July 2020 | Vol. 2PASSIONATE ABOUT RAISING THE NEXT GENERATION +Meeting Jesus through music
Q&A: Youth Alpha's Azande Mbhele
What the 70s taught me about lockdown YCW | July 2020 | Vol. 2ContentsRegularsFirst wordYCW investigates
What new government guidelines mean for ministry
News & commentReal lifeBecoming a black worship leader in a white-majority church
Leadership 101
How to hear from God – part one
Mental health checkHelping young people to process anger
ToolboxGetting in the zone
We’re trying something new this month! We’ve put all of our resources into one mag to make sure you have them ahead of time and can plan your sessions early. In case you missed it last week, check out the Premier Youth and Children’s Work app to read the July resources edition. Our beloved Faith at Home section now has 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 16th July!FeaturesQ&A: Azande MbheleRuth Jackson spoke to Azande Mbhele, UK lead for Youth Alpha, about her faith journey and how we can help young people reach out to their friends, even in the midst of a global crisis.
What my teenage years taught me about lockdownThe COVID-19 pandemic has likely added to the stress and strains of young people – so how can we help them to deal with them? Writer and teacher Fran Hill uses her experience growing up in a dysfunctional home in the 1970s to offer advice on how we can best support children.
Using music to discover JesusChildren’s musician, Michael J Tinker, whose recent single reached number two on the children’s charts, reveals why music is important to bringing children to faith, and how it’s equally useful for us adults to reflect on our faith.
“If we ever doubted the authority of young people, times like these just affirm all that God is doing in and through them”Azande Mbhele, Q&A
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youthandchildrens.work YCW | July 2020 | Vol. 2First wordHelping young people to realise their potential, find their gifting and achieve their aspirations are three things it's likely that we can all agree are goals for us as parents, teachers, carers and youth and children’s workers – and we know it’s important that all children have this opportunity; not just to know Jesus, but to grow up supported, cherished and valued in environments where they have ample role models to choose from.
While there are many troubling and difficult contributing factors to this, diversity, race and ethnicity have rightly been part of much of our personal conversations recently for the Premier Youth and Children’s Work team as we seek to continue to listen to and learn from the experiences of others. Poignantly this week, we learnt a factor in some children failing to see their potential stems from a lack of role models who have cultural and visual similarities – and that this can prove dangerous in how children grow up to view their God-given gifts.
It’s why this week we first direct you to this month’s Real life with worship leader and youth worker Ruth Mukonoweshuro – a black woman who grew up in a white-majority church, and struggled greatly with her identity because of the lack of black or ethnic minority individuals on stage or in positions of leadership. Through years of subconscious conditioning, she became convinced she was ‘not made’ to serve on the worship team she desired to be a part of.
She writes: “If a young person does not see someone who looks like them leading or taking part in a specific ministry, they may not feel they have the potential to do so in the future, and may even dismiss their personal aspirations.” It’s worth, then, thinking about how we can seek to learn, understand (to the best of our ability) and diversify not only our own minds, but also our kids’ groups, and wider out into all aspects of our churches for the sake of our youth and children.
Naturally, there are other factors – as earlier mentioned – including poverty and a dysfunctional home, that can make children feel hopeless and turn from their potential, something which writer and tutor Fran Hill addresses in her feature detailing what the struggles of her teenage years taught her. Growing up in the 70s, Fran witnessed alcoholism first hand, was placed in permanent foster care and was barely in school. While church felt “mundane, stultifying, unfamiliar and destabilising”, it was a place where she “kindly but firmly” experienced the consistency, safety and understanding she needed.
For, as we well know, children and young people have great potential, as Azande Mbhele, head of UK Youth Alpha, points out in Q&A, that we should be nurturing at all costs. “Young people are incredibly deep in their thinking, perceptive, discerning and proactive with their solutions to things,” she explains – citing us as those who care deeply about them to “invite them” into a space where they can find Jesus.
It’s a lot to think about – and there is lots to be done to help young people realise and achieve their goals – but if you’re struggling, kindness is one simple place to begin, as Rachel Newham reveals in Mental health check. “When I think back to the darkest days of my youth, the people who walked alongside me, fought for me and cared for me, all had one thing in common: kindness,” she writes. “For kindness lies at the heart of who God is and how God calls us to act.”
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Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.BACK TO CONTENTS YCW InvestigatesWhat new government guidelines on the reopening of places of worship mean for youth and children’s ministryAs the coronavirus took its toll on the UK and lockdown persisted, a key area of church ministry was forced to rethink its methods. COVID-19 has had a profound impact on youth and children's ministry across the nation. With this work mostly relying heavily on face-to-face contact, shifting to a model of social distancing and redeploying ministry resources online has, for many, been an excruciatingly difficult task.
Still, the Church, as ever, has managed to adapt. With Zoom meetings, Instagram Live broadcasts, kid's worship singalongs and virtual quiz nights, youth and children’s leaders up and down the country have fostered some sense of community and connection with their young people, even though they are forced to be apart.
With the Government’s announcement that churches are now permitted to open onwards, leaders across the country are preparing to slowly welcome young people back into the fold.
Still, a number of challenges still face those tasked with facilitating youth ministry. Restrictions still hinder this work, with the National Youth Agency announcing that the activity permitted under the current guidelines includes:
- Online and digital youth services
- Detached local youth activities, including pre-planned outdoor activities
- 1-2-1 indoor sessions with young people
- Indoor group sessions
The same goes for church settings, with social distancing and sanitisation measures being enforced at all worship gatherings, including youth and children’s groups.
