The Grove Is On Fire

Diagram

Boris attacks rap music projects

Reason number 143 why having Boris Johnson as Mayor is at least funny and occasionally a good idea

"I will not be frightened about saying some crusty-sounding things. People have invested a lot of money in expensive sound equipment intended to turn youngsters into rappers and DJs but I'd like to see some more going into basic literacy and mathematics."

Lawrence hit by freak dog injury

This website will not become the Premiership football league of the United Kingdom is on fire, but this news story is even better than the below link. To keep with my newly made policy of not having two entries in a row tagged with "nothing to do with youth work", here's a session plan that uses this story in your work.

Session Plan:

• Introductions (5 mins)
• Icebreakers (maybe pin the tail on the dog) (10 mins)
• Read the above story and ask the following questions: (15 mins)
  • How would you feel having help your club be promoted to the Premiership?
  • How would you feel having to sit out of a Premiership match?
  • Do you think he still loves his dog?
  • What "dogs" are there in your life that trip you up?
• Read Joshua 7:1-26 (3 mins)
• Pray for each other (to fill time until parents come to pick the kids up)

St Totteringham's Day

St Totteringham's Day is the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the League. It is a movable feast, but usually falls in March, April or May. It is the day to collect on bets made by over-optimistic Spurs fans in the close season who think that "this is the year".

While I like Spurs almost as much as I like Arsenal, I find this hilariously funny.

Teenagers Going To Uni

The Director of IT at an American College did some research into incoming students for the class of 2012. Unsurprisingly enough they're all on Facebook, and they all have laptops and iPhones.

Students in the class of 2012 who registered computers, IPhones, game consoles, etc. on the campus network by the end of the day on August 24th, the day they moved into their dorm rooms: 370 students registered 443 devices. (via)

Emotions

[I]n our fear of emotionalism, some of us may be in grave danger of banishing emotions altogether. Oh, there may be plenty of sentiment, but I am not talking about sentiment. Sentiment is weak and flabby. Sentiment is that which a hard man puts on to persuade himself that he still has some feeling within him. No, we do not want sentiment, sickly, maudlin, sentiment, we want emotion, the God-given quality. When did you last weep because of your distance from God? Some of us have forgotten how to weep, my friends. When did we last weep for joy, out of sheer joy and the sense of the glory of God? Many of us are afraid of emotions. Our whole training and upbringing, the whole attitude to life, is one that curbs the emotions. We feel that it is not quite respectable, it is not nice. We are steeling our emotions, curbing this God-given thing... This is not a plea for emotionalism, which I have denounced, it is a plea for emotion.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones - Revival

Mark Driscoll's Preaching Non-Notes

Mark Driscoll doesn't use much in the way of notes. This seems to have aroused a lot of shock, because you know, no sermon notes. And yet, I'm not sure this is as unusual as people make out. Driscoll's argument is that you go in and study the text loads and then it'll preach itself. But also that you shouldn't copy his style. I'm not sure the latter holds up to too much logic, but the first part is surely the only way to prepare a sermon.

Inspirations

What things stir your affections for Christ? And what things don't. I'm going to agree with most of the negatives on the list, but need to go write my own.

Free Theatre Tickets For Young People

Light on information, but high on pizzaz; A million free theatre tickets for under 26 year olds. Once a week, theatres giving away tickets! Starting February! First come first served! No-one knows any more! Take your young people! Take yourself if you're that young! Free tickets!

Children In Revival

The vicar purchased Children in Revival¹ for me and the kids worker at work. I've just read the first few pages at the minute, but already stuff has stuck out. A few quick quotes on how it seems to take time between being convicted of sin and believing in the Gospel:

"Constantly we will find references to person being 'impressed' or 'awakened', which may only be a first step towards full 'conviction of sin', and 'conversion' or 'assurance' is only entered many days subsequently. Today, the modern evangelist tends to lump all these together to claims results..."

" 'I found a son of my own, a boy of about thirteen, weeping and crying under deep convictions, and I hastened to carry him away to some house, that something might be done to quiet him. But on the way , a remark which I had heard some days before, on the sin and danger of stifling convictions, sprang up in my mind, so as to overawe me.' "

¹ Yes, you're reading a website written by a person who enjoys reading a book about children involved in revival in Scotland between 1741 and 1958.

