July 2020 | Vol. 5PASSIONATE ABOUT RAISING THE NEXT GENERATION +Picking up the post-pandemic pieces
Keeping a connection through COVID-19
Busting the myth of 'balance'
YCW | July 2020 | Vol. 5ContentsRegularsFirst wordComment
Mark my wordsThe myth of balance
A pandemic like this is stripping us of everything that has stolen away our time for restHeather Quiroz,
Learning from the Jewish Sabbath
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 in August! 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, check out the Premier Youth and Children’s Work app to read the July resources edition.
If you prefer, a printable PDF of the Together session plans is available here. The Ready to use resources can be downloaded here.
FeaturesQ&A: Emma Hammond and Ben HarrisThe coronavirus pandemic has made it tricky for us to reach out to children and young people. We spoke to youth workers Emma Hammond and Ben Harris about their experiences.
Picking up the pieces – the aftermath of COVID-19COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it, and it has not been easy on anyone – including our young people. Rev Dr Sally Nash from the Institute for Children Youth and Mission gives her advice on how to pick up the pieces.
Learning from the Jewish Sabbath
Resting is an important part of Jewish culture, it was something that Jesus himself valued highly; but in our fast-paced society, sitting in God’s presence is often forgotten. American youth minister and author Heather Quiroz explains the importance of Sabbath in our lives.
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! CHIEF EXECUTIVE
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youthandchildrens.work YCW | July 2020 | Vol. 5First wordUs youth and children’s workers are very good at many things: working with sometimes difficult young people, thinking of fun and exciting new games week in, week out and making children feel safe and at home in our presence. One thing we’re that, on the whole, we're not very good at is resting. At Premier Youth and Children’s Work, putting our feet up doesn’t come naturally. We want to be out, engaging with those who need us most and pouring Jesus’ love out to them.
What to do, then, when we’re suddenly stuck inside due to the coronavirus pandemic? When furlough and redundancy forces us to take a step back from it all? When we’re unable to congregate with children and young people in our churches and we’re sat at home alone? In our fast-paced world, it feels unnatural and wrong. We become bored quickly and find ourselves doing anything and everything to pass the time – going for runs, watching Netflix, learning to cook, making friends with neighbours, needlessly moving around furniture and painting fences – the list goes on…But where does rest fit in?
Often, it doesn’t. Not just the physical kind of putting your feet up, but resting in God’s presence with an open Bible and a heart in prayer. The funny thing about this is, Jesus was a champion of rest and took plenty of opportunities to be still and let the world go by as he focused his heart on the Father.
If you’ve struggled, like we have, to wind down and accept the stillness, we direct you to author and youth minister Heather Quiroz’s feature reflecting on what we can learn from the Jewish Sabbath, a weekly practice of switching off to the world and switching on to God. In a time where we’re trying as a team to learn from other religions and cultures, and support the recent social media movement against antisemitism, it’s made even more poignant as a practice we can understand and respect in our homes.
“We will need to find ways to lament with children and young people. To help them understand that it is OK to express strong feelings to God,” Rev Dr Sally Nash writes in her column on dealing with the aftermath of COVID-19. “We will need to explore rituals which help process loss and encourage children to see that they are not alone, their feelings are not wrong and that yes it has been hard at times.”
One such ritual – sitting, thinking and spending time with God – is a great place to come to terms with all that’s happened over the past few months. We don’t need to underestimate what we’ve been through, and for our young people, we know it has been tough. Let’s use the stillness, then, to equip our children to best deal with the range of emotions they may have, while equally doing the same for ourselves. Who better to bring it to, after all, than God?
As we wind down another month and head into August, we encourage you to take rest and deal with the inevitable coronavirus aftermath. For as we are told: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).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 NewsCOMMENTYou can access pornography at the click of a button via the internet, but should it be harder to find?The internet is like the Wild West and young people are increasingly exposed. One present challenge is online pornography. There are hundreds of thousands of porn sites, located here in the UK and abroad as well. It’s all too easy for children to access online porn, and the data we have suggests they are definitely accessing it. In fact, children as young as seven are watching online porn. Many are stumbling across it accidently, while others are purposefully seeking it out.