So, what might lay ahead for youth groups across the country as the lockdown begins to ease? And for a generation that already has a problem with eye-wateringly high levels of screen time and addictions to social media, how will pastors across the country continue to engage with their youth without making these issues worse?Trinity Cheltenham’s youth pastor, Tim O’Leary, believes ‘bespoke group work’ could be the way forward. “What I mean by this, is offering group work that is specific to the needs of young people,” he told Premier Youth and Children’s Work. “It might be an emotional well-being group, or a self-harm recovery group, Youth Alpha or Bible studies. This allows us to be both targeted in our approach whilst maintaining safety in the environments we seek to host young people in.”
For now, in accordance with Government advice, O’Leary insists that open access youth clubs are “off the table”, meaning youth ministry leaders must think more creatively about how to use online platforms to effectively engage with young people.
Andrew Frame, an experienced youth ministry leader in Northern Ireland, said that one key challenge relates to the current restrictions on physical activities. In guidance outlined by Northern Ireland’s Executive Office, it is noted that “physical contact and exertion can increase the risk of transmitting the virus and should be minimised where possible”, meaning that youth groups are severely limited in what activities they are permitted to engage in.
“A lot of youth groups moved to online connections during lockdown and this worked well for some young people, but others struggled to cope with this and were looking forward to meeting with people again,” Frame explained. “A good number of youth groups have begun to meet in groups of up to ten outdoors, doing things like going for walks, playing outdoor games etc. This obviously only works when the weather is decent.”
“The guidance could change at any time, so we have to be flexible,” he added, noting that all children’s facilities must adhere to strict cleaning procedures in order to reduce the chances of infection.
Frame added that he believes a large proportion of young people have found it difficult to engage with the gatherings being held online. “It’s not a new thing that young people ‘live off’ their face-to-face youth groups and programmes...some of them really struggled without having these to go along to,” he said.
Once again this is no surprise; genuine connection can be tough to establish over a screen. For many youth leaders, the loss of quick catch-ups while the kettle boils, or a short conversation as football goals are set up means that pastoring young people and understanding what’s really going on for them has become much more difficult.
When it comes to online content, many churches have been attempting to up their game, releasing flashy video presentations and in order to keep their youth engaged.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, many youth leaders have decided to scale back their digital offerings in order to help refine their ministry aims and guard against simply laying on as much entertainment as possible. For many youth leaders, connection is much more precious than content.
O’Leary noted that his team had decided to streamline their online presence — releasing just one piece of new content per week — in a bid to communicate clear messages and prevent their young people from being overwhelmed by a constant stream of information.
“We now produce just one piece of content for YouTube a week that is specifically designed to enable young people to practise following Jesus,” he explained. “This seems to be a medium that works well for teaching.”
Zeke Rink, who oversees Vineyard’s Dreaming the Impossible (DTI) youth ministry network, said that praying for youth leaders is absolutely crucial as they muddle through this unusual and uncertain time and figure out the way forward. “I’ve been calling almost all of them. It’s taken weeks!” he said. “We have also been supporting youth leaders by providing them with online training and encouraging them to think of creative ways to engage young people.”
Rink urged youth leaders to think of ways to “encourage the resilient disciples that have stuck around” but also to “recapture those who are on the fringes”. While online ministry might seem like a perfect fit for the most tech-savvy generation in history, the consensus among youth pastors is that, while useful in this crisis, digital ministry fails to fulfil the innate desire in all of us for interpersonal connection and (physical) face time.
“Jesus said come follow me,” Rink explained. “He gathered a group of men and women, and then he hung out with them. Young people want to hang out, they want to spend time with youth leaders, they are desperate for proximity.”
“They are consuming stuff on their phones, they are on social media...but that doesn’t make disciples,” Zeke insisted. “You can’t make disciples over a phone or Zoom call. Paul said ‘imitate me as I imitate Christ’. You cannot imitate someone from a distance, you need to see their whole life, you need to be connected.”
Of all the youth leaders we spoke to, one key theme clearly emerged: lockdown should give youth and children's leaders pause to reflect and think carefully about the priorities of their ministry moving forward.
“Our initial response to COVID has been to do things for young people (Zoom calls, live streams etc) hoping that they might engage,” O’Leary explained. “This isn’t awful, however, I believe God is encouraging us to expand in ways that facilitate doing ministry with young people.” For busy youth leaders, perhaps, this time will offer some fresh perspective and shift in priorities.
Rink agreed. “We don’t just want to do youth ministry to young people, we want to do youth ministry with them,” he said. “Engaging on digital platforms is a form of discipleship, but nothing will beat face-to-face...I think young people are longing for that, like all of us are.”
Frame also concurred. “Lockdown has shown that young people really crave and need proper connection with friends and also with their leaders,” he said. “So a big question is ‘how do we facilitate meaningful interactions safely?’”
As life begins to return to some level of new normality, O’Leary suggested that youth pastors “take a moment to review how much of our activity pre-lockdown and in lockdown really mattered”. In the arms race to produce the snazziest content and the fullest menu of online options, where was God really working?
“Was it really worth it?” he asked. “In and through lockdown, God has been kind enough to show me that what really matters is prayer. Nothing more, nothing less. In prayer I’m changed into the likeness of Christ. In prayer my mind and body are renewed. In prayer, God teaches me his wisdom. It must be at the centre of all that we do. Did it really make a difference?”. O’Leary continued: “If you want your youth community to survive, roll up your sleeves and work. However, if you want your youth community to thrive, get on your knees and pray.”
WILL MAULE
is a freelance journalist.
BACK TO CONTENTS NewsMike Pilavachi given award by Archbishop of Canterbury
Mike Pilavachi, founder of the legendary Christian youth festival Soul Survivor and one the most recognisable youth leaders in the country, has been given a prize for his work in evangelism and discipleship at the annual Lambeth Awards.
Pilavachi, who pastors a church of the same name in Watford, received the Alphege Award for Evangelism and Witness for outstanding contribution to evangelism and discipleship amongst young people in the United Kingdom.
