engagement for three months during lockdown – to go silent for three years, until they upload a highlight video from their weekend away! My hope is that on the back of this, the Church has awakened to the fact that your young people have got their friends, schoolmates and mates from different clubs who would never engage with church, and that the online space is a legitimate way to reach a generation of young people who don’t know Christ at all.

When I was I was a youth worker in Jersey we used YouTube as a way to enhance our youth ministry. We saw it as a way to build on what we were already doing. We called it an easy share, so that you know if a young person is in a video with us and they’re having a good time, they’re going to share a video with their friends. Then next time I go into the school to do a Christian Union, their friends are like: “Oh hang on I recognise that guy!” “If you want to see results it takes a long-term commitment”YCW: How important is the quality of this content? Is it better to do nothing than to do something a bit shonky?
BC: When I was back in Jersey, we decided to try and go for a video every two weeks. That was a stretch; it’s really important to keep the quality as high as it can be, but to also keep consistency. Nowadays, you know, a one-minute video on an iPhone with an engaging story can be enough. One piece of advice is to always try and ‘add some magic’. So every time I think of a video, I’m thinking about whether there’s somebody that I can bring in on this video to help: to bounce off me, to bring some laughter. If we’re talking about fear, can I go and face a fear on camera? YCW: What would be your three pieces of advice for someone looking to get started producing these kind of videos?
BC: The first one that we’ve already touched on is consistency. Whatever success looks like to you in this space, is a little bit like dieting. If you want to see results it takes a long-term commitment. You can take shortcuts and you can have a bit of short-term success very, very short term. But for long-term results it takes a lot of consistency. The second bit is that magic I talked about. What can you add to the video? The third would be timeless truths. When you look back at a video in ten years, culture may have moved on, but actually the truth of what we say in the video is still relevant.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Two wise men
Howard Worsley and Andrew Root are both experienced in the worlds of children’s and youth work, and both happen to have new books out on parenting and wider youth and children’s work. We got them both together in a (virtual) room to chat about their books, storytelling and parents.
Howard Worsley: I think anybody who sets out to want to write a book on parenting for faith is probably very arrogant and the very sort of person I wouldn’t like to know. So I was very cautious when I was invited by Lion Hudson Publishing to think about this. I actually thought in my arrogance that they were interested in my wider writings about children encountering God, but they were just interested to know how I as a dad was operating. So it was probably the nicest book I’ve ever written because I just wrote straight off the top of my head, putting in my distilled thoughts and backfilling it with my wider reflection. And the way not to be arrogant was I asked all my grown-up sons to give a very serious bounce back at me, and by far the best bit about this book is my sons commenting on my ideas.
Andrew Root: My book is ultimately asking: “What is youth ministry for in the first place?” We’re in the midst of larger cultural changes across the west. Has congregational-based youth ministry, prevalent throughout the western world, seen its best days? How can youth ministry be vital amidst these cultural changes? Parents became a central theme in it and my own existential journey as a parent comes into it, but I’m trying to be more theoretical, looking at why parents make the decisions that they make and how youth workers’ mindsets become determined by this.

Kids are involved in sport, drama, and music lessons and test prep and we have had to squeeze the youth meeting in on top of all of that! I was trying to unveil for youth workers that actually parents make decisions to send their kids to all sorts of other activities that compete with church involvement, not because they hate their kids, but because they deeply love their kids. They are doing some kind of calculation on what is good for their kid. And they may feel a little shameful about it.
HW: For a long time, the churches that have been able to afford a youth minister are of course churches that have got a bit more cash, and therefore to some extent are what we might call middle class. Churches in the suburbs are the ones with youth ministry. And of course, the gospel has always been primarily for the poor. And that’s been a cry my heart as to how we handle youth ministry, and it seems now that youth ministry is failing because it’s been commodified. We’ve just made God into some sort of commodity; we don’t deserve to be proponents of the gospel if that’s what we’ve done with the gospel.
“It’s not just about youth ministry being attractive or entertaining, but deliberately setting it out to be cruciform”AR: One of the elements that I tried to discuss is how parents feel a lot of pressure. There’s been a transition since the 80s and 90s, where typical middle-class parents believed in giving their kids space. The example I use is from the TV show Stranger Things. The kids in Stranger Things can roam the neighbourhood and their parents are depicted as not doing anything. And in many ways these were good 1980s parents, who gave their kids a nice house in the suburbs, a meal every night and a lot of space to just live. But you ended up having kids getting into a lot of trouble.

Congregational youth ministry comes in as a kind of way to slow kids down from growing up so fast and giving them something playful and silly to do. But in the States, we’ve seen this huge transition again, sometime around the year 2000, where all of a sudden, parents become overly involved in their kids’ lives.

There’s this whole transition where American youth ministry was created for these empty spaces where kids weren’t doing much but hanging out in parking lots, drinking and smoking before they should. But now it feels like in some ways, the whole culture is slowing kids down. And so what is youth ministry for in the midst of that great transition where the kid now is told that their biggest project is to figure out their own identity? And for the most part, that becomes an internal quest, that you figure it out for yourself, which is a lot of pressure to put on a kid of 13!

I think parents make the decision that football or choir or some other extracurricular activity is going to be more valuable in helping their kids construct their identity. One of my theological pushbacks that is that this isn’t really the way identity is constructed. No one creates their identity internally. Our identities are always dialogical. They’re always developed in conversations. And they almost always need stories and narratives to have them.