How do we respond? Pornography presents a massively distorted image of what healthy sex and relationships look like. It also affects how young people view the opposite sex, sadly encouraging misogyny and sexist attitudes from a young age. Parents have a huge role to play, as do teachers, youth group leaders and children’s pastors.
We also need to use laws and legislation to make the internet safer for children. It’s a complex business and I’m not for one moment suggesting it’s easy, but what I do think is that the current UK government can and should go further than it currently is.
Last year, age verification tools were supposed to be introduced to ban under-18s from online porn. Such tools are supported by most major children’s charities and the UK was poised to become the first nation in the world to take such a bold and radical step.
But after months of repeated delays, the government U-turned last year and abandoned the scheme. At the time, the minister responsible said the issue would be revisited as part of a wider Online Harms Bill. Months later, there’s no sign of this legislation. It’ll be years before it’s introduced.
There’s now an active legal challenge to the government over its decision to drop the scheme. The truth is that everything is ready. The age controls have been designed. The government just needs to lay the regulations to enact it and redesignate the British Board of Film Classification as the independent regulator. While the UK government has been changing its mind, the Austrian and French governments have been pushing ahead with age verification plans.
Age controls are not perfect and, yes, tech-savvy children may find ways round them. But they will help bring the number of young people viewing online porn down. Surely that’s a good thing! So, at CARE, our view remains unchanged. For the sake of the future, age verification should be introduced as soon possible. Time will tell if the government will listen.JAMES MILDRED
is head of communications at CARE.
BACK TO CONTENTS Q&AEmma Hammond
& Ben HarrisForming solid and lasting relationships with children and young people is key as youth and children’s workers, but during the coronavirus pandemic, it may have been something we struggled with. We spoke to youth workers Emma Hammond and Ben Harris about their experiences.Premier Youth and Children’s Work: How have things been for you during lockdown?
Emma Hammond: I think it’s fair to say that my COVID-19 days have been tough, slow and as full of as much sadness as there is joy and beauty. My lowest point was when my poor husband found me sobbing that I missed people so much that it was physically hurting me – and it was at that point that God very much intervened for me and just reminded me that he didn’t put me on this earth for me to be on my own, he put me on this earth to love and hug people and be with them. So COVID has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me because of that, as far as my emotions are concerned. But compared to what some young people have been going through it’s just a small drop in a big ocean. YCW: Ben, how did you get involved in youth ministry?
Ben Harris: For me, church was a dusty little place we sometimes visited on school trips and beyond that, I had no idea. I had little to no experience as a child, but life was chaotic as I was growing up where my parents were divorced and my mum was engaged with all sorts of men that she shouldn’t be. I was as far away from the church as possible – and I had no understanding of who God was. I even openly mocked God to my friends like it was a joke. I wanted to be like my mum’s boyfriend and have that ‘geezer’ image, but I wasn’t wholly satisfied. I was drinking and smoking heavily and dabbling with drugs.
When I was 14, my mum reconciled with my grandad and he invited us to church. I went there at first as a young person and I didn’t understand it. I used to go to church and deliberately bump shoulders with other boys to prove I was ‘the man’, I thought I needed to be that. But one Sunday the pastor was preaching about Jesus and God, this person who had all the power and yet he led a humble life and died for us – and that really impacted me. I prayed: “Jesus, if you are the man, if you are that guy, then I’m going to trust you.” It felt like an experiment in my mind or an exchange, like if God was real, I would change. But I wanted to see and hear from him.
My grandad encouraged me to read the Bible and I gave it a shot. I felt God really speak to me through scriptures and my life flipped in a weird way. I remember telling God he was correcting me. Every day before school I would write down notes in my diary about how I was feeling and my whole being just changed and was transformed by the Holy Spirit. I became that kid in sixth form in the common room preaching, sharing the word and setting up a Christian Union. I then went on to get involved in youth work.“I’m a youth worker because that’s where God took me”YCW: What about you, Emma?
EH: I went to church as a child and when I got to that age which I now work with, I sort of left the church and by 18 or 19 I was doing my own thing. I still had faith and belief but it wasn’t active. It was only around twelve years ago that a good friend of mine asked me to come back one Sunday, and I did and that started off my whole journey again. It became a journey that was more about my relationship with God rather than when I was younger, where God was very much the God of wrath and judgement and fear.