Soul Survivor, which held its final festival event in 2019, has reached hundreds of thousands of young people with the gospel since its inception in 1993.
Lambeth Palace said of Pilavachi: “His visionary work in beginning and running Soul Survivor festivals has been outstanding. Soul Survivor ended in the summer of 2019 after 27 years. In that time hundreds of thousands of young people attended the festival, which introduced, renewed and transformed their Christian faith.
"He has shaped a spirituality and discipleship for generations of young people in which the primacy of worship, evangelism, provision for the poor, ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit and a love for scripture are non-negotiable. This award for evangelism recognises that, above all, Soul Survivor has been the place where tens of thousands of young people have found faith. What is more, Mike has exercised this ministry with exemplary humility, humour and self-sacrifice."National Youth Ministry Weekend postponed
The annual gathering of young leaders from across the UK has been postponed due to the coronavirus.
Despite the National Youth Ministry Weekend being due to take place in November, organisers said it would be unlikely they would be free to run the event as they’d like.
“This is not a decision that we have taken lightly,” they said. “We are hugely disappointed that this year’s event won’t take place. Over the last three years, the NYMW has been a truly extraordinary gathering of the UK youth ministry tribe, and it really stings to think that we won’t be able to get together as normal.”
The event is now scheduled to take place from 12th-14th November 2021. Ticket holders are being invited to transfer their booking to the new date or receive a refund.
Youthscape, the group behind the weekend are hosting a free online event later this month, called Now What?, to equip youth leaders in their ministry in a COVID-19 world. You can find out more here.
College bids farewell to youth ministry training pioneer
Colin Bennett has announced he’s leaving Moorlands College. Bennett joined the college in 1991 and played a significant role in developing Moorlands' youth ministry degree course. He has served in his most recent role as Vice-Principal (Development) since 2011.
Speaking about his departure, he said: “After almost 30 years of the privilege of faithfully and joyfully serving Jesus through teaching and ministry at Moorlands, promptings from our Father God and present circumstances, it makes sense for me to now move on and further pursue and develop a number of new ministry opportunities and challenges. So, it is with a mixture of sadness, but also great excitement and sense of anticipation, that I will be leaving Moorlands at the end of this year. I have had the humbling privilege of working with and alongside some amazing, gifted and godly men and women from all over the country and indeed the world, and for this opportunity I am very grateful to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May God continue to richly bless the college, its staff and students and all those connected to it.”
Before he leaves later this year, the college says he will be undertaking a period of study leave in order to complete research and writing on youth ministry and other topics on which he has taught while at Moorlands.
Tearfund and Youthscape launch youth survey
Young people in this generation have developed a reputation for caring about issues of social and environmental justice, but we know very little about Christian teenagers specifically. So get involved with a new survey, launched this week by Tearfund and Youthscape. It will be open for the month of July and is aimed at 14 to 19-year-olds who consider themselves to be Christians.
The questions focus on the world post-COVID-19, the climate and how the Church can support young people to shape the future. Those who take part also have the chance to win £100 of vouchers, and it only takes ten minutes.
Visit youthscape.co.uk for the survey and information about how to pass it on to young people you work with.
BACK TO CONTENTS NewsCOMMENTIn an open letter to the Prime Minister, over 150 charities have called on Boris Johnson to put children at the heart of the recovery in the aftermath of coronavirusThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been widespread, affecting the lives of every baby, child and young person in the country. This generation of children face unprecedented threats to their childhoods and life chances. They deserve an unprecedented response.
We call on the Prime Minister to announce that children will join health and the economy as the three pillars of the government’s coronavirus response.
Even before the onset of the crisis, child poverty was rising, school budgets were under pressure, waiting lists for mental health services were unacceptably long, and services supporting families and protecting children from abuse and neglect were at breaking point, stretched by rising need and reduced government funding.
Now, they are also a generation over which COVID-19 threatens to cast its shadow for years to come. Our children are in an eerie world, full of uncertainty. They do not know when they can go back to school. They worry about when they can see friends and family. They are anxious about family finances.
We know this uncertainty and worry will lead to anxiety and mental health problems. We know closed schools will damage the educational attainment and life chances of children – the poorest, the most. We know Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities will be hit the hardest. We know there is no certainty about when the crisis will end and when we can see loved ones again. We know there is more financial hardship to come.
We are calling on the Government to embrace a new vision of childhood to support children, young people and their families to recover from the impact of COVID-19. The voices of children, young people and families must be at the heart of the recovery and rebuild process, and there must be renewed investment in the services and workforce that they rely on.
The Budget should be the start of a rescue, recovery and rebuild plan designed to prioritise, support and enable our children to thrive. We need an ambitious, radical plan that will be transformational for the generation of children growing up in today’s modern Britain.
That will mean action and investment across Whitehall and in town halls, including: funding for early help services and public health; supporting innovation and integrated working, particularly with charities; dedicated financial support for children; support for early years settings and schools so attainment gains are protected; and unprecedented investment in children’s mental health. This must be accompanied by a commitment to protect children facing additional challenges, like those with disabilities, asylum seekers, abuse victims and those from minority communities.
We will continue to play our part. In the weeks ahead, many of us will share with ministers and officials the key elements needed for such a recovery plan.
The government, understandably, has so far focused on the immediate health and economic consequences.
It’s now time for the nation to put a strong, protective arm around its children, to stop childhoods being disrupted and life chances being derailed.
The Statement was coordinated by Action for Children, Barnardo’s, National Children’s Bureau, NSPCC and The Children’s Society.
BACK TO CONTENTS Real lifeBeing a black worship leader in a white-majority church
I grew up in a music-loving home, and even from an early age I understood that singing was an important part of my church life. In those early years, my family attended a multicultural church but due to distance, we moved to a new church more local to us in my teens. The doctrine and teaching was the same as my previous church, but there were subtle differences. Before, I had been surrounded and led by people of many different ethnicities and races – now I was growing up in a predominantly white church. As a black female, I no longer saw anyone in positions of leadership who looked like me.