So instead of the church fighting for people’s time, I think we need to say: “Well, really what matters is this…here’s how we’re building our lives around these narratives and these stories, and what the community of faith offers is people at all different ages living out the story in failure and joy and suffering.” And fundamentally, I think for the apostle Paul, to be ‘in Christ’ is to have your own life story take the shape of Jesus’s own life story. And that’s a very different objective for youth ministry than just having a youth gathering that everyone wants to show up to.
HW: So in other words, it’s not just about youth ministry being attractive or entertaining, but deliberately setting it out to be cruciform. And how we do that is an interesting question. You’ve given us a narrative of the story for America because I think the average Brit often thinks of American parenting as being quite licentious, you know, just letting kids do what they want, whereas British folk have probably been a little bit more disciplined. But I do know that British parenting and youth work has become a lot tighter because of our need for child protection. Every time anybody has any engagement with a child, we scrutinise the youth leader. The climate has made parenting a lot more suspicious, which is probably why I’m noticing so much Christian parenting being so repressive.

I do think if we’re talking about Christian parents, then they think the church is going to do it for them. Or they think the church school is going to do it for them. And so the idea of personally discipling your children has never really taken off in any big way. We’ve struggled to get parents to talk about having a family altar, to read the Bible together or to pray together. It’s just not really taken off in evangelical households. And even when that happens, we’re only going to reach five per cent of the nation’s children.
“Fairly early on, I realised I had to be very honest with my children”AR: I think the relationship with parents works best when youth ministry links up all these generations in some way. So I think youth ministry works best for parents when they feel like it has something to do with their own faith life, their own wrestling with God and their own big questions. Ultimately, parenting becomes about testimony. I think a lot of American parents never even tell their kids ‘why’, they never tell them the narrative, the story of why church is important to them at all. It’s just assumed. We never say: “I doubt more than I believe but that there’s still something that calls out to me, even though there’s a lot of days where I’m not sure that this matters to me.”
HW: I’m classically an evangelist, and I know that what I have to do is to live a life that is attractive, and that doesn’t just mean going to church. In fact, it means keeping church in its place. So my life sailing my boat, or canoeing, or getting up on the hills can be times when my children want to join me and it’s here that an awful lot of our God conversations take place. What I want from my youth worker is somebody who’s not going to be squeaky and plastic. If all they’re doing is offering a conformity and cheap entertainment, it will look fake. I want the youth minister to be somebody who is theologically thinking. When young people come up with a really smart question about suffering, or racist practice that’s been condoned by the church for hundreds of years, I don’t just want a smart, funny answer. I want someone who says: “I’m not sure why this is the case. I’m not sure why the church is corrupt. But I do know that God isn’t.” If youth ministry was like that, yeah, I would be very excited about it.
AR: In the story I tell in the book I try to show the journey of a fictional youth worker from thinking her job is to be that kind of lead counsellor to being someone who creates a space for stories to be shared and for stories to be interpreted. And there’s just so many resources for that in the congregation itself. There are people inside our churches who are battling cancer and we rarely ever put them in front of 13-year-olds and say: “OK, well, who is God for us? If our beloved Sunday school teacher here is now battling cancer? What does that mean?” So I think in some ways, a youth worker’s job is to set up those stories and invite young people to interpret them.
HW: Children and young people are seeking for the true story of me. They don’t they want to siphon out what is false story. So if in the church or in their parents they see, people say they trust God, but they are always anxious about money, or if they say that when you die, you go to heaven to be with Jesus and the parents are terrified of dying, then children and young people realise just by watching whether or not the story is true. So, fairly early on, I realised I had to be very honest with my children.
How Not to Totally Put Your Children Off God, Howard Worsley
The End of Youth Ministry, Andrew Root
BACK TO CONTENTS

Helping children adjust to the new normal
As parents, many of us will be struggling to manage our own feelings about the major changes to our lives because of COVID-19, let alone feel we can cope with talking about it to our children. Even as some children are returning to school, many are still at home, unable to return to school before the summer. Care for the Family give their tips on how to talk to young people and children about life in this ‘new normal’, and how to help them to deal with difficult feelings that may arise.
Minute by minute, bulletins about the spread of coronavirus are delivered in real time to our screens. Daily updates from Number 10 are broadcast straight into kitchens and living rooms. We are bombarded with information 24/7.

We want to be kept up to date, but the scale and frequency of information can feel overwhelming. And if that’s true for us as adults, it may be even more so for our children. We’ll put the news on ‘just in the background’ whilst we’re cooking tea, perhaps forgetting that little eyes are watching and little ears are taking it all in.

With precious little notice, our children have had to adjust to a ‘new normal’. School terms cut short, football, swimming and other letting-off-steam opportunities curtailed, playdates now history, and spellings, science and sums around the kitchen table – with stressed out parents (often trying to get to grips with the lessons themselves). New terms such as ‘self-isolation’ and ‘social distancing’ have entered our family vocabulary, and our children are being asked: “Have you washed your hands?” more than at any other time in history.