The God I had learnt about back then was different to the one I was learning about going back to church – God as Father – and I wanted other people to know that, especially young people. I started in a role as a youth and family worker at the church and then something came up for youth and community work and amazingly I got the job. I haven’t looked back since and I cannot think of a better place to be right now. I feel like I’m a youth worker mainly because that’s where God took me.
“For us it’s mainly been about setting up children as disciples who can go the distance”YCW: What do you think children have most been struggling with during the coronavirus pandemic?
EH: All of a sudden, we were in this world of isolation and I think for some young people, they have really enjoyed that with no stress and pressure with not having to be somewhere at certain times, and they’ve gained the freedom they wanted. But others have said they have nobody to interact with or no way to reach the world around them. Staying connected is very important to me – and letting young people know we are here for them and care for them and that they are loved. Lockdown has been really difficult to make those connections. I think there’s a whole range of things, and for everyone it’s different.
YCW: So how have you been reaching out and forming relationships with young people?
BH: For us, like many other churches, we’ve got many streams of outreach – it’s of course very patchy at this difficult time so we’ve tried to focus on equipping kids who would say they’re believers and come to church to survive life outside and see God in their lives outside. God has really showed up in that. We’ve been asking questions like: “Should there be persecution?” or “Should the world change as we know it?” to try and equip our young people to live like Christ in isolation, not by simply coming to a youth club. It’s about helping them outside of that protective bubble. We’ve had a video conferencing thing, and contacting parents doing our regular focus of finding young people and parents we can support. But for us it’s mainly been about setting up children as disciples who can go the distance.
EH: Communicating online wasn’t something that we’d really done and it’s huge for me when I get a reply from one of the young people via text, or if I give them a phone call and they answer and have a conversation. For me, it was about personal communication and letting people know I’m here for them in my approach, and I totally take my hat off to everybody who has done it online and it’s been a success. But there were so many youth workers who I know were doing everything they could online – using all the media platforms and it was just amazing – but for me it was disheartening. I knew that wasn’t the way our church was set up or how we were going to go forward, but it’s important to keep your eyes set on your own race and not get distracted by everything going on around you. YCW: Like Emma said, it’s not all rosy. Have you had to deal with the tough stuff?
BH: Yes; but it’s not just us in those shoes. I think if I was a young person, I would find it difficult sitting on that awkward Zoom call with a leader who’s trying too hard to make it exciting. We’ve desperately been asking ourselves how to prioritise connection over content, and our church has discussed that. But connection is difficult, especially a deep and real connection with openness and transparency when online. Of course it’s demoralising when as a leader you’ve prepared something and then nobody turns up – you think: “What am I doing with my time?” It’s been difficult overcoming it.
EH: It can all be really, really frustrating – not being able to do all the things we were once able to, and it gets taken for granted and we don’t even think about. But we need to focus more on how we are doing God’s work at this time.
BACK TO CONTENTS Mark my words
The myth of balance
I’m not a fan of balance. Well, balance itself is fine, but I think we delude ourselves when we pretend it’s achievable. Balance isn’t a biblical value – I see it as a Western value. It’s a rational idea, born out of our obsession with systematising. I have often said that balance is something I only experience when I’m passing it on my pendulum swing from one extreme to another.
You might think I’m nuts, or merely exposing my subconscious justifications for my own imbalance. And you might be right. But even if we approach the question of balance from a purely pragmatic perspective: it simply doesn’t work. Matthew Kelly, in his helpful book Off Balance, shows that decades of efforts in the business world to address the work-life balance problem hasn’t increased workers’ satisfaction — with either their work or personal life — even a smidge. In fact, as a whole, we are a less satisfied people than we were before all of these efforts.
“Our best lives are integrated”Sustainability over equilibrium
There are better (and more biblical) ways of thinking and practice. Sustainability comes to mind. The Old Testament approach to letting fields lie fallow every seven years isn’t a picture of balance; it’s a picture of sustainability. Jesus pulling aside by himself to pray wasn’t an issue of his reaching a point of equilibrium; it was about the Son staying deeply connected to the Father, so his integrated, passionate, all-in life was sustainable and effective.