I actively started to attend church by my own choice as a teenager, and since music had been such a pivotal part of my life, whoever stood up on stage and led me in sung worship was very influential to me. I found that what my church leaders looked like greatly formed subconsciously what I believed I could and could not do as a black female. In many ways, this affected my growth and my faith – I did not feel I could relate or feel supported by the experiences and lives of my church leaders, as there was so much difference culturally and racially between us. Their teachings and analogies often didn’t help at all.
I loved singing in church particularly, and always felt a passion and a faith driven purpose towards it. As a child, I wanted to someday help the congregation to worship and experience the joy that worshiping God gives but I did not see black or ethnic minority individuals on stage leading worship, so I confirmed to myself that I could not be a worship leader, and looked to serve in other ways. I had to withhold my passion for music as I had no way I could act upon it. I was a teenager and did not yet understand that counting myself out was simply due to the lack of representation, and because there wasn’t somebody to ‘be the change I wanted to see’, and not because I couldn’t be a worship leader.“Diversity is a gift from God and as the Church, we are called to display the body of Christ by walking in our difference together”Seeing is believingI only realised I was able once my sister began leading worship a few years later. It was seeing her, another black female, that reignited my passion for music in the church. I felt empowered and motivated that I could act on my passion, and that I could have the opportunity of being on the church stage. Most importantly, it confirmed to me that I did not have a pipedream meant for someone else, but an ongoing hunger and desire that had been gifted to me by God.
Without my sister stepping on stage, having the desire to be a worship leader would not have felt fathomable to me as a black female in a majority-white church. Representation is a major principle in a young person forming their aspirations and goals, and the people that surround them and help them to grow are equally important.
Recognising God’s gift
The lead youth worker I had throughout my teenager years was a white male living a vastly different life to mine. Regardless of our differences, he recognised my passion for music, accepted my aspirations as valid and attainable, taught me how to step into the calling that God had put on my life and provided a platform for me to grow.
Now as a youth worker myself, I have met and led many teenagers from a mix of races and cultures. Despite their differences, to me and each other, I have found they all desire to feel seen, have their strengths and gifts acknowledged and be given opportunities to grow. I know I did not specifically voice my desire to be a worship leader as I believed it would be unattainable through what I observed, but through my youth worker getting to know me as an individual, regardless of race and what I did or did not look like, they noticed and were able to point out the gifts God had given me.
At that time, all the worship leaders in my church were white, yet my youth worker saw my potential to lead alongside them. Instead of looking for someone with the ideal worship leader ‘appearance’ that fit their mould and then looking to see if they had the chops to do it, I was given an opportunity.
“It was seeing her, another black female, that reignited my passion for music in the church”Positively shaping young mindsFrom my experience, I have learnt (and in some ways am still learning) how to actively raise up all types of youth with the knowledge and belief that they can aspire to grow to their God-given callings in the church, despite race or appearance. However, the support of youth and children’s workers alone in breaking down barriers is not enough to raise up young people to the leadership positions they aspire to. Churches need to seek to be diversely led and include a mix of races and cultures now instead of looking solely to the future, making certain that members of the church, and of all ages, feel included, seen and have a sense of belonging (given that the congregation is already multicultural and avoiding tokenism or tick-boxing due to race or dissimilarity).
By now being the black woman who steps onto a stage and leads sung worship for a majority-white church, I hope to be an example to other black teenagers and children in my congregation that the calling of God has no partiality or preference – that God can use them to their full potential no matter their racial surroundings, with their differences to the majority being a tool that God uses for his glory.
We need to understand the importance of ethnic representation, and how heavily its lacking can shape a young mind and the ambitions they grow to pursue. If a young person does not see someone who looks like them leading or taking part in a specific ministry, they may not feel they have the potential to do so in the future, and may even dismiss their personal aspirations.
Diversity is a gift from God and as the Church, we are called to display the body of Christ by walking in our difference together, building each other up in love and by encouraging one another to pursue the calling God has for each one of us.
RUTH MUKONOWESHURO
is a worship leader, youth worker and intern at King's Church in Edinburgh.
BACK TO CONTENTS 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.How to hear from God
Part one
We’ve got a big question to kick off the next series of Leadership 101 – what is the purpose of youth and children’s ministry? We will all have different answers for why we do what we do, and what we are seeking to accomplish in our ministries.
Where are we leading our children and young people? What is our purpose? Is it to aid a young person’s identity formation? To teach them the Bible? Perhaps it’s about enabling them to navigate relationships, overcome mental health challenges, deal with exam stress or participate in the community?
All of these things are part of the package when it comes to youth and children’s ministry – and all are important. But I would argue that none of these totally sum up our purpose. Our purpose is at its core simply this: to help children and young people to know Jesus better.
Whether that means those who don’t know Jesus yet beginning a friendship with him, or those who already know him learning to love him more – I believe that if our children and young people know Jesus better when they leave us than when we met them, we can call it a job well done.
All of this points to the second big question…How do we lead our children and young people to know Jesus better?Communication is the keyI want to suggest that getting to know Jesus better primarily comes from learning to communicate with him, because you cannot have a friendship with someone you don’t communicate with. I heard one leader describe it like this: “Authentic Christianity is not learning a set of doctrines…It is not simply a humanitarian service to the less fortunate. It is a walk, a supernatural walk with a living, dynamic, communicating God. Thus the heart and soul of the Christian life is learning to hear God’s voice and developing the courage to do what he tells you to do.”