Their reaction to this abrupt change in routine will depend on their personality and temperament. Testing or anxious children will leave us in no doubt that something is up, with challenging behaviour ranging from yelling to withdrawal. But even the most laid-back or compliant youngster will feel the rug has been pulled out from under their feet. Some will ‘speak it out’ and others will ‘act it out’, but all will have questions that need to be unpacked.
“Children's reaction to this abrupt change will depend on their personality and temperament”Be preparedChildren have a habit of asking difficult questions at inconvenient times, so it’s worth taking time to work out in advance what we want to say so we’re not caught on the back foot. Take their age and temperament into account and consider talking to other parents to share ideas and approaches.
Choose a good timeI always knew when my mother was going to have ‘an important conversation’ with me as she would come into my bedroom and shut the door (leaving me running for cover!). A much better method is to try to introduce the subject in an everyday context – doing Lego, for example, cleaning out the hamster, or perhaps at meal times. While many teenagers relish a late-night chat, it might be wise to limit potentially anxiety-causing conversations to earlier in the day so as not to interfere with sleep.
ListenRather than overwhelming our children with too much information, ask open questions and then listen to what their concerns really are. Sometimes the issues bothering them won’t be what we expect. A friend who thought she should speak to her son about COVID-19 prepared a science lesson that would have given Einstein a run for his money. It turned out that rather than having questions about virus itself, he was troubled about a much more everyday issue – not being able to go to the coffee shop after school.
“It’s OK to admit that we don’t have all the answers”EmpathiseTry to ‘listen’ for their feelings. Even if we think they’re worrying about something insignificant, rather than a dismissive “Don’t worry”, acknowledging how they feel – “I see you are worried” – will make them feel valued and understood.
Offer reassurance
While drawing a picture to send to her grandmother, seven-year-old Jade finally asked the question that had been weighing on her mind all week: “Mummy, will Granny get ill?” In answering questions like this, rather than focusing on things outside our control, we can emphasise what we do know. Jade’s mum could reassure her that lots of people in the government are working hard to keep us all safe. Granny is staying at home and washing her hands a lot, which means she is likely to stay well. And if she did become ill, there are doctors who will look after her.

If your child is particularly anxious, here are two activities that can help them manage their emotions:

Worry box
Decorate a shoe box and cut a slit in the top. Encourage your child to write down or draw their worry, talk about it, and then put it in the worry box – out of sight and out of mind.

Hopes box
Repeat the process, this time asking children to ‘post’ the things they hope to do once the period of isolation is over.

Although it’s important to explain things appropriately to our children, it’s also OK to admit that we don’t have all the answers. A hug or a cuddle may be all that’s needed to provide reassurance. When they look back on this time in the future, what will matter most of all is that they knew we were there for them.
CARE FOR THE FAMILY
is a national charity promoting strong family life and aims to help those who face family difficulties. You can find out more here.
BACK TO CONTENTS

ADVERT

All inclusiveEvery child and young person needs support to help them learn or engage with activities. Some need additional or different support from those of the same age to ensure that everyone benefits from all they participate in. We want to address some of the important questions around these needs. Welcome to ‘All Inclusive’.How inclusive is your ministry?
As we aim to equip our young people to live for Christ wherever they are, it's worth considering how we do this in the context of those with additional needs.

Do we consider how these children can be evangelistic too? Sad to say, we may not always view young people with additional needs quite the same as the rest of their peers. We fail to consider that they can share their faith. They are not a 'problem to be solved’ but can can be powerfully used by God to share the gospel and the love of Jesus? Are they just a child who is autistic, dyslexic, blind, deaf, non-verbal, or are they so much more than they seem?

These children are loved more than they, or we, can possibly imagine, and are valued more than all the gold and jewels in the world. If we are looking at it as a ‘problem’, it might well be that we are looking in a mirror. God sees so much more than we do, and can speak through them to share the gospel with the world – even through non-verbal children and young people. Evangelism doesn’t always need words! We can encourage these children to share their faith and create opportunities for them by tuning in to how they respond to God – which might be through art, craft, music, waving a flag, expressing joy or simply ‘being there’.

Don’t believe me? Here’s some verses (from the NIRV) that express how God sees those with additional needs and how through their lives and their faith, they can be powerful and wonderful evangelists:Jeremiah 31:3They are eternally loved by God: “I have loved you with a love that lasts forever. I have kept on loving you with a kindness that never fails.”
John 1:12They are God’s children: “Some people did accept him and did believe in his name. He gave them the right to become children of God.”
John 15:5They are Jesus’ friend: “I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain joined to me, and I to you, you will bear a lot of fruit.”
Romans 8:1They are at peace with God: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus are no longer under God’s judgement.”
Romans 8:17They are a joint heir with Jesus of God’s kingdom, a prince or princess, if you like: “We will share what Christ receives.”
Romans 8:31They are on God’s side: “What should we say then? Since God is on our side, who can be against us?”
Romans 8:35,37They are inseparable from the love of Jesus: “Who can separate us from Christ’s love?...No! In all these things we are more than winners! We owe it all to Christ, who has loved us.”
1 Corinthians 3:16They are God’s temple: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple? Don’t you know that God’s Spirit lives among you?”
1 Corinthians 6:17They are one with Jesus in spirit: “But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one with him in spirit.”
1 Corinthians 12:12-13They are part of the body of Christ: “There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body.”
2 Corinthians 2:15They are the sweet fragrance of Christ to God: “God considers us to be the pleasing smell that Christ is spreading.”
Philippians 4:13They can do anything through Christ’s strength: “I can do all this by the power of Christ. He gives me strength.”
1 John 5:18They are sons and daughters of God, and Jesus protects them: “We know that those who are children of God do not keep on sinning. The Son of God keeps them safe. The evil one can’t harm them.”
Colossians 1:13-14They are completely forgiven through Jesus: “Because of what the Son has done, we have been set free. Because of him, all our sins have been forgiven.”
Colossians 2:10They are complete: “Because you belong to Christ, you have been made complete.”
1 Thessalonians 5:5
They are a child of light: “All of you are children of the light. You are children of the day.”
Hebrews 2:11They are Jesus’ brothers and sisters: “And Jesus, who makes people holy, and the people he makes holy belong to the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.”
Hebrews 3:1They are holy, they are chosen: “Holy brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his people.”
MARK ARNOLD
is additional needs ministry director at Urban Saints and co-founder of the Additional Needs Alliance. He is a Churches for All and Living Fully Network partner and member of the Council for Disabled Children. He is father to James who has autism. Mark writes a blog on the subject. 