Cake and Biscuits

The question that shall mostly concern us this evening is the difference between those more Conservative Evangelicals and those more Charismatic Evangelicals. That such a distinction should even be able to be made is a sad state of society, and hopefully you, dear reader, are unaware that some churches lean more one way than the other. But it is an important issue and I shall discuss it so.

Or something.

In a moment I'm going to give you a great John Owen quote, but before you get into it, let me give you a bit of a heads-up because it's John Owen and it's a bit obtuse. It's quoted in a book called "the Glory of Christ", a book that's all about how we, as Christians here on earth see Christ in all his glory and how that differs from seeing Christ in the ever after. And he gets to a part where he starts talking about dangers we may fall into when doing this one of which is that our heads might outstrip our hearts (a common problem in Conservative Evangelicalism) or that our hearts might outstrip our heads (a common problem in Charismatic Evangelicalism). Alas, because he's John Owen and obtuse (and because he's living in 17th century England) in explaining all this he doesn't make the obvious analogy; Charismatic Evangelicalism is biscuits, Reformed Evangelicalism is cake.

As you all know, the difference between a cake and a biscuit is this: When a biscuit gets old it goes soft, when a cake goes old it gets hard¹. Perhaps old is the wrong word, maybe it'd be better to think about it as being out of the heat of the oven for a long time. When biscuits are out of the heat for a bit they start to get soft and malleable and fall over at anything. When cake is out of the heat for a bit it gets hard and is better for hitting people with than for sustenance. This is what John Owen is driving out with the —by now much anticipated quote —the second we take our hearts or minds off Christ then our hearts start to harden to his glory or our minds start to soften in our view of it.

Finally then, the quote:

That view of the glory of Christ whereof we treat consists in two things, — namely, its especial nature, and its necessary adjunct or effect. The first is, a spiritual perception or understanding of it as revealed in the Scriptures. For the revelation of the glory of his person, office, and grace, is the principal subject of them, and the principal object of our faith. And the other consists in multiplied thoughts about him, with actings of faith, in love, trust, delight, and longing after the full enjoyment of him, 1 Peter 1:8. If we satisfy ourselves in mere notions and speculations about the glory of Christ as doctrinally revealed unto us, we shall find no transforming power or efficacy communicated unto us thereby. But when, under the conduct of that spiritual light, our affections do cleave unto him with full purpose of heart, our minds are filled with the thoughts of him and delight in him, and faith is kept up unto its constant exercise in trust and affiance on him, — virtue will proceed from him to purify our hearts, increase our holiness, strengthen our graces, and to fill us sometimes "with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

This is the just temperature of a state of spiritual health, — namely, when our light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ does answer the means of it which we enjoy, and when our affections unto Christ do hold proportion unto that light; and this according unto the various degrees of it, — for some have more, and some have less. Where light leaves the affections behind, it ends in formality or atheism; and where affections outrun light, they sink in the bog of superstition, doting on images and pictures, or the like. But where things go not into these excesses, it is better that our affections exceed our light from the defect of our understandings, than that our light exceed our affections from the corruption of our wills.

¹ This is why the confusion arises over the state of Jaffa Cakes, not because no-one knows the grounds on which to decide whether they are cake or biscuit, but because no Jaffa Cake has ever survived for long enough to conduct the experiment.

The Real Football Competition

Really really important news here. News so important for the sake of youth work that I had to add the adverb really to the front of it twice (even though such method tends more to diminish the overall trustworthiness of the author than the importance of the individual announcement). Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 comes out on October 17th. If you're really keen you can pre-order it from Amazon now but if you really love your young people you can go to the continent when it's out two days earlier on the 15th.

Fewer Crimes in Youth Curfew Town

So there was this town in Cornwall who had a somehow voluntary youth curfew over the summer. Under 16's had to be home by 9:00. Apparently it worked out quite well so possibly expect to see it rolled out, or at least suggested in the rest of the country.

Megan's Law

The website for Megan's Law, the Californian Law that lets you find out if there are any child sex offenders living near you. Or living near anywhere in California. Just browse the map and have a look around at random people. This is the law that the new British one being trialled out is based upon, though our one is much watered down.