So if our purpose is to help children and young people to know Jesus better, and if “the heart and soul of the Christian life is learning to hear God’s voice”, then how do we help our children and young people to hear from God? Crucially, it starts with us hearing God, because we cannot lead others where we haven’t been ourselves. Once we have learned (and are continually learning) to hear the voice of God, we will them know how to help our children and young people do the same. So, how do we hear from God?“Our purpose is at its core simply this: to help children and young people to know Jesus better”StillnessYou may remember the story in 1 Kings 19 when the Lord speaks to Elijah. There’s a fire, an earthquake and a powerful wind, but the Lord does not speak in the noise. Instead he comes in the gentle whisper.
I once heard Mike Pilavachi say: “God shouts at his enemies but whispers to his friends.” Why does he whisper to us? Because you can’t hear a whisper from a distance, you have to come near, and more than anything else, the Lord desires for us to draw near to him. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you, the scripture says (James 4:8). Thus in order to hear God’s voice, learning to be still is an absolute prerequisite.
The problem is, the moments that would once have presented us with an opportunity for stillness have been swallowed up by the digital carnivore. Silence, solitude, reflection and peace have become a thing of the past as we have developed the habit of automatically reaching for our phones whenever a moment of downtime presents itself.
In order to hear from God, then, we must first learn to switch off our devices in order to switch on to God. And if that’s hard for us, how much harder is it for the young people we lead?
The coming Leadership 101 columns will be dedicated to exploring nine ways in which God speaks to us, but almost all of them depend on learning to be still. We simply cannot know God deeply if we don’t know how to be still (Psalm 46:10). So until next time, my challenge to you is this: how will you boundary some technology-free moments of stillness into your daily schedule, and how will you help your young people to do the same?TIM ALFORD
is national director of Limitless and youth ministry specialist lecturer at Regents Theological College.
We have launched a new video series based on 'Leadership 101'. Watch it here for free. BACK TO CONTENTS Mental health checkEach month, Rachel Newham answers your tough questions about mental health. If you or those you work alongside have a question, tweet or direct message @RachaelNewham90.How can I encourage kindness among children and young people?
Whenever I think back to some of the darkest days of my youth, the people who walked alongside me, fought for me and cared for me when I couldn’t care for myself, all had one thing in common: kindness. I would perhaps be so bold as to say that it was the single most important characteristic of those who showed up in my dark times.
Kindness was in the teacher who let me sit in her office to watch episodes of Friends and nab a biscuit to stave off a panic attack. Kindness was in the chaplain who let me speak honestly about the despair and desperation I was feeling. Kindness was in the youth worker who allowed me to wrestle with the difficult questions of who I was and where God was in the midst of my pain.
All too often, kindness is seen as a soft option, or just a nice ‘added extra’, but kindness lies at the heart of who God is and how God calls us to act. It sits as a fruit of the Spirit alongside joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control because it’s how God shows himself through us.
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week back in May focused on kindness and its benefits for mental health. Research carried out by the Mental Health Foundation found that 63 per cent of UK adults agreed that experiencing kindness from someone has a positive impact on their mental health, and the same proportion agree that being kind to others has a positive impact on their mental health.“Kindness lies at the heart of who God is and how God calls us to act”Find kindness in GodWe have to locate kindness in who God is. When we are kind, we’re reflecting the character of God. We can’t be kind without God first having shown us his kindness – and it’s written through scripture like a stick of rock. I particularly love that in the book of Jeremiah, the guy known as the ‘weeping prophet’, we see this beautiful picture of God’s kindness, reminding us to draw close to him: “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).
Be kind to yourself
We need to be kind to ourselves. As youth workers it’s all too easy to burn out by running around fighting fires without giving ourselves a break, but burnout serves no one. Being kind to yourself might mean ensuring you put really strict boundaries around your Sabbath, getting outside once a day, eating healthily or prioritising sleep; whatever it is that enables you to be kinder to others. As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup, and we need rest to power our kindness and a chance to reconnect with God, the source of all kindness. This is not only good for us, but good to model to our young people.
Talk about kindness
Encourage it amongst the children and young people you work with. Whether that be by trying to find examples in the Bible of God’s kindness, talking about when we ourselves have experienced it or making a concerted effort to participate in random acts of kindness, it’s a positive thing to focus on. Perhaps incorporate sharing kindnesses you’ve given and received in your regular video calls to encourage one another?
RACHEL NEWHAM
is founder of Christian mental health charity ThinkTwice (@ThinkTwiceInfo) and author of Learning to Breathe, a memoir and theological reflection on mental illness.
BACK TO CONTENTS ToolboxGetting in the zone
Blueprint: the backgroundOccasionally in this series we dive into some specifically educational theories – ideas that explore how people learn. I make no apology for this – don’t forget that the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20) includes the command to teach and Jesus himself was called ‘Rabbi’ or ‘teacher’. The gospel has a huge educational component – it really matters what we believe and how we understand it. This month we have Russian educator Lev Vygotsky’s ‘Zone of proximal development’ (ZPD). Confused? You won’t be. Incidentally, every schoolteacher learns this – this is talking mainstream educational thinking.
Nail it down: the insight Vygotsky’s starting point was to assert that learning cannot be measured by standardised tests alone – we need to look at how well children and young people perform at solving new problems in new situations; theologically we might equate this with the concept of ‘wisdom’. Child development theorist Jean Paiget was a keen proponent of the idea that adult teaching ‘from the front’ was inefficient – in the right context children are keen autonomous learners (proponents of Godly Play will be cheering at this point). Vygotsky acknowledged Paiget’s work up to a point, but also believed students cannot just learn on their own – they need a ‘more knowledgeable other’ (MKO) to help them, build on what they know and ‘pull them along’. In other words, beyond what any individual knows is a marginal area of new learning – it is open to them but only with some help. The educator’s role is to identify this ‘next step’ and facilitate the students learning. Further to this is a whole range of knowledge which is so far away from their current thinking, it is beyond reach (see the diagram below).