BACK TO CONTENTS

SafeguardingDoes safeguarding make you think of bureaucratic hoops you need to jump through? Does it conjure up nightmares of damaged children and young people? Or do you see it as a practical expression of God's love by keeping them safe? Here's how to turn a chore into a core part of your ministry....for training purposes
Everyone who comes into contact with children and families has a role to play in safeguarding children and young people. Staff and volunteers need to be able to safely run activities, but youth and children’s work can be a busy place, and it can be easy to cut corners to try to ease the burden on tired workers. One thing we can’t cut on is training – and ensuring workers are trained effectively is highly important.

Training workers and volunteers helps equip churches and organisations in understanding appropriate boundaries which can diminish grooming opportunities for those intent on harming children and adults.

The managers of the workers need to demonstrate the highest standards of conduct and the practices they want others to adhere to. This will include a willingness to attend training. This does not have to be a big task but it does need to ensure your team are confident in their knowledge of current legislation and ways of working safely.

Each person in an organisation needs to understand the importance of keeping everyone safe – the leaders, the workers and those using the services. Organisations can only do this effectively if they are aware of the issues and have workers with the right skills and expertise.The provision of trainingGeneral safeguarding awareness training is particularly useful to organisations as it provides information about definitions of abuse, identifying abuse and how to pass this on to the appropriate statutory authorities. This is often referred to as Level 1 training. Children’s workers, leaders and those with specific safeguarding responsibility (eg the safeguarding coordinator) should undertake what is often referred to as Level 2 and Level 3 training.

The frequency of training needs to be such that workers are competent and knowledgeable in relevant legislation and practice (every three years). Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCB) and Adult Safeguarding Boards (SAB) often encourage voluntary agencies to attend their training courses.

In order to implement the policy in relation to training, organisations need to ensure relevant role-specific training is available for those who work with children, such as health and safety, first aid and food-hygiene training.

The church should also ensure that new workers are given induction training and supervision during the first six months. During this time the organisation should arrange support for the worker, including regular meetings with a supervisor to discuss how the job is going and to make any adjustments.Records of attendance
It can be difficult to get volunteers who only serve one hour per month in a children or youth group to come along to the training sessions needed for safeguarding. It is therefore important to plan ahead to make sure the dates work for as many volunteers as possible, and also that appropriate function rooms can be booked and the right amount of resources provided.

It is also important to keep a record of who has attended and who still needs to attend. Every parent, carer or family member has the right to expect the same standards of professionalism irrespective of whether an individual is paid or works voluntarily. A worker or volunteer’s willingness to complete any training shows that he or she takes safeguarding seriously. It also enables the church to show them they are valued both as a person and for the role for which they are volunteering.Awareness
Awareness is not just for workers. It is important that all those you work with – children, young people and adults with care and support needs – know who to go to if they are frightened or worried.

Children especially need to know the difference between surprises which can be kept and secrets which cannot. These are often referred to as ‘good and bad secrets’. They also need to understand the difference between safe and unsafe touch.

A particular challenge for faith groups is that sometimes those in authority can consciously or unconsciously prevent others from asking questions or challenging decisions.

There is a common thread within many faiths concerning children obeying parents. This can be a real problem for a child who is being abused by parents or carers. It can be made clear to the child or young person that if they feel uncomfortable or sense something is wrong, they can always check things out with another adult.

It is important that information displayed and given is in a user-friendly format, eg simple language for the young, a readable font for those with limited sight, pictures, Braille or Makaton, and for posters to be at a height where small children or those in wheelchairs can access them.Leadership
Leading by example is one of the most powerful ways of setting and maintaining safer cultures. Regardless of the size or variety of work undertaken by any church, place of worship or faith-based organisation, it is essential that all leaders are appropriately trained and that this is clear as an expectation upon them within the recruitment processes being used. It is also important that the church leadership understand their safeguarding policy, are willing to follow it and never try to deal with safeguarding issues independently.Thirtyone:eight is an independent Christian safeguarding charity. Call on 0303 003 1111 for independent, professional and compassionate support around safeguarding in your organisation: thirtyoneeight.org.
BACK TO CONTENTS

School's work: In theory
We are weeks into the most severe restrictions placed upon the general public by the UK government since the Second World War. Slowly, things are opening up again, but it’s not the same as it was before the country was shut down. We are not going to return to the normality of February any time soon.

Many primary schools have already welcomed back Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, but to classrooms that look very different. Some are only back for a few days a week, others longer. And earlier this month, the government abandoned their plans to get all other years back in school. In all likelihood, secondary schools won’t fully reopen until September, with only some Year 10 and 12 students getting the chance for input. Meanwhile, the children of essential workers are still being welcomed.
“We only need to be there for our young people and children”What is the impact for schools’ workers and volunteers?
It might be that the organisation you work for has put you on furlough because that makes the most financial sense. For some that will be hard because it’s the first time there’s been an extended time off work with no expected return date, without it being a holiday or having some purpose. Or it’s simply hard because we’re in a global pandemic and we are constantly reminded of it on the news or by the restraints on what we can and can’t do.