Find Out If Your Neighbour Is A Sex Offender

Possibly. There's a pilot scheme rolling out in which parents, guardians, and carers can find out whether or not someone who knows or works with their child is on the sex offenders register. The scheme is going to be rolled out through parts of four counties. The scenario given out is a single mum trying to check up on her new boyfriend and it seems as though the police would look at the same information a CRB check would cover, but vast numbers of questions still remain. Who counts as working with or knowing the child and how do the police know you know them (could you just ask them about the old man who lives down the road)? Will they let you know if the person has been done for a sex offence if it's not related to children?

The Truth About Teen Girls

Time Magazine asks Is there something wrong with teen girls? Specifically, are they getting too sexy?

"One of the clear findings last year of the APA task force was that an early emphasis on sexuality stunts girls' development in other areas. 'When kids are about defining themselves, if you give them this idea that sexy is the be-all and end-all, they drop other things,' "

(via)

Parents 'want texts from schools'

And not those texts telling you you've won stuff if you ring a number up. Parents would like to hear from their kids' schools most likely about their kids too. I've got no idea how I would even implement this at a youth club, let alone whether it'd be considered a good idea by the young people.

How To Interview Someone

I get to interview people for a job about once a year. I really enjoy the process of interviewing someone, even if it is a bit daunting and making a decision about who to employ is never the easiest thing and telling someone they didn't get a job is never the funnest. The problem is doing it once a year means you never really get any good at it. You do the interview process and think "oh gosh, we could have done that a lot better" and then because you don't go through it for another eleven and a half months you never think about it again and so the next time you do exactly the same things. With things you do week in and week out the problem is finding time to stop and think about them and changing them, with interviews it's the opposite process, it's not the time to think but the time to change that you're missing. So, mostly to help me to not be such a lame-ass next time –but possibly benefiting you as well– here are my most recent observations on interviews. In all this I'm writing about interviewing people who are going for jobs in Christian ministry.

Basic Stuff

They're your brother or sister in Christ, they are, hopefully, a Godly person who wants to know if they're right for the job as much as you do. You shouldn't be wanting to trick them or catch them out, you want to give them as much information as possible to see if they are right for the job.

Have all the questions written down beforehand and make sure everyone interviewing the candidates has copies of them and know which questions are theirs. Don't feel awfully obliged to stick to the script, if they say something interesting pick them up on it, go off track. Make sure someone is taking a lead on the interviews to bring people back on though. Make sure everyone interviewing has read all the references, applications, CVs all the rest. Take notes if you can while listening so when people afterwards say "so, why did you give them the job" you can tell them. It's a lot easier to prove someone should have the job if you can say "it's because they answered this question like this". Open the interview in prayer.

Good Questions To Ask

• Why do you want this job?
• What are you reading right now? / What's been the most influential book you've read? You can say here "aside from the Bible obviously" or don't say it and see if or how they mention it.
• What did you do while you were doing this job? (Inserting a job out of their CV)
• Our aim here is "to make Christ known". What do you think of that? (or whatever your aim is)
• How would you deal with this practical situation? We used "a parent complains about what you were teaching their child" and "a young person becomes a Christian". If I was only allowed to ask questions in one style it'd be this one.

Things To Consider

• You only get a set number of questions before you all start to flag. Before the interview make sure you've asked of every question "what is this question trying to find out?" Often you can scratch the answers this way, or you can ask what you're trying to find out bluntly rather than in a roundabout way. If you want to find out if they believe in spiritual gifts, ask them if they believe in spiritual gifts, not "describe your experience of ministering to people in the power of the Holy Spirit" (not that that might not be a valid question).
• You often end up afraid of asking questions that are relevant because you feel that it's not fair to ask that in an interview. If it's relevant for the job, you're probably safe answering it.
• You can and should ask people about Jesus Christ. I mean, they should love him, so ask them more about Him. And their theology. Everything. Ask lots.

Handling Students Who Don't Want To Participate

Tim Schmoyer discusses what to do with youths who don't want to join in. Linked as much for the comments that follow about parents as anything else.

Job: Youthwork Coordinator - St Mary's Centre Camden

Are looking to appoint a new Youthwork Coordinator from September 2008. Working up Primrose Hill way with kids from the area. More details at the website. Closes 19th September 2008.