One of the most wonderful aspects of Vygotsky’s theory is that he sees learning as a social activity, in fact, most effective in a social context. The MKO does not have to be a ‘teacher’, it is just as likely to be a fellow student who is just a bit further on in their understanding. Here we have a magnificent educational mandate for our youth group. When you hear one member explaining something to another, using a phrase like “well, the way I see and understand it is…” you know you have learning in the ZPD.
So, the role of the teacher or educator is to help the student take their next steps of understanding (or competence in a task) until they no longer need them and can articulate that insight or complete that task themselves. A vital aspect of this is to recognise, acknowledge and work with the enormous range of wonderful human beings God gives us. Anyone who has led a discussion group on an Alpha course will know that people progress at their own pace and there is not much we can do – there is no ‘one size fits all’ in Christian education.Spirit level: into scripture John 4:1-26
The woman at the well. This is one of the great educational and theological conversations of the New Testament. Jesus could have just declared his true identity but instead makes a series of incremental disclosures of himself – building sequentially on the woman’s understanding. There is questioning and dialogue but also substantive input and information from Jesus – she ‘discovers’ who Jesus is, but he is leading the process!
Acts 2:14-41; Acts 17:16-23
Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost and Paul in Athens. It is a theological college ‘standard’ to compare these two evangelistic sermons. What is brilliant is that both preachers build on the margin of their hearers’ knowledge. Peter sees a Jewish audience and builds on their shared cultural understanding. They know what a Messiah is and understand that expectation, they just need to know Jesus fulfils this. By contrast, the Athenians have a completely different world view, but Paul builds on their religious, cultural and philosophical knowledge – in both cases the ‘teacher’ gives new knowledge but builds solidly on their existing understanding.
John 3:1-21
An intriguing and ultimately frustrating encounter! Jesus meets Nicodemus by night. Nicodemus brings some understanding (recognising that Jesus authority means he must ‘come from God’) so Jesus builds on this – it’s as if Jesus recognises how close Nicodemus is to understanding Jesus’ role and identity. The frustration is because Jesus expands into a teaching monologue and we never hear the outcome of the conversation!
Colossians 3:16
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom…” Again, note the social aspect to Christian education – we teach and admonish each other – it’s not just about teaching from the front but sharing insights between peers. Any MKO has something to give!NIGEL ARGALL
has been teaching (and doing) youth and children’s work for decades. He is currently helping CYM innovate its courses and organisation. He has a master’s in community education, and is a qualified coach and youth worker: argall.co.uk.
BACK TO CONTENTS Q&AAzande Mbhele
Ruth Jackson spoke to Azande Mbhele, UK lead for Youth Alpha, about her faith journey and how we can help young people reach out to their friends, even in the midst of a global crisis.Ruth Jackson: What was your experience of God growing up?Azende Mbhele: I love this question as it really takes me back. I moved to the UK from a city called Durban in South Africa to Birmingham. My lovely mum would always invite me to church and I just couldn’t really care less. To be honest, I really didn’t want to go. But bless her for the persistent prayers and asking for me to go and hang out with the young people there. One day I did go and I kept going – but I still felt nothing just really bored.
One day I was talking to someone about the Father’s love and I think because I had a tricky relationship with my dad, the topic really resonated with me. I wanted to know the Father’s love. They asked those wanting to experience it to put our hands up – and I remember thinking ‘no way’. I was 14, and for me to put my hand up in front of an auditorium of people would just be out of character. So already I just felt that’s probably the Holy Spirit outworking. In the end, I thought ‘why not?’ and put my hand up and somebody prayed for me. All I can say is I never had felt so at peace, even to this day.
I just felt like walls were removed and God met me in my brokenness. God knows our needs and I just really felt like that was what that moment was for me. After that, I started to go to church and fall in love with youth and what youth was doing. It just kept growing and I’ve never looked back. RJ: How did you end up working with young people?AM: I come from a fashion marketing background and then a fashion background – but I worked with my local church because it was interesting and I fell into a role focusing on social integration for young people: how do we create opportunities and ways for young people to become successful and develop into adults? I loved the thought of that, and I just got so involved in creating opportunities for young people that didn’t mean they had to go to university. This involved interacting with different organisations to get them interesting in helping young people thrive.
That’s how the journey working with young people really started for me. But I couldn’t speak to the young people we were preparing about Jesus – and I remember thinking the missing element in the whole thing is for them to know their identity in Christ, that God is with them. So it was figuring out how I did that and what it looked like. I had a conversation with a friend and she suggested I’d be great for this job here, and here I am. “Young people are incredibly deep in their
thinking, perceptive, discerning and proactive with their solutions to things”RJ: Youth Alpha is a brilliant way of encouraging young people to do evangelism in a natural way. So, based on how things work there, how do we encourage young people to do evangelism?
AM: I probably have some of my favourite conversations with young people – I think they are incredibly deep in their thinking, perceptive, discerning and proactive with their solutions to things. I love the way they think. Young people are always asking deep life questions about their existence, well-being and state of mind, and all of these things are just embedded in the Bible. They can find Jesus in the midst of this complete uncertainty they face as young people if we invite them.
Youth Alpha gives young people the permission to disagree and that’s amazing, and young people are actually great listeners as much as they have things to say. Too often the normal formula of taking a young person to church means they have loads of thoughts in the service but there’s not a lot of scope to discuss. Alpha encourages them to say whatever they want and have that environment to be free in their speech and be validated.
I think when we just openly have the kind of conversations about Jesus and what he’s done for us, it does more than we can imagine. I always encourage young people to just speak freely and boldly and say what’s on their heart as God’s in the middle of that.