I asked a few schools’ workers to let me know what they were doing and the responses varied widely. One is home-schooling her primary-age children, while organising online meetings for those young people whose parental contact details were already on file. She is worried about a handful of young people with whom she had regular but casual contact; she knows they will be struggling with having to be at home so much of the time. She is also grateful to see the resilience of some of the groups – she has more contact with the parents than during regular school-based practice, and the young people have continued to build relationships during the online sessions. It’s worth remembering that young people now are very much digital natives – for them, it’s not about moving everything to an online space, it’s about growing the online space they already inhabit.
Online issues
Another schools’ worker also highlighted this, along with the issue of being unable to ‘meet’ young people in their own spaces like TikTok and Snapchat because of safeguarding concerns. We do need to have good safeguarding in place, of course, and if it is necessary to minimise risk by not engaging on these platforms then that’s important. On the other hand, our young people use these sites all the time – for it to be a space devoid of good positive material created and curated by trustworthy youth workers seems rather counterintuitive.

A further contact, who is still working for her charity organisation, has found it a struggle to change from being in school to providing resources for young people to engage with online. Her comments reflected on the importance of school as the framework for having contact with young people, whoever they are, whether they fully engage with the school groups or not.
What’s important?
One of the key things which stood out to me in these conversations was the need for organisations to figure out what it is that they do, and why they do it. It was true when lockdown first started and it is still true now; it is not the time to simply add to the flood of material being made available. We only need to be there for our young people and children, it is the ‘how we do that’ which has changed dramatically!

We should learn where online supports and complements offline: is there something you’ve put in place to keep your team connected that has worked really well that could continue? Could you use technology to become more inclusive? Perhaps you are creating good social media content that is being accessed by the young people or children you have been working with. It would be great to hear from you!
JENNI OSBORN
is head of further education studies at CYM.
BACK TO CONTENTS

First steps togetherGrowing togetherJourneying togetherReady to use parableReady to use prayerWHAT'S IN THIS WEEK?This week we explore the parable of the sower. 

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) - as well as a ready to use mentoring session and parable. The three other sessions for each age group (and PDF versions of all sessions) are available for download at youthandchildrens.work/together.
HOW DO I USE THEM?Our resources are designed to save you valuable planning time, but remember to adapt them to fit your context. Cut what you don’t like, can’t do or have no time for. Or just use them as a springboard for your own ideas! BACK TO CONTENTS

First Steps Together - For younger childrenThe sower
MEETING AIMTo recognise that not everyone responds joyfully to hearing the good news but those who do are like the good strong soil.
BIBLE PASSAGEMatthew 13:1-9BACKGROUNDThis is one of Jesus’ better-known parables. Mark and Luke’s Gospels specifically says the seed is God’s message. The soils that receive the seed represent the different responses people make to God’s good news.
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).
PLAY - 10 minsYou will need: A4 white card cut into the shape of a bird’s body (as large as possible) with a 4cm vertical cut on the body for the wings; scissors; goggle eyes; felt-tip pens; hole puncher; A4 white paper; wool; green crepe paper; glue sticksWork together to make the props for the ‘Bible story’. Each child should make the following:

Bird: Colour the beak and body. Stick on some goggle eyes. Concertina a white sheet of paper to insert through the slit as wings. Hole punch once, just between the wing and the neck and insert wool through the hole, long enough to dangle the bird.

Leaf / thorn bush: help the children to cut out large leaf shapes. Colour the leaves or stick on green paper.BIBLE STORY - 10 minsYou will need: props from ‘Play’; large yellow card sun; sunflower seeds; bag of mixed vegetables; a broomGather your family together and tell this story:

One day, Jesus was telling stories to crowds of people who’d gathered by the side of Lake Galilee. In fact, there were so many people crushing close to Jesus that he got into a boat which was pushed out a short way into the lake. That way more people could see and hear him. This was the story he told:

A farmer was sowing seeds in his field. Show the sunflowers seeds and walk to one corner of your space. He scattered some seeds onto the hard pathway at the side of the field. These seeds never stood a chance of growing because along came the birds and gobbled up all the seeds. Scatter a few seeds on the floor. Give everyone their bird to peck at the seeds. Take a broom and sweep away the seeds. See, the seeds have all been pecked up. All gone.

The farmer also scattered some seeds onto thin and rocky soil. Move to the next corner of your space. These seeds never stood a chance. There was nowhere for the roots to grow. And then the sun came out, bright and warm. It dried up all the seeds in next to no time. Wave the sun over scattered seeds, then sweep them up. See, the seeds have all been dried up. All gone.

The farmer also scattered some seeds among some thorn bushes and weeds. Move to the next corner of your space. These seeds never stood a chance. Scatter a few seeds on the floor and children scatter their green leaves on top. See, the seeds have all been choked by the thorns and the weeds, with no room to grow tall and strong or catch the sun’s warmth!

The farmer also scattered some seeds on good, strong soil. Move to the final corner of your space. This ground was not hard like the pathway. This ground was not rocky so the roots could grow downwards. There were no thorn bushes or weeds, so the seeds got the warm sunshine. These seeds did very, very well and produced lots of vegetables and corn. The farmer was very pleased. Scatter your vegetables on top of the seeds.CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsChat about the story using these questions:

• Who can remember the four different types of soils? What happened to the seeds planted in the different soils?
• Jesus told his stories to help people find out more about God, his father. I wonder what he wanted them to know about God.
• If someone was like the hard pathway, what might they think about when Jesus told them God loved them?
• What about people who were like the thin, rocky ground or the thorn bushes and weeds?
• What about the good, strong soil? How did they feel when they heard that God loved them?

