Living in regional Australia is beautiful, but it has its challenges!

Rural decline is no secret. Towns are getting smaller; there is less work, so many young people have to move away; income is often uncertain; drought has made things more difficult. In some places young people routinely leave home for boarding school at the beginning of high school (aged about 13) or at year 11 (aged 16).

One of the challenges for Christian children is isolation from other Christian children. Very often they experience kind and loving Christian community in their local congregation, but find very few interactions with Christ-followers of their own age. Many children find themselves attending worship where they are the only child, or Sunday School with the only their brothers and sisters in the class. For some, there is the experience of being the only Christian child they know. For others, there is a small group of children who lack role models in the young adolescent age group, because high scholars are at boarding school. Others are given 1960’s style Sunday school, when every other aspect of their lives is third millennial.

My heart’s desire is to improve these children’s experience of life in the church. We haven’t got the answer, but I want to tell you about something we are doing well, which seems to be effective. Maybe the model which has been so effective for us will be useful to other rural and regional children’s ministries.

Theoretical Background to KSO

All over the world there are thriving children’s ministry programs of all different kinds. My goal has been to try to identify the key components of highly effective children’s ministry, and then work out how we can apply them in a rural, South Australian context.

I’ve made a list of (some of) the keys to highly effective children’s ministry. They seem to divide themselves into foundational beliefs (the things upon which everything else is built); the nature of church (things that are not specific to a particular program, but part of who we are, or ought to be, as the church); and specific strategic action implemented in particular programs and events.

Foundational Beliefs:

• We believe that this is important ministry.
• We acknowledge that children can be faithful disciples of Jesus right now.
• We expect that Christ-following children can minister right now.
• We insist that ministry with children be safe and above reproach.

Nature of Church (i.e. this happens in every aspect of our life together)

• We develop gifted and well-educated adult leaders.
• We forge strong relationships between adult Christ-followers and children.We provide mentoring and ongoing care for children.
• We integrate children into the wider church.

Strategic Action (i.e. what we inject into each specific program):

• We provide age and culture appropriate teaching.
• We teach and preach the Gospel (rather than moral lessons).
• We use popular, contemporary music.
• We provide youthful role models (who themselves are being mentored).
• We think all of these factors are important in highly effective children’s ministry.

They all have a place in our understanding of what we are doing through KSO, but the things we concentrate on, and bring to the front of our consciousness when we plan and implement KSO are these:

• junior leaders
• input through a range of media
• enabling adults to be better ministers to children
• cool music
• sharing the Gospel
• providing opportunities for children to respond.

You’ll notice that I’ve used different words, but you’ll find that the concepts are the same. So having set out what we aim most of all to achieve, I’ll tell you about KSO.

Continue reading this essay by Ian Dow by downloading the full text below.

Download: Eyre Peninsula Regional Children’s Event – KUCA Sleepover by Ian Dow (pdf)

About the Author, Ian Dow:

I am married to Margaret and we have 7 children aged between 17 and 1. One thing they have taught us is that learning how to be a good parent is an ongoing process. Even when you’ve got it reasonably right with the babies and little kids, you still have to learn how to be a parent to teenagers. It isn’t always easy, or fun, but the effort has always been worth it!

We have chosen to live in rural and remote South Australia.    Despite the difficulties of living far from the state capital, we have found a sense of community in remote areas that is different from what exists in the city.

Our desire is to contribute to and become part of the communities in which we live, and to share our faith with the people there.

I’m studying towards a Doctor of Ministry because I think that country people deserve well educated and equipped professionals –too often the rural regions are seen as a place where professionals work for a few years to gain experience before returning to the bigger cities.

My particular interest is in working out what are the essential ingredients of highly effective children’s ministry, and then creating ways to put them into practice in remote and rural settings. In the symposium I will tell something about the regional Christian children’s camps we have been running.

I am a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church, currently serving Jesus in Tumby Bay and Districts, South Australia.

Empowering the now and the next generation to be leaders who make an impact, now and in the future.

Internship to leadership is not a program it is a journey and is about ensuring young people have the opportunity to grow into leaders who make an impact now and for the future generations. It’s about equipping and empowering young people with the skills and confidence to lead a ministry, work in a team and empower others. Internship To Leadership is what we have to grab hold of if we are ever thinking of where our ministry wants to be not just where we are now. It’s very easy to concentrate so much on where we are now and forget that God wants this ministry to be a legacy and for us to think forward into the future.