Life in children’s or youth ministry (or any ministry role, for that matter) isn’t easily partitioned off into work buckets and home buckets. Our best lives are integrated. Sure, we need boundaries. Yes, we have to turn off our cell phones and intentionally disconnect from the never-ending demands of ministry. Absolutely, we need to prioritise our own spouses and children over the non-stop needs of others. But this best life isn’t one of stasis. Our best life — the one that gives the most to the kingdom and provides the deepest satisfaction — isn’t a seesaw in limbo.
Spin the wheel
One influential ministry, in the 1970s, developed a ‘wheel of discipleship’ that, even if you’ve never seen it, continues to have an impact on the practice of ministries and ministry people. This wheel had a handful of ‘spokes’ – things like fellowship, prayer, the word and witnessing. The idea was that the obedient Christian (yes, that was the language used) worked toward evening - out these multiple spokes. There was some good stuff in this metaphor, including both the ideas that a wheel missing spokes would collapse, and that a short spoke throws the whole wheel out of…well…balance.
The problems with that metaphor, though, are multiple. As I’ve already alluded, I just don’t find it to be biblical. I dare you to show my one biblical hero who’s an example of this sort of balance. And at a practical level, it just doesn’t work.
There’s a concept in business consulting I find helpful here: you value what you measure. If I spend my effort (and time) working to become more balanced, balance itself quickly becomes my measurement of success. But I’ve found — both in my own life, and in the lives of the hundreds of youth workers I’ve coached — that we live more vibrant, passionate, sustainable and fulfilling lives when our focus (and measurements) are on vibrancy, passion, sustainability and fulfillment.
Practising Sabbath
You and I absolutely need rhythms and practices that help us with sustainability. Things like Sabbath, downtime, time with life-giving relationships, hobbies that aren’t connected to ministry. If you’re a full-time ministry employee, you must ruthlessly practise and protect a day off. If you’re a volunteer in ministry, often adding ministry practice on top of another full-time job, you should be thoughtful about limiting your nights out, and other practices of sustainability. But the goal isn’t balance.
I want to be completely unbalanced, passionately living in step with Jesus and the kingdom of God. In order to do that over a lifetime, rather than the sprint of a week or two, I must exercise wisdom. But my pace might be different than yours. Certainly, we are all created in unique and weirdly wonderful ways.
So, know what tops you off. Know what fills your tanks. Pay attention to what is life-giving and what is life-draining. But don’t aim for steadiness; aim for passion and vitality!
MARK OESTREICHER
is a partner in The Youth Cartel, which provides resources, training and coaching for church youth workers.
BACK TO CONTENTS Picking up the pieces: the aftermath of COVID-19
COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it, and it's not been easy on anyone – including our young people. Rev Dr Sally Nash from the Institute for Children Youth and Mission gives her advice on how to pick up the pieces“I didn’t get to take my exams, see what I could’ve achieved, attend my prom, say goodbye to friends and teachers, visit my dying grandad, play cricket for my school…” There are many obvious losses for our young people. There are no substitutes or alternatives; the time will never come again for this particular set of circumstances. Usual rites of passage won’t happen, and that part of the memory bank will be empty.
Experiences of lockdown will differ. Some will have had anxiety, faced mental health pressures, felt lonely and been bereaved, while others may have enjoyed a break from all the pressures they face at school and felt safe and secure at home. We will have children and young people returning to our groups and activities from both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. There is no one-size-fits-all response.
It is important to acknowledge that lockdown has brought some positives too, accessibility for those who cannot always get to a physical meeting, the range of provision and resources available, not just Christian. We can now all watch productions we couldn’t afford to attend before and even do it together on Zoom with friends and wider family and not feel ripped off by prices of ice creams!
It’s not easy for anyoneI heard of one youth worker who said how hard doing the Zoom quizzes was as some weeks they would be chatty and other weeks it just felt like she was doing all the talking and no one really wanted to be there. Later in the week a parent messaged her to thank her because her daughter suffers anxiety and had totally isolated herself over the twelve weeks, often not even coming downstairs to eat with others. The online group had been the only people she spoke to.
Just as in this example, many children’s and youth ministers have been doing a great job maintaining contact with those in their groups and this will pay off in the long run as the faithfulness is appreciated, and connectedness and belonging enhanced. But when we get back to in-person face to face work there will be challenges to consider because of what our children and young people will have experienced in lockdown.