So, to help our young people evangelise – I would use the example of my mum who used to send me a scripture every now and again – she didn’t overdo it – just to encourage me and it made the word of God really alive. We don’t always know where people are at in their lives but for me and my friends, I just sometimes pop up with a verse and say: “I was reading this thing in my Bible and I thought of you and I want to encourage you and let you know that I love you.” I would say to young people to be bold and share what’s helped them with their friends.RJ: What has Youth Alpha looked like during lockdown?
AM: For a long time, I’ve felt that the online space has so much exciting stuff happening – as churches we do social media, IGTV stories and whatever else, and recently I’ve just really seen the power of community online and heard some amazing stories of young people using it to meet up virtually. I feel like this online space has actually helped them transition, and many of them have been incredibly purposeful and responsible and are running their own Youth Alpha with their mates.
If we ever doubted the authority of young people, times like these just affirm what God is doing in and through them. The online space is where young people are at home, they exist there and have done for a long time. So it’s been amazing for us as adults to try and catch up with where the young people are and add to these incredible platforms with truth and hope and faith.
We’ve had churches online finishing their current Alpha, which is totally understandable because of the value of community and preserving that human interaction – and I think nothing is lost online. But we’ve also had people tell us: “We’re starting next week” or “I wasn’t going to do it, but I’ve got my head around the online thing so we’re going to try”. While it looks different, it isn’t that different. You go to alpha.org and then choose youth, and from there it’s self-explanatory and you can pick yourself how to run it. There’s nothing clever about it, but we feel like God’s hands are over it. Watch clips of Azande and Ruth’s conversation on the YCW Facebook page.
BACK TO CONTENTS What my teenage years taught me about lockdown
Teenagers have a lot on their plate navigating school, friendships and emotional changes – and the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to their ever-growing list of worries. Writer and teacher Fran Hill wonders how she, as a teenager from a dysfunctional home in the 1970s, would have coped with the coronavirus lockdown and the return to ‘normal’. I was a teenager in the 1970s – I was placed in permanent foster care at 14 as my mother battled alcoholism. I was constantly skipping school, and my form tutors must have wept writing out my termly attendance figures.
People often say that teenagers from dysfunctional homes prefer the safety and routine of school. It’s partly why the government worried about the lockdown effects and kept schools open for vulnerable people. However, for many traumatised young people, their dysfunctional home is their normal. Education can seem irrelevant, especially if nobody at home prioritises their education either. Trauma can result in misbehaviour, and school becomes a daily reminder of failure, where detentions arrive like an unstoppable tide.
It’s worth thinking – if more privileged, secure students struggle to focus on chemistry homework and spelling practice, what hope is there for those in harmful home situations? Some teenagers don’t even perceive their need for routine. They kick against its unnatural restriction. That’s how I was as a teenager.Living within the chaos
My mother had been drink-dependent since her teenage years and my dad left when I was eight. She replaced him with a petty criminal, who was a danger to her and her three daughters. Mum’s life resembled that Genesis description of the earth as formless and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep. If I bunked off school, she had no energy to protest. I’d fetch her a sherry from the off-licence and keep my sisters supplied with sandwiches.
In a household of fights and arguments, addictions and abuses, there would be no physical or metaphorical space to complete a worksheet on Shakespeare. Mum received benefits for the family, but it stretched as far as an old elastic band and our fridge didn’t overflow with salad and fresh food to keep us healthy. (I’m not accusing my mother, who died shortly after we went into care. She was depressed and abused.)
Social workers and vital services have stuttered along in 2020, with Zoom and WhatsApp, and have done their best to mitigate the negative effect of lockdown with few resources. Things would likely not have been the same in 1975.Maximising danger
Despite all the chaos, though, I’d likely have welcomed school closure in a lockdown situation. No persuasion would’ve dragged me there, exactly as it hasn’t dragged the majority of vulnerable children in 2020. While poverty doesn’t always equal dysfunction or trauma or lack of love, and neither does wealth guarantee a safe home, we’re naïve to think that hunger and physical neglect don’t worsen the situation.
At the first opportunity, I’d have escaped the house for the park with other non-attenders, ignoring social distancing and social niceties alike, drinking cheap cider and proving a nuisance. It’s likely I would’ve been bored, as many teenagers have been. I’d have been more likely to accept invitations from older friends with dubious intentions, or from the group that suggested shoplifting the supermarkets as a hobby.
Similarly, today’s teenagers – if they have online access at all – may have minimised their online classroom and maximised other internet sites that are more dangerous, seeing them susceptible to grooming, radicalisation and the drugs trade. Just as I felt, sometimes the chaos feels safer and more normal.Normality and the mundane
I was taken in by Christian foster parents, and they began praying like billy-oh for me once I crashed into their household carrying all my (mostly emotional) baggage. I found their lives mundane, if not stultifying. They had meals at regular times. They went to church on a Sunday. They read their Bibles and watched gentle sitcoms and laughed together. I was in a different, unfamiliar place – and I found it destabilising.
Where were the fights? Why was nobody threatening to leave and packing a suitcase? Where was the sherry and the cigarette butts? I wasn’t used to healthy routine and railed against them.
Nevertheless, my attendance figures leapt. I was kindly but firmly put on the school bus in the mornings. Someone always came to parents’ evening. I picked up fewer detentions for challenging, sometimes bullying behaviour. Foster care would’ve seen me planted at a desk at home attempting to work, with lunch arriving reliably at one o’clock, and unauthorised trips to the park a distant dream.How can we help young people to cope?
Comparing my pre-fostered and post-fostered teenage self throws up observations, even more so combined with 18 years’ experience as an English teacher and all the children I have worked with. I’ve used my experience to reflect on how to best cater for children and young people during the continued lockdown (and on through the easing restrictions).