To begin an internship with City Youth the young people must go through our leadership school. Called City Youth Leadership School, and we run this once a year in the middle of the year school holidays. It is a three day school which is specifically designed for potential leaders. Young people who have the potential to be great leaders but don’t yet have the basic skills to do so. During City Youth Leadership School the young people are empowered to be great leaders through teaching from phenomenal speakers from all over South Australia from different churches and through small group participation. This is a great way to develop and equip the young people with the foundational leadership skills to begin the young people’s next step in becoming a great leader.

The topics that we cover are: The Call – through the use of biblical characters in the bible and the exploring of their call on their life the young people discover how they know they are called to leadership, why they are called to leadership, and if they are called to leadership.

The second topic is: Follow the Leader – through the use of principles in the bible the young people will discover how to follow a leader, how do they know they are following a good leader, and how important it is to follow a good leader. They learn respect, and honour and participation.

The third topic is: Leadership Principles – through biblical leadership principles the young people discover the basic leadership principles of being a good leader for example: you know you are a leader when you have people following you; otherwise you are not really a leader. This topic proves to really encourage them and gives them a little deeper meat to get their teeth into in regards to being a good leader.

The fourth topic is: Take one – Action – in this topic they start to discover, so now they have been told the basic leadership principles, how do I apply it to my life, and ministry to be a good leader. So the young people look at how to put these leadership principles into action.

The fifth topic is: Integrity/all eyes on you – in this topic we delve deep into the issue of leadership and integrity and how they must go together. We speak about how when you are a leader, everyone else is watching. So its important to make choices that will not give your followers a distorted picture of God focused leadership.

The sixth and final topic is: Team – we look at what is a team, how to be working as a team, how to be an individual in a team, how to work together to see a vision/dream realized.

This is the basic course that we run for the young people to take any kind of leadership role in the youth ministry. The reason for this is so that every person involved in leadership has had the basic training as a leader and therefore we have something to build upon. If they were just to begin an internship with out any kind of basic leadership skills we would spend all of the time teaching them about the basics of leadership and no time developing their leadership skills.
At the end of attending the leadership school, the young person decides whether they want to take their leadership foundation further because they feel that they want to start to get involved in a ministry within our youth ministry and grow as a person.

If they say that they do this is where they begin an Internship to leadership journey. The internship to leadership journey is a commitment from the young person for a year; to take a year in their life to really develop their relationship with God, and their leadership skills. It’s also a chance for them to discover what area of ministry they would like to be part of, or even what ministry they would like to begin. The Internship to Leadership Journey consists of three areas: mentoring, ministry team and review/positioning.

Continue reading this essay by downloading the entire text below.

Download:  Internship to leadership… Journey by Neil Milton (pdf)

About the Author:

Neil Milton is the Youth Pastor for Adelaide West Uniting Church in South Australia and is also the Schools    Outreach Coordinator. Neil’s passion is in the area of evangelism, preaching and empowering young people in leadership.

Before he began his relationship with Jesus Christ he had made some bad life choices, and had got mixed up with people who would steer him away from ever knowing Jesus. Now through the grace of God he has been given the blessing of impacting young people’s lives to make positive life choices, through connecting with them in schools and through being the Youth Pastor of City Youth (CY) the youth ministry for AWUC.

He believes in empowering young people at a young age and to help them to discover Jesus in a powerful way that will grow them and help them to run the race with passion.

Neil Milton believes “Internship to leadership Journey” will equip the young people in a way that will grow them and empower them to be the influence in their world and to see it transformed.

Email: youth@adelaidewest.uniting church.org.au

A person walks into the room and starts singing ‘Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me’. Instantly some people start to sing along- “M.I.C.K.E.Y.M.O.U.S.E”. Others in the room give those who are singing strange looks. What is going on?

Another time and place and a song blares out. The movie ‘Priscilla, Queen of the desert’ has just been released. Many of the teenagers at school start singing along. So does their Scripture teacher- over 20 years their senior. The young people are amazed. “Gee miss- you know the words of this song. Your cool” says one young person. Little did they realise that the teacher had learnt the music from the first time around- when they were originally sung by ABBA!