There is a role for institutions like CYM, that specialise in youth and children’s and families ministry training, to think through good practice in these challenges. There is a lot of good advice and support out there, check out the blogs and websites of people like Ali Campbell, Jenni Osborn, James Ballantyne, Victoria Beech, some of the faith at home Facebook resources as well as Youthscape and your local denominational workers.
Here are five areas you in which you could seek to equip children’s and youth workers for the challenges ahead, based on those we are looking at here at CYM:
Processing loss and griefWhen I think about life after lockdown and the challenges facing the Church, loss and grief are top of my list. Yes, children’s and family and youth workers will hopefully have been supporting people through this but it’s not always easy to do that online. We will need to find ways to lament with children and young people. To help them understand that it is OK to express strong feelings to God, particularly those who haven’t felt safe at home to express those sort of feelings. We will need to explore rituals which help process loss and encourage them to see that they are not alone, their feelings are not wrong and that yes it has been hard at times. Sometimes we need the physical presence of someone with us to experience the comfort that we need and the reassurance that better times will come and that God is with us through the presence of his people when we struggle to believe that for ourselves. This coping with loss and grief may be particularly important for those who are at those transition points in their lives and who may need a safe haven where they can begin to come to terms with the implications of this season for them. Associated with this may well be fear, guilt and shame at how they are feeling and pastoral work may need to be top of our agenda for some time to come.
Coping mechanismsI am grateful to the discipleship I received as a teenager which rooted me in the practices of praying and reading by Bible as a way of grounding myself at the beginning of the day. Lockdown and the temptation to suppress emotions with chocolate has helped me realise that we need to be even more mindful about equipping children and young people with spiritual practices that can function as coping mechanisms as well as helping them grow more in their discipleship. In one of my roles supporting chaplaincy in a children’s hospital we use stick figures with a smiley face and a frowny face and ask patients (and staff for that matter) to talk about what has made them happy or sad that day. It is a simple version of the Ignatian examen which talks about consolation and desolation and sensing God in our experiences.
Culture shockI sometimes sit watching television and think: ‘they’re not allowed to do that!’ as I see people gathering in ways which we are still not permitted to do. Things we used to take for granted will be very different and we have no idea at the moment how long we will need to be on our guard for and think about wearing masks, not getting too close. The rules constantly seem to be changing and it seems to be an endless series of readjustments at the moment. Confusion and anxiety can be the consequence of such change as there are a range of different perspectives on what is right. Imagine how it felt to be a young person in Leicester just about to go back to work when lockdown happened again. Who knows where it will happen next? Things we have taken for granted for many years may have evaporated almost overnight, uncertainty and unpredictability are hard.
Offering supportFor a while in the children’s and youth work world people have been talking about the importance of the family and supporting faith development at home. Faith is often formed in the family and part of our role is to help families with that and to encourage intergenerational activities at church which may also resource family life. Muddy Church is one idea that one of our CYM team is working with, where you gather together outside in a safer environment which allows families and children to be together and apart and be supported by and support others in the congregation or neighbourhood. We need to think further at how we can put supporting and working with families at the heart of our provision while remembering those children and young people we are connected to whose families don’t come to church and value being part of the church family.
Challenges to faith
This pandemic may well have knocked our faith and understanding of God. You don’t have to do any ministry for very long before you have to engage with the ‘why is there suffering?’ in the world question and it is one of the most difficult to answer. CYM emphasises equipping Christian workers ministering to children and young people both in church and, importantly, in ministries beyond church. We need to explore the range of different responses that are out there and help children and young people say what they think, share what they are hearing others say and find a way of engaging with the faith questions that the pandemic has generated in them.
There is a growing body of literature on trauma informed practice and while there is not sufficient space to discuss that here, for some trauma will describe some of what they have experienced.
Infed are talking about offering sanctuary, community and hope as part of the response to COVID-19. That is a good place for us as children’s and youth workers to begin as our churches continue to creatively respond to the challenges of these strange times.
Here are some links you may find useful:
Ali Campbell
Jenni Osborn
Victoria Beech
Youthscape
REV DR SALLY NASH
is head of the Institute for Children Youth and Mission.