Young People and Social Networking Sites

Childnet have released a guide for parents, teachers, and carers called young people and social networking sites. It's short and more of an introduction to what they are than a good guidance to how you interact with them, but a handy resource none the less. (via)

New UK Education Shake-Up

Starting this term, the English 11-18 education system is being shaken up a bit. Here's the new system digested:

The age for leaving education is going up

Pupils joining secondary school this year (so the current year 7's) will have to stay in education until they are 17. In two years time the year 7's will have to stay in education until they are 18. The definition of education is pretty broad here, so someone could leave school at 16, go into the workplace and as long as they were doing recognised training in that workplace, that'd count.

A-levels are being rejigged

This isn't a big a change as the introduction of AS Levels in 2001, it's more a revision of that system. From now on most AS and A2 sections will have two modules each instead of three. They'll be less course work and more open essays in exams. And if you average an A in the subject over all and do exceptionally well in the A2 then you can get an A* mark for the A-Level. So no A* for individual AS levels, just for the full A-level.

New diplomas

These can be taken from 14 onwards (so alongside GCSE's and A-Levels) at different levels. There are initially five all related to the "employment sectors of creative and media, information technology, health and social care, construction and the built environment and engineering". There seems to be less news on these than the others, so I'll try to dig up more later on.

Keystage 3 (11-14's) curriculum is being shook up.

More emphasis on schools taking a lead on aspects of the curriculum and a more modernised set of core subject. ICT seems to have firmly replaced Geography and History as a core subject (the other two being Maths and English). There aren't going to be any real changes this year, but it'll be this years year 7's who feel it when they're introduced next year. There's going to be new assessment targets as well, what they'll be like though...

GCSE revamps

Nothing major here, just making GCSEs more modular (like AS / A-levels currently are) and tweaks in syllabus as of next September. This should make resits slightly easier as you'll only have to do on section. All your past papers will be out of date though.

Old People Make The Best Youth Leaders

Everything in this article is true (it's just putting it into practice that's sometimes the hard part).

The Cult of Professor Worship

Carl Trueman writing about the dangers (and ease) of creating a cult based around one teacher. One of those things where you think immediately "I've seen that! I've seen idols made out of Christians!" and then after a few moments reflection realise "In my own life".(via)

Celebrity

Earlier today I was walking back to work past the Radio 1 studios. To say it was surrounded by paparazzi would be a massive overstatement, but there were at least ten folk with massive cameras all lined up waiting for someone to leave. As I'm walking past there is a flurry of activity, I overhear that the celebrity has just finished being interviewed and so should be out any minute now so I slow down my pace of walk and actually start to dawdle. A few other people passing by do a similar thing. And then lo, some woman walks out of the building side door with two bodyguards and is bundled into the back of a blacked out van. All the photographers fire off their cameras and then jump into cars and drive off after her. Turns out it was Kiera Knightley (Who I thought was blonde and had short hair but never mind).

Here's where it gets all a bit disingenuous though (and in case you haven't realised yet, this is nothing about youth work or Christianity so if you want to stop reading now please do) is that the first website that came up via Googling (the afore-linked one) describes the situation as thus:

She's one of the most recognizable British actresses in the world, and earlier today Keira Knightley was spotted leaving the Radio 1 Studios in London, England.

"Yeah, we were just walking past Radio 1 and who do we see but Kiera Knightley! Fortunately I had my £5000 worth of kit to take a photo or two of her". It's devious because it makes following a celebrity for photographs sound like bird-watching; they were just hiding out in a promising location seeing if some sort of celebrity would turn up and she happened to walk past. This is a lie, they were waiting for her with cameras because they knew she would be there.

Kids: Here Is How To Use A Condom

I originally was going to lead this with a whole long spiel about Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice-President candidate, whose daughter has just announced she's pregnant out of marriage, but you know what, while that's a big deal in the States I can't quite work up the excitement. So let's cut straight to the topic: Abstinence-Only Sex Education!

Abstinence-only sex education is the following approach to sex education: "KIDS: DON'T HAVE SEX WITH YOUR PEERS. OR ANYONE ELSE. UNTIL YOU MARRY THEM." Actually, there's a bit more to it than that, but that'll have to wait for a second. The reason abstinence-only sex education is such a big deal is that there are a whole bunch of grants in the States for agencies who are promoting abstinence-only sex education. Consequently abstinence-only sex education seems to have become the de-facto national curriculum of the USA in some states. And that curriculum runs something like the following:

1. Has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
2. Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
3. Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;¹
4. Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;
5. Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
6. Teaches that bearing children out of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;
7. Teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances, and
8. Teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

(These are official guidelines.: agencies who take certain money from the US government have to abide by.)