Shared experience

The cohort we grow up in is the age group from approximately 5-10 years either side of our age- irrespective of our age. Our cohort is the general age group which shared many of our experiences of society, (with a special focus on music). For example- those who lived in the time of the landing on the moon, or who grew up with Countdown or Australian Idol or Big Brother- or those for whom September 11 had a significant impact. Some teenagers now have little recollection of life before ‘the war on terror’! We are very aware of the Baby Boomers, X generation and Y generation. There are key factors which are common to people born within a certain time frame in history, their cohort, which has been used to ‘label’ particular people or generations. Sometimes this can be helpful, but many more times- it excludes people who do not fit into the broad categories or key indicators of a particular generation. Even the use of ‘first or second generation’ can be exclusive and the term ‘1.5ers’ is not necessarily helpful either. What each of these terms does is indicate a particular characteristic of a group of people. This may have some similarities to other groups of people- but each group is distinctive in its own right.

Traditionally, the church has divided ministry and people into groups dependent upon their age group or life stage. This may have been helpful in the past and still is in some areas. However, the church is being challenged to rethink its theology of ministry to children and young people. For people can discover faith at any age and the nurturing of an individual’s faith and the expression of that faith is quite distinctive. How can we connect with people, nurture their faith and help them find authentic expressions of faith in worship, church involvement and especially in their ministry in the wider world?

Changing Experience

In the Uniting Church the Parramatta-Nepean Presbytery has significant ministry with people from a range of different ethnic backgrounds as well as children, youth and families. In 2005, 12 Youth workers and 13 Children/Family workers were employed within congregations. Now, many of the congregations have moved from employing ‘youth workers’ to ‘family and children and youth’ (in some combination). Some understand the ‘family’ aspect to be the families of the children and youth, whilst others are starting to look more at intergenerational ministry. Some are even beginning to see the importance of connecting people across ages focusing more on intentional ministry at times of transition, shared interests or relationships. There are some key lessons from the Presbytery which are helping to move the congregations (and the wider church) forward into what is potentially a very positive future.

Continue reading this essay by downloading the full text below

Download: Ministry across ages- more attitude than a generation gap? by Rev Christine Bayliss Kelly (pdf)

About The Author:

Rev Christine Bayliss Kelly is the Children, Youth and Family Ministry Worker for the Parramatta-Nepean Presbytery in Sydney. The Presbytery is the largest in the Uniting Church and provides ministry to over 74 congregations and faith communities.

She has been in leadership with children and young people for over 30 years, and has a passion for nurturing their faith. Her ministry has been in rural, urban and suburban settings, including some time with street ministry with youth in Scotland.

Christine spent 7 1⁄2 years in a team ministry where her focus was children and families. She has nearly completed her Masters of Ministry and is currently researching faith development and expression across 3 generations in families. Her husband Scott is a Deacon working in the Corrective Services. Their children are nearly 13, 11 and 7.

Children’s Ministry isn’t Play …. began one article – but isn’t it?

The article went on to detail one perspective on the importance of taking Children’s Ministry seriously, and that’s an issue I won’t argue with (although their particular perspective is probably not my own), but the title grabbed me, Children’s Ministry isn’t Play, because much of my musing of late has been that Children’s Ministry SHOULD be play.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. – Heraclitus

Where I am coming from:

When I wear my “other work/career” hat (apart from the best hat of all – as a mum!) I am a primary teacher and educational consultant. I have a particular passion for the first years of school, and for a “hands-on” learning-through-play kind of learning. I am privileged to be one of the chosen replacement teachers at our sons’ school – where in the team-taught Prep-One-Two they are implementing an exciting and innovative play-based developmental learning curriculum. I have worked with these teachers in “getting it going” and have been spending time revisiting familiar academic texts and encountering new ones on ‘learning through play’, talking, playing and exploring with them what this all means.

It is hard to separate my two hats – Primary School Teacher and Children, Families and Youth Worker. They are both about, in essence, providing opportunities for learning for children and young people, supporting families and making the most of educational opportunities – be they with quite different foci. So musing about play – what it is, why it is important and its role in learning – crosses over both areas.

Learnt… not Taught!

In Children’s Ministry I think we are only just discovering the role of play as a model for learning – we have often been too caught in “teaching” and “making it fun”, to see that learning happens through play. Play seems okay in crèche, playgroup or similar programs for young children, but its purpose is seen as “occupying” children whilst parents worship or participate in study or meetings, and with older children it has become what you do when the “real” learning is finished! We haven’t seen that the play can act as a vehicle for developing understandings of faith, Bible stories, “doing church” and “being church”.