BACK TO CONTENTS Learning from the
Jewish SabbathResting is an important part of Jewish culture, it was something that Jesus himself valued highly; but in our fast-paced society, sitting in God’s presence is often forgotten. American youth minister and author Heather Quiroz explains the importance of Sabbath in our lives.Years ago I went on a mission trip to India. After returning home, I experienced a major case of jet lag, and by major, I mean ‘I want to crawl in a hole and die tonight’ kind of jet lag. I was absolutely and utterly exhausted. When I got home, I curled up for a nap and once my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep quicker than you could say nap-time. Somehow, five hours of deep sleep later, and only 30 minutes before youth group, I spontaneously woke up having slept through multiple alarms. I had been so tired nothing had stirred me (except the obvious calling of youth ministry). I knew I was exhausted.
This story isn’t just a fun anecdote. It reminds me of something author Ruth Haley Barton writes in her book Sacred Rhythms: “Most of us are more tired than we know at the soul level. We are teetering on the brink of dangerous exhaustion, and we really cannot do anything until we have gotten some rest.”
Jesus valued rest
I find it intriguing that we never, not once, read about Jesus being in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything. He’s never weighed down by busyness. Instead, he’s always fully present and well rested. Not only was this part of who he was, but it was deeply ingrained within the spiritual rhythms God set in place for the Jewish people, revolving around the Sabbath. God gave man six days to work and then he gave man a day of rest. The climax of the week in the life of a Jew was always the Sabbath, a day of rest where they were fully present with their creator and his creation.
Sabbath-keeping, for the devout Jew, was (and still is) something cherished with all of their heart. In fact, Bruce Scott writes in, The Feasts of Israel: “The Sabbath is so important that it is looked on as being the primary instrument by which the Jewish people have been sustained and preserved throughout the ages.”
During the Sabbath, the Jews focused on being together with family, slowing down, and setting aside their busy schedules to simply be present with one another. Sounds inviting and refreshing, doesn’t it? In light of recent events in our world, it seems to me that the Lord is using the time to get our attention and call us towards this. Stripping away of much of our busyness, we’re being reset into a place of spiritual rest.
‘Busy under Satan’s yoke’
A friend of mine once joked that if the word ‘busy’ was an acronym, it would stand for ‘busy under Satan’s yoke’. Now, for the first time in my life, movie theatres, sporting venues, restaurants and schools have been closed. Prior to this year, you could easily find me rushing from one activity to the next; on to one more programme to facilitate and one more event in which to be involved. Busyness, not rest, is what has defined my life and to an extent, the life of the church I am a part of.
With so many of our families on the edge of burnout and dangling by a thread in our ‘normal’ lives, this is our time as youth leaders to remind families about what lies at the heart of the Jewish Sabbath: rest with God.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel explains the beauty of Sabbath rest with God like this: “Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to someone else.” It’s a reminder that our soul, body, mind and spirit belong to God.
A pandemic like this is stripping us of everything that has stolen away our time for rest. Now, for the first time in a long time, families are being given the beautiful gift of rest. Some of us may still be busy with some things, but most of our events and programmes have been altered or cancelled.
Practising Sabbath simply
We need to start incorporating spiritual rest into our lives, and encouraging parents and young people and provide the resources they need to start incorporating it into their lives as well. It doesn’t have to be particularly special – it can be as simple as singing worship songs together, making cookies or playing board games as a family. Pray together, eat together, volunteer together, experience nature together.
There are countless things we could encourage our families to do. Most important is to invite God in, and continue to help them see the good things God is doing in the midst of this pandemic. Help them taste and experience the joy of spiritual rest with God.
Make time for Sabbath in your own life and model it to others. You’ll find that once we get through this pandemic, you’ll be in much less of a hurry. You’ll be better able to care for people because your heart has found the rest it needs to keep moving forward in the plans and purposes of God. We often forget, in ministry, that one of our first priorities is to be a people of rest. So, go ahead, give yourself the permission to start resting more in God. You’ll be a better minister because of it.
HEATHER QUIROZ
is an American ministry leader, speaker and author of First-Century Youth Ministry: Exploring our Jewish roots to reclaim discipleship.
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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 August issue must reach us by 10th July. 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 August issue must reach us by July 5th. For a price estimate, email text, attaching logos or images as high-res jpeg or vectors, to classifieds@premier.org.uk.
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