The Grove Is On Fire

Qualifications For Youth Workers

As I look on at the various different means of training and accrediting Christian youth ministers in this country, I despair at how little there is to offer, and how little of that is of a high standard. And more than even that, I see how much work youth workers are already doing and how much experience they already have and yet how few formal qualifications they have gained, and I thought, here is a problem that needs fixing. And so I have. I'd like to introduce you to the new The Grove Is On Fire accreditation system. If you've done enough to reach the level of the badge you can claim that badge for yourself by printing it off and keeping it in the big pile of paper you have sitting on your desk that you're meant to sort out. You can even stick it on your wall to remind your boss how talented you are, or on your updated CV when he forgets. If you get enough badges of a certain sort you can unlock certain privileges such as free coffee from your local coffee shop, a replacement phone when a young person breaks yours, or a three month extension on your first aid certificate. Here is a sample badge:

Taken the Bus

Bronze

• You've taken a bus journey with some young people
• You've persuaded 1 young person to put his seatbelt on
• You have counted the young people onto the bus
• You haven't killed any of them by the end of it

Silver

• You've unlocked the previous level of the award
• You've taken 5 bus journeys with some young people
• You've navigated at least 2 bus journeys with some young people
• You've had to separate some young people to avoid conflict
• You've had to authorise an emergency toilet stop
• You've been in the bus while the heating OR air conditioning doesn't work

Gold

• You've unlocked the previous level of the award
• You've taken 20 bus journeys with some young people
• You've driven at least 5 bus journeys with some young people
• You've had to authorise the bus turning around and driving back for someone
• You've had to deal with a breakdown of the bus for longer than twenty-five minutes
• You've had to clear vomit out of the bus

Over the next few weeks, months, and whenever I remember tos, we'll be issuing new badges and announcing special achievements that'll be sure to prove your worth to your local funders.

Is There a Jihadist in Your Church Nursery?

Of course, in this country we'd say; is there an Islamic terrorist in your church crèche?

Anti-Social Behaviour

In this last month both Frank Dobson (MP, Labour, Right Honourable) and George Lee (Candidate, Conservative, Subject of Cringe-worthy Media Campaign) have sent pre-election letters to my house, both accompanied by surveys asking us to list what is wrong with our area. Both of them single out anti-social behaviour as an ill of society, George Lee going as far to list it as one of the options to choose when I pick my top five most feared crimes. I'm slightly worried by this trend, partly as a youth worker, considerably as a Christian, but mostly as a very anti-social person. If the next government –whoeverthatis– is going to criminalise anti-social behaviour even further then I need to start cutting out the following behaviours:

• Checking Twitter on my phone over dinner.
• Only speaking to people I already know at a party.
• Avoiding making conversation with people in queues.
• Not always having a shower in the morning.
• Singing out of tune.
• Flagging a bus down when you're the only person at the stop, getting on it, realising you've not topped up your Oyster card, and getting off it again.
• Not following who's still in Britain's Got Talent and X-Factor.

Bible-Centred Youth Worker Conference 2010

Should have mentioned this at the start of the week but I'm currently away at the Bible-Centred Youth Worker Conference. Hopefully lots of holy stuff to follow but so far the most telling moment on who's at this conference; when on the first night the leader said "and now we're going to turn to God" an even split of people lent forward to pray, picked up their bibles, or got themselves ready to stand and sing.

Teenage girl: Alpha has 'cult element'

So a teenager from an unnamed school wrote in her school magazine on her concerns with the Alpha course in her school. Two thoughts; first, large parts of Britian find the idea of trying to persaude someone else that Christianity is true outrightly wrong. The second is that we still generally have freedom to disagree publically on these matters.

E-Mail Feedback

It's been drawn to my attention that I'm a complete and utter moron. On an unrelated note, it's also been pointed out that untill recently any e-mail sent to me from the address given on the about page failed. Fairly poor there. So if you sent me an e-mail in the last few weeks via there, send it again, through the now all working, all singing, all standing in the corner of a room while everyone else dances, . Or don't. Whatever.

If It Makes You Dappy

So, this guy called Dappy in a band called N-Dubz abuses someone he's never met by text message after standing up with Ed Balls last year saying that text message bullying was wrong. I have nothing to say about this.

(Also; is cyber-bullying the only place where the word cyber is still used?)

CRBs and People Who Don't Live In Britain

The Diocese of London have produced some quite handy guidelines about how you go about doing criminal record checks for people who haven't lived in the UK for more than a year (pdf).

Finding Meaning in the Pentateuch

I'm getting this book as a late Christmas present, and it's interviews like this one in Christianity Today that persuaded me this was a very good idea.

I wrote my book in part to show my friend and others like him that serious scholarship leads one to find Christ in the Old Testament because he is really there. The author of the Pentateuch put him there when he wrote the book. I've found that if you show someone that Christ is really there in the Pentateuch and the Old Testament, they will come back to see more--not merely because they have come to revere the Pentateuch as a foundational book, but more importantly because they want to see more of Jesus.

The Bible's 63,779 Cross-References

This is pretty sweet and very beautiful though you wish you could see labels on the data.