One observation is that consistency, while boring and restrictive to some adolescents, can pay off eventually. When British teenagers are gathered again in classrooms and youth and children’s groups from their living rooms, skate parks and playgrounds, they’ll need teachers who stick to their guns, apply fair rules and have routines. Pupils won’t all relish it and some may act up, some will be relieved yet afraid to admit it. Others will be ambivalent and unable to assess their feelings. Many will have benefited from time at home in a safe place, enjoying more family contact and a relaxed environment. For others, more family contact will have meant further distress. Consistency of standards and expectations, where possible, will help, even if resisted.
Significant, too, is understanding trauma and its effects. Increasingly, those working with children and young people (including schools and church groups) are becoming trauma-aware, receiving specialist training in the fallout from ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and changing their approach to damaged, disruptive pupils. Some teenagers are trapped in patterns of behaviour they can’t control. Trauma in early childhood alters brain pathways, making emotional, social and physical disorders far more likely well into later life.
In my book Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? – a memoir of a typical year in my teaching life – I explore the effects of my own trauma: hampered confidence, unrealistic self-standards and an inability to receive kindness from others, or from God. Of course it helps to be a Christian. Certain big questions are answered. Other questions aren’t.
Thirdly, you need a sense of humour in their armoury, especially if you are a fellow teacher. Survival in the profession can depend on it. Plus, surveys of pupils about favoured teacher qualities invariably mention humour. They like teachers who will laugh at themselves and laugh with their class, but who won’t spitefully laugh at or humiliate pupils. It’s an important distinction.
We will have our work cut out. It’s impossible to tailor lessons or sessions to each child’s requirements, let alone address emotional and social needs. It piles on huge pressure. So ensure you have a strong pastoral team to help climb the post-lockdown mountain, where we feel we may only be equipped with sandals, Polo mints and a small carton of Ribena.
Let’s pray for those vulnerable children who will struggle to readjust – and also for us as we tackle it alongside them.FRAN HILL
is a writer, blogger and tutor. Her second book, Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? (SPCK) is a funny but poignant memoir of a typical year in her teaching life. For more information, visit franhill.co.uk.
BACK TO CONTENTS Music is a big part of our lives as Christians – the Bible, after all, encourages us to dance and sing to the Lord – and for children and young people, it’s a fun and easy way to introduce faith and Christian themes. Michael J Tinker, who’s recent single reached number two on the children’s charts, reveals why music is important to bringing children to faith, and how it’s equally useful for us adults to reflect on our faith. It’s tough to describe what I do, but in a nutshell, I write songs and produce albums for children based on scripture: and if I’ve had one claim to fame through lockdown, it’s that I knocked ‘Baby shark’ off the number two spot on the iTunes children’s chart for a day with my latest single ‘Be strong and courageous’.
Long before lockdown, someone asked me to write on the topic, so I went through the Bible and highlighted every reference to strong or courageous (and there are loads!) and used them to produce a song about why we can be strong and courageous because of God. He doesn’t ever say: “Hey, Israelites, you are strong because you are amazing.”; God tells us “You are strong because I keep my promises and I am with you.”
The lyrics turned out to be very timely for children: “When all you feel is weak, when worry starts to speak, when you just don’t know what to do, and you don’t maybe even know what’s true.” Naturally, there’s a whole lot of all of that going on – and this song worked to remind them they can be strong and courageous because of God and what he has done and set their eyes on him based on scriptural truths.
While the message of ‘Be strong and courageous’ may be vitally important right now, the Bible commands that we always sing truth to one another all the time. Paul says in Colossians to let the word of Christ dwell richly as we sing songs. It’s possible that even the first ever human interactions – where Adam speaks to Eve about the flesh of his flesh – were partly in song. It’s natural to us as humans to want to sing when we are excited about something.
Using song builds foundations for children to grow on
We often focus heavily on preaching in church, but one of the primary ways of communicating and remembering truth in the Bible for children is by singing songs. It works with the whole of us and allows us to physically get involved with the words, rather than just listening. For children at an early age, it really embeds the truths into their minds, which is key for foundations of faith that they will discover later in life.
I don’t expect children to understand every bit of the song – at four years old, for example, they may not be thinking about worries or sadness, but by the time they get to eight, ten, twelve, and there are worries, there’s a foundation that’s been there for a long time because of song. It embeds the truth before they even understand it, and so later on, they start to discover what’s already there.
It’s something I try and do with my music because I witnessed it with my own children listening to worship music when they were young. They didn’t always understand it right away, but as they got older and things in their lives happened, they were able to say: “It’s like that song, and this is what the song says about it.” Equally, we could refer back to them when talking about a subject.
Music takes these more serious emotions and captures them in the fun nature of song, and allows us to disciple through the years based on very early and basic foundations of fun within children’s hearts and minds.
It’s equally important for the adults
I write some songs for myself, sometimes, even if they are directed at children, because a lot of the issues within the music I still deal with as an adult. I find myself singing and writing music and it’s meant to be about or for somebody else, and I discover deep down it resonates with me.
I have a song from another album called ‘Father to the fatherless’ and the first line reads: “When you find your daddy isn’t everything a dad should be.” Originally, this song was written because of a family I knew going through a difficult break-up where the dad had left the children behind; but I noticed that for myself, naturally I’m not the father that I want to be either. The line I repeated for the chorus was: “Remember your Father in heaven”, and of course I need to remember that too when I stuff up as a dad that there is a perfect Father for my children.
While the songs may seem simple and for children, the songs I write often work as well for me to explore biblical truths and discover things about myself as it does for the children I originally intend to write them for. So for parents, we can find time to listen and discover truths together in a fun and proactive way.MICHAEL J TINKER
is a children’s musician. His most recent single, ‘Be strong and courageous’, is available to download now. You can find Michael on social media as @michaeljtinker where he regularly livestreams.
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