I’m not for a minute saying that “having fun” is not already part of the picture, or that “teaching” does not have a role in Christian education programs – but I believe strongly that we can learn much from play-based and developmental curriculum understandings – and that the role of play has been severely undervalued in Christian Education and Children’s Ministry programs – and it is not just for young children.

We are all too aware that some models of Christian Education have done little to engage or educate those who experience the programs. We are more aware than ever that we are dealing now with families where parents and children are “unchurched”, where not only the beliefs of our faith are unfamiliar, but also are the stories, symbols and traditions that underpin our faith. We are at a point where it is possible that Peter Rabbit is believed to be a Bible story, and the biblical literacy that has influenced many of our cultures and community is missing for many – including those who are part of the church community. Families often do not have a culture of faith sharing in the home, Bible stories and understandings are scare and the symbols and traditions of our churches are unfamiliar and foreign. Over recent years programs such as “Seasons of the Spirit” have attempted to embrace understandings of different styles of learning (see “Choice… for many reasons!” below for further discussion of this), but we are still a little caught in “tell a story” “everyone do the same activity” models.

The approach suggested here allows for an immersion into tradition, symbols and stories. Where children can play with and explore these – and where families are also exposed to these. It inherently contains choices and selection by the learner, where the same story or experience is encountered time and again in different ways. It doesn’t, however, happen in a vacuum. I see play approaches as part of a church community’s life and Christian Education – as part of a faith community which values and includes families. It must be part of a facilitated environment – where worship, activities, conversation and resources are geared and developed to enhance understandings of faith, Bible stories, “doing church” and “being church”. Play must occur within a context of story sharing.

At Croydon Uniting we have modified our Sunday morning Christian Education program – it is now known as Sunday STEPS (Stories Told Experienced Practised and Shared). It is based on the premise that stories told, experienced, practised and shared are stories remembered, and that it is through encountering the stories of our faith that faith develops. The idea is that the three level groups (Stepping Stones 3yr olds – year 2; Stepping Up years 3-5; Stepping Out years 6-8) immerse themselves in a Bible story over a longer period of time, perhaps only encountering two stories during a term. This story would usually be a key extended story from the lectionary. For instance, during second term in 2006 they explored the life of King David – rather than just looking at an episode or two. Each group immerses themselves in the story using different methods, Stepping Stones often use play and Stepping Up and Stepping Out particularly focusing on different media – puppetry, construction, animation, video etc during the term finishing with a presentation during worship – with play also a component of these groups. Our hope is that the children learn through the stories, play and experiences – rather than expect we are teaching them.

Continue reading this essay by downloading the entire document as a pdf file below.

Download: Playing Into Faith by Carolyne Chandler (pdf)

About the Author:
Carolyne Chandler is currently the Co-ordinator of Children, Families and Youth Ministry (CFYM) at Croydon Uniting Church– a mid-sized congregation in a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. Carolyne’s working life began as a primary    teacher    during thisd time Carolyne married Paul – who is a lay preacher, secondary teacher and expert in teacher change.

After just over 8 years of teaching, she took extended leave to begin a family, and became full time Mum to first David (now 10) and then to Jonathan (now 6) as well. She worked during this time (and still occasionally does) as an educational consultant specialising in maths education. This included writing for and editing a periodical for the Victorian Mathematics Association for a number of years and working with small and large groups of parents, teachers and children.

Her move into lay ministry began when she began a playgroup when David was 18 months old – -Carolyne has a keen interest in supporting children and families to grow in faith and know the unending love and grace of God, and in encouraging church communities to be “family-friendly” and welcoming to the “unchurched”.

Her passions include her ministry,    family    and cooking, craft and bike riding (the last three when she gets the time!).

Let me share with you a good news story in youth, children’s and family ministry. It’s a good news story with a strong interface with contemporary worship and the music as part of it.

It’s a story that arises out of youth ministry at my church at Indooroopilly Uniting in Brisbane seemingly having reached a dead-end. It’s a story that arises out of many earnestly believing that something better than recycling the last 20 hymns in Together in Song was indeed possible.