CREATIVE TIME AND PRAYER - 10 minsYou will need: small sticks of carrot, pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, laid out on a tray (if possible, children could prepare these from vegetables used in the story); fruit (if any of your children don’t eat vegetables)Sing a song about how much God loves us, or one that thanks God for our food. The chorus to the old harvest hymn ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ goes like this: “All good gifts around us, Are sent from heaven above, So thank the Lord, Oh thank the Lord, For all his love.” If you’re preparing the vegetables during the session, you could sing these songs as you work.

Lay the vegetables tray in the middle of the group. Thank God that he gives us good food to eat! Then encourage each child to say something they want to thank God for, including food.

Conclude by thanking God that we are happy that we know he loves us. Then eat the vegetables!
RO WILLOUGHBY
is lay minister at St Chad’s Woodseats, Sheffield.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Growing Together - For older childrenThe sower
MEETING AIMTo encourage the children to think about how they are growing as followers of Jesus and how they can reach others and help them grow too.
BIBLE PASSAGEMatthew 13:1-9BACKGROUNDWe often think about this parable when looking at reaching others with the message of Jesus. However, we also need to ensure we are growing healthily as followers of Jesus. A sign of our healthy growth is that we automatically ‘self-seed’ and make disciples as we live out our everyday lives in the way Jesus asks of us.
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 minsYou will need: inflated balloons; several sponge balls; tape or chairs to be a ‘garden fence’
Divide your room into two ‘gardens’ using the chairs or tape. Split the family into two groups and show the groups which side of the room is their garden. Their garden is special and they have some important flowers growing. But the snails and footballs from next door keep invading the garden. Their job is to keep the snails and footballs out!

Empty the balloons and balls into the middle of the room. When you shout “Go!” they must throw the balloons and balls over the garden fence. Give them a time limit and then blow the whistle again. Count up how many balloons and balls are on each side. The garden with the least amount is the winning team. (You might want to move any breakable ornaments before you play!)BIBLE STORY - 10 minsYou will need: a clipboard; wheat seed; a bag of flour; four pots with plenty of seeds in; bird sound effects; some grey or brown cloth to represent a path; rocks; torch or lamp; two seed bed trays or similar; compost; watering can; weeds; question sheet (see below)Before the session, make up a question sheet with the questions:

• Where has the seed been planted?
• Does the seed have (tick as appropriate):

1. Sunlight
2. Water
3. Good soil
4. Oxygen
5. Space to grow

• Are there any dangers to growth here? If yes, what are they?
• What do you think will happen to the seeds?

Show your family a wheat seed. Discuss what this grows into. Show the group the bag of flour and discuss all the things we can make from flour.

Say: “It all starts with a seed. What does a seed need to grow? Jesus told a story about seeds. In his story, the seeds fell in different places. In each area, there was a different result.”

Explain that you’re going to be garden investigators, visiting the different places Jesus talked about. In groups, they should think about what might happen with the seeds and write their thoughts down on your paper. Give each child a question sheet.

Garden one: If you have outside space, use a real path, or make a ‘path’ out of material. Play some bird sounds. Ask the children to throw some seeds from the pot onto the path. Read out Matthew 13:4 and give the children time to fill in their sheets.

Garden two: Pile up some large stones and rocks. Use a torch or lamp to shine on the area to imitate the sun. Ask the children to throw the seeds into the rocks. Read out verses 5 and 6, and answer the questions.

Garden three: Fill a seed tray with compost. Plant some weeds in the soil. Ask the children to throw the seeds into the soil. Read out verse 7 and answer the questions.

Garden four: Fill a seed tray with compost. Place beside it a watering can of water. Shine a torch or lamp on the area to imitate the sun. Ask the children to throw seeds into the tray. Read out verse 8 and answer the questions.

Finally, review the sheets together.
CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsChat about the story using these questions:

• What do the seeds represent?
• What do you think the different areas with the seeds landed mean?
• What makes good soil?
• What could the seeds grow into?
• What is Jesus teaching us with this story?

CREATIVE TIME - 10 minsYou will need: small plant pots; compost; daffodil bulbs (or similar); watering can; blank stickers
On one sticker, answer the question: “How can we be good soil?” On the second sticker, answer the question: “Where can we throw our seeds?”

The children can fill a plant pot with compost, plant a daffodil bulb and stick their responses onto the pot. As you work, continue chatting about the story. When do they feel like good soil? When do they feel like weeds are choking them or the sun is burning them? (You may need to help children who are struggling with the metaphor.)

Encourage the children to take their pot home, put it outside, watch it grow and remind themselves of being good soil.PRAYER - 5 minsYou will need: wooden lollipop sticks
Give the children a handful of sticks. Ask them to write their names on one and on the others, write the names of anyone else they might think of as ‘seeds’.

Put the sticks in your garden or in pot plants around the house (if you have any). Pray together for these people every time you pass their lolly stick.HELEN HODGSON
leads the children’s and youth work at Grace Church, Bromsgrove and is a freelance writer.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Journeying Together - For young peopleThe sower
MEETING AIMTo show that we need to put into practice God’s word if we are to be fruitful.
BIBLE PASSAGEMatthew 13:1-9
BACKGROUNDThis session is 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.

A parable is a story with many layers of meaning. Jesus used a lot of parables in his teaching, but rarely explained them. However, with the parable of the sower Jesus does give an explanation. Before the session, reflect on verses 18 to 23 and listen to what God is saying both to you and the young people.
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 what they have been listening to this week. What’s been good? Is there anything they’ve struggled to pay attention to?
INTRO ACTIVITY - 5 minsPlay a couple of rounds of charades. Choose some long and complex titles for the young people to act out, and don’t let them finish until the others in the group have got the exact title. If you’re on Zoom, then spotlight the person acting the title, so that everyone can see. Try titles such as Star Wars: Episode Seven – The Force Awakens (film) or ‘Don’t call me angel (Charlie’s Angels)’ (song).