So far, all so good, (enough, -ish). Within a certain range of definition I'm not sure I'd disagree with teaching any of those things. So is this something we should try and copy in this country, where this style of sex education is relatively unknown? After all, if we believe sex is designed for marriage (which we do, or at least I do, and you should too) surely teaching abstinence outside of marriage is the correct thing to do? Well. Yes. Abstinence never seems to get taught in the British system and that's disastrously awful, however the other way of doing things seems just as bad. The massive flaw with abstinence-only sex education is that it teaches abstinence-only sex education That means you can't teach how to use or access any form of contraception. That means you can't say "but if you are going to have sex, here's how to use a condom" or "but if you are going to have sex here's how to access support to various services" or "but if you are going to have sex here's how's to tell your mum that you're pregnant". That means if you're not one-hundred percent convincing with your don't have sex spiel you're going to be seeing rather young parents rather more frequently (or worse; you're not).

People of the world; I've asked around and done some research, and it turns out teenagers want to have sex. It also turns out that they're not very good with being told not to do stuff. It also turns out that if they've made a promise not to have sex till they are married then they'll see no reason to carry around condoms or be on the pill, but they'll not be the most reliable at keeping those sort of promises. But that's not the only reason abstinence-only sex-education doesn't work, here are the two other more Christian ones.

The reason Christians advocate saving sex for marriage is because they believe that God has designed it for that relationship. And there is no problem with telling this to people who aren't Christians, in fact you should, but when you then start expecting people to follow your advice which is based upon a God they don't believe in, you shouldn't be too surprised when they don't take it. Why should they trust that the God they don't believe in has designed sex for marriage and that it is better to wait for it? And hey, without the Holy Spirit helping out if they do decide to go down that route it's going to be pretty hard.

The second reason though is probably the kicker. Trying to make people follow the commands of Jesus without first knowing Him is not a great way of teaching people about Jesus. It's a great way of teaching legalism. "If you obey these rules, then God will save you!", "Don't have sex with your boyfriend and then you shall know heaven", "you can save yourself with virginal purity!". That's not Christianity, that's every other world religion. There is a correct way to teach young people the laws that God has set out, and in all honesty I haven't quite cracked it², but it's not in teaching them to obey it outside of knowing Jesus. Teaching those who aren't Christians that they can keep God's law is foolish (as indeed is teaching those who are Christians). "These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh." (Colossians 2:23)³

A better sex education approach would contain something like this:

• Sex is a grace. It is a gift from God for a man and wife to teach us about intimacy, about Christ, about his Church, and to be generally awesome.
• Sex is a law. Sex outside of marriage is disobedience to God. Sex can be an addiction and a master of us. Sex is a god in today's society. Our attitude to sex shows us how sinful we are, how much we cannot save ourselves and how much we need a good saviour.
• Kids; here is how to use a condom.

¹ (On this Wikipedia has the best things to say earlier in the afore-linked article; "the fact that complete abstinence itself (even within marriage) is the most effective preventative measure against both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases has never been in dispute." NO. WAY.)

² This is my current big deal in youth work. How do you effectively discipline young people and teach them what is right, while at the same time teaching them that they cannot be good and need Christ to be reckoned good.

³ Yeah, yeah, not great exegesis I know. The passage is aimed at Christians, not non-Christians, but I think the point stretches.

Safer London Foundation

If you're working with gang members involved in gun and knife crime in London, you could get up to £80k of funding via the Safer London Foundation

The committee is looking to support a number of projects with grants up to £80,000 in total and is particularly interested in projects working in partnership with agencies such as Safer Neighbourhoods Teams (SNTs) and who can demonstrate sustainability beyond the term of the grant applied for.

Application deadline is 3.00 PM Friday 12th September.

Central Church Fund

"Does your parish have a project involving greater outreach into the community? Does it need financial support for the project?". If the answer is yes to any of these questions, and you're actually part of a Church of England church and not just some guy who has seen the parish could do with some work and so think you could nab some money, you can get up to £15,000 via the Central Church Fund. It's an ongoing fund, so you can apply whenever