After the game ask how easy was it to get every word right? What made it hard and what made it OK?
BIBLE EXPLORATION - 10 minsYou will need: actors to perform the script belowSend the script to the young people before the session. If you have time, you could do the rehearsals as part of the session, exploring emotions and motivations as you rehearse:

N1: Jesus told a story about a farmer.
N2: A farmer who sowed seeds in his field.
N1: Some fell along the path.
N2: A rocky path.
N1: And the birds of the air
N2: Swooped on in
N1: And gobbled the lot.
Birds: KER CHING! GET IN!
N2: Some fell on rocky places,
N1: Where the soil was shallow.
N2: The seed sprang up
N1: Quickly
N2: And died.
N1: Quickly.
N2: Because it had no root!
N1: Quickly…onto the next seed.
N2: The seed that fell amongst the thorns which
N1: Quickly
N2: Grew up and
N1: Quickly
N2: Choked the seed.
N1: Quicker than quick.
N2: Some seed fell onto good soil
N1: That quickly grew
N2: And stayed as good as new.
N1: When the rain fell
N2: And the sun shone
N1: The harvest was full,
N2: The harvest was done.

Split into four groups (as your video software allows) and give each group one of the areas where the seed landed (if you have a small group, split into two and each do two areas, or work all together). Ask each group to discuss how that relates to how people hear and respond to God’s word.

Get feedback from the groups. If people aren’t quite sure at this stage, there is no panic and no need to worry because the people who first heard Jesus say this were a bit confused as well.
CHATTING TOGETHER - 5 minsDiscuss the story by using the questions:

• Which ‘ground’ do you identify with the most?
• What does this parable tell you about God?
• What does this parable tell you about you?
• What is this parable really about?

CREATIVE RESPONSE - 10 minsYou will need: Post-it notes; pensMake sure the young people have some Post-it notes and pens (they could use small pieces of paper). Ask the group to think about each type of ground and if there are parts of their life which fit into those soil-types. Give the group time to write on their Post-its.

The idea is to encourage people to see how they engage with God’s word and how they put it into practice (to help them consider how and if they want to get help in overcoming areas of struggle and weakness).
PRAYER - 5 minsYou will need: Post-it notes from ‘Creative prayer’; seeds (larger ones such as sunflower or pumpkin seeds)
Before you say this prayer allow the group a moment of quiet to respond to the Post-it notes that they have written and the things that they want to get rid of. (It is important to note that there may be some big issues that come out in this session.)

Each person should have a seed to hold, although if they don't have access to one, it doesn't matter. Ask them to close their eyes and listen to the prayer:

Father God, thank you that you give us your living word. Please help us not to ignore it, neglect it or reject it. Please help us to listen carefully and respond wisely, to not let worries get in our way or any other distraction stop us from putting into action what you say.

Thank you that your word living in us will grow the best harvest, the best kind of life we can ever wish to see. Amen.TONY BOWER
is a schools’ worker with YoYo Trust in York.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Ready to use parable
Saskia and the solo samba
“Want to come to ballroom danci—”

“Fancy learning someth—”

“Be like those Strictly superst—”

Saskia sighed as yet another fellow student walked passed her without taking her leaflet. She’d been trying to promote her ballroom dancing club, but no one seemed interested. It was time to change her approach.

She moved through the crowd, shoving leaflets into people’s hands, stuffing them into rucksacks and pushing them into pockets. In three minutes, she’d given out more leaflets than she had in the previous half an hour. Happy with her work, Saskia wandered off to eat her lunch.

Further down the corridor, Kwame looked at the leaflet in his hand.

“What’s that?” asked his friend, Imran.

“Dunno, some girl gave it to me.” Kwame read the leaflet. “Ballroom dancing? Don’t think so.” He threw the leaflet on the floor and they went off to play football.

As he was getting his lunchbox out of his bag, Lewis pulled out a piece of paper. He started to read about the ballroom club and thought about those Saturday nights when he watched Strictly with his sister. Maybe he could go along?

Before he could think about it any further, the paper was snatched out of his hand.

“What’s that? Ballroom dancing? You’re not going to that are you?” Jacob laughed at Lewis, shaking the flyer in front of his face. “Who do you think you are, Anton du Beke?”

“Er…no. As if I’d ever go to something like that.”

Later, in Maths, Pavel pulled a strange piece of paper out of his pocket. What was this?
‘Come to ballroom dancing club,’ it read. Sounded quite good, he thought. He’d always been good on the dancefloor. Then he read about the cost. If he had to pay that much for a term, he couldn’t get that DJ app he had his eye on.

“Pavel, are you in there?” His teacher broke into his thoughts.

“Sorry Miss,” he said, stuffing the flyer back in his pocket.

The next day, Saskia sat in the drama studio, waiting to see if anyone would turn up. Looks like she’d have to learn that samba on her own. Then, the door creaked.

“Is this ballroom dancing club?” asked Jayesh, as he poked his head around the door. “I got the flyer, and thought I’d give it a go.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Chat about the story, what the family members liked and didn’t like. You could use some of these questions in your discussion:

• What was it that stopped people attending the club?
• What is it that stops you doing the things you’d like to?
• If this story is about faith, what might it be talking about?

This story is based on Matthew 13:1–9. If you’d like to add a more explicit faith element to your discussion, then read this passage together. Discuss what Jesus might have been saying, encouraging everyone to think about the parable in a new way.
ALEX TAYLOR
is resources editor for Premier Youth and Children’s Work.
BACK TO CONTENTS

Ready to use prayer
Creative prayer
As this is the fifth weekly issue in June, we bring you this one-off, never-to-be-repeated ‘Ready to use prayer’ column! (OK, if you like it, we might bring it back.) Here are some great ideas to encourage prayer with children and young people.
SILENCEYes, you heard (or perhaps didn’t hear): silence. In a world that is full of noise and activity, children and young people are often very open to the chance to sit in silence. This space allows them to talk and listen to God with little pressure. It doesn’t matter if their minds wander, God is there with them in the silence.

You might struggle to keep more than ten or 15 seconds of silence with younger children to start with, before someone breaks wind or is distracted by what’s going on outside. However, give it another go, and you might be able to last for 20 seconds, and so on. If you’re doing this on Zoom, it might be awkward, but you could suggest people turn their cameras off. (Yes, they may disappear; you’ll have to trust them!)
PRAYER BOXYou will need: small boxes such as shoeboxes; art and collage materials; scissors; glue
Make sure everyone has a box and at least some felt-tip pens and paper. (If practical, you could drop off kits with a box and some collage materials to the homes of the children you’re working with.) Spend some time decorating and personalising the boxes. Make sure that everyone keeps the lid so that they can open and close it.

Encourage the children or young people to keep their boxes safe somewhere. Every time they write or draw a prayer, or create something that they would like to keep as a prayer reminder, they can put it in the box.

Either in sessions or in their own time, children and young people can open their boxes and see how God has answered their prayers. They can continue to pray for those things which God has yet to answer.

If you think your young people are too old to make boxes, then provide small exercises books to turn into prayer journals.
PRAYER RAVE
You will need: music and the means to play it; balloons; marker pens
If you’re working with children, make sure everyone has a balloon and a marker pen. Blow up the balloons and encourage the children to write or draw two or three things they would like to pray for. Play the music (through Zoom or other video software) and invite the children to bat their balloon around their space. When you stop the music, the children should catch their balloon and shout out a prayer for one of the things written or drawn on the balloon.

For young people, play the music and encourage them to use the movement of their bodies to aid their prayer. Young people can sometimes be intimidated when asked to prayer out loud, particularly on a video call. This physical movement can help them be more expressive and develop a new way to communicate with God.
PSALM PRAYER
You will need: different quotes from Psalms written on PowerPoint (or paper, if you’re able to meet face-to-face); pens and paper
Before the session, choose some quotes from Psalms that will help the children or young people you work with to pray and express their feelings to God. Make sure you include praise, lament, requests and thanks. For example: Psalm 4:7 (thanks), Psalm 13:2 (lament) or Psalm 16:9 (rejoicing). Put these verses on a PowerPoint presentation.

During your prayer time, put the verses on slow rotation (via your video-calling software) and invite the children or young people to use them as their prayers to God. Which ones express their feelings most closely? If you like, you could invite those in your session to write their own prayers in the style of the Psalms.
ALEX TAYLOR
is resources editor for Premier Youth and Children’s Work.
BACK TO CONTENTS

JobsearchCONTACT
Tel: 0207 316 1413
Email: sally.reeves@premier.org.uk
Post: 22 Chapter Street, London, SW1P 4NP

RATES
Jobsearch ads are £37 per single centimetre column.
For example a 5cm up x 2 column across is £370.00 + VAT. Discounts available for series bookings. Rates may vary for special issues.
See full media pack on www.premierjobsearch.co.uk for full details.

ARTWORK 
For a quote please send your copy in an email attaching high-res jpeg or pdf images/logos to sally.reeves@premier.org.uk. If designing your own artwork please adhere to our dimensions as specified in the rate card.

DEADLINES
The final copy deadline for print advertising is the 10th of each month, eg copy for the July issue must reach us by 10th June. All artwork, amendments and payments must be finalised by this date. Bookings made after this date will appear in the following issue.BACK TO CONTENTS

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.

CONDITIONS 
The final copy deadline for print advertising is the 5th of every month. For example, ads for the July issue must reach us by June 5th. For a price estimate, email text, attaching logos or images as high-res jpeg or vectors, to classifieds@premier.org.uk.
BACK TO CONTENTS

In case of emergencyTeenage rebellion
Last weekend, we saw teenagers across the world use their online prowess to disrupt Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A similar group recently flooded the ‘White lives matter’ hashtag with videos of Korean popstars. This got us thinking, what other online disruptions might be possible with a bit of teenage ingenuity?Hacking a church meeting stream to turn it into their own Fortnite Twitch feed.
Adding hilariously pointless or comedy items to a church’s online shop for their valuable lockdown food project: “OK, who ordered 900 bags of fennel?”
Starting an anonymous twitter feed highlighting hilarious technical blunders performed by church leaders during lockdown. “Pastor Dave went live on Facebook while he was still getting dressed…we have the footage!”
Staging a Twitter intervention on the youth worker’s dubious lockdown hygiene.
Finding the password to the House of Commons Zoom meeting to ask Boris Johnson if he’s easing restrictions so he can get his first haircut in twelve years.
Hijacking the church YouTube account and posting more children and youth-friendly faith content.
Instagraming pictures of people falling asleep during the weekly online service.
Drawing something hilariously rude using the ‘whiteboard’ option on Zoom. (OK, who are we kidding, we’ve all done that.)
BACK TO CONTENTS

ADVERT