It’s a story that has at its core, the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 28: 18-20 … to go … to disciple … to baptise … to teach …

It’s a story of hope, that seeks to reclaim what our congregation, informed by the scriptures and provoked by the Spirit and graced by Jesus … sees as its core business – namely, that first and foremost if we are called to be community of Christ, we need to know with heads and hearts who this Jesus Christ in fact is. Before we look at what is … we need to look at what was

Worship history

Indooroopilly Uniting Church is a large suburban congregation in the western suburbs of Brisbane. The congregation has 600 on the pastoral roll and at the end of 2005 had about 60 at its first traditional i.e. Wesley hymn service, 150-200 at its second allegedly family service and about 30 at its evening service.

Historically, its evening service was much larger. In decades past, well over a hundred would come – uni students, young people and young-at-heart galore. The young adult- aged youth group was huge … we’re talking well over 100 at one stage. Many of them were involved in cutting-edge street ministry, social justice activism abounded, and there was no shortage of leadership. This was a great worshipping community to be part of.

Then – for reasons I still don’t fully understand – the foundations of all of this began crumbling in the mid 1990s – numbers started dropping off – new leadership no longer was being ‘brought on’. So when I come in early 2005, we have the ‘remnant’ … and an interesting remnant at that.

In effect the bulk of that remnant were married couples, in most cases with toddler-age children … babies galore. Most of these had been the teenagers back in the 1980s and early 90s. Very Indooroopilly-like (and I speak from personal experience here) many had married partners from the same church, started having kids and then … no, rather than ‘migrating’ to the morning service which had an established Sunday School and a timeslot one would think far more conducive to family routine, they decided to stay on, kids, crèche and all in the evening.

This is the first church I know that has had an evening crèche. This of course led to the inevitable sometimes-heated debate, can we … should we be running two Christian education programs for kids – morning and evening? The evening service was well and truly the problem child of Indooroopilly Uniting’s three worship services.

Continue reading this essay by downloading the full document below.

Download: Building a worshipping, discipling, serving community of all-ages Sunday evenings – Indooroopilly Uniting Church – Brisbane, Australia A journey in search of best practice by David MacGregor (pdf)

About the Author:

David MacGregor is an ordained    UCA    minister working with young people and families at Indooroopilly in southwest Brisbane. David has served in school chaplaincy, urban and regional contexts, having begun working life as a primary school teacher. Throughout his entire ministry journey, David has shared, studied and explored passions in worship, music and Christian education.

In 2007, David received a Master of Theology degree from Brisbane College of Theology, focusing on the role of music in shaping faith within    the    worshipping community.

David is currently a member of the Uniting Church’s National Worship Working Group, the UCA in Queensland’s representative on Education Qld’s Religious Education Advisory Committee and a member of the Uniting Church Schools Commission.

Coming from a social work background the words best practice immediately place thoughts of doing the best for the client. In ministry the slant is a little different in that the focus is changed from me and the client transaction to one that includes God and faith.

This is the starting point for me as I explore best practice in a ministry setting. It raises the question of what am I doing? Or, is this the best that I am doing? How can I look to see what God is doing and is my best practice fitting in with what God is doing? And many, many others.

This reflection leads to a challenging point: is my best practice the best for God, best for me or best for those who I work with? Is it possible to be best in all three areas at once or is there some compromise or give necessary?

This paper looks at best practice in dealing with the tension of self care and serving others in long term ministry and what is necessary to maintain health, family, a spiritual life and the ministry to which I am called.

Why it is that long term committed people in youth ministry, children’s ministry or family ministry are few in numbers? Many would say various things like they grew up and got real jobs! They drifted away changed focus and so on. The statistics would say that the Job literally got to them and burned them out. We all know of and hear horror stories of how youth workers are over worked, under paid (if at all) under rated and expected to deliver the Church from its aging self.

A while ago I was the local part time minister of a local congregation in a rural regional small town, notice the use of the word local, for a while I was the local problem solver, local social worker, local suicide prevention expert, local mediation advisor etc because there was no one else for several towns in any direction. Great for my ego but practically not very great for my family, my work or the people I was working with or myself, my workload increased beyond the part time to beyond ….jump to a conclusion here.. I was drawn back to reality when my then 3 year old son said to me “: why don’t we go to the beach any more?”

I decided then with a confronting mirror popped up in front of me that things needed to change, my wife just nodded at the wisdom of my son and I knew that I would have to draw some boundaries around myself and family and learn the art of saying No in a polite but firm way. It took a while for the congregations to catch on that I was part time, it took me a while to not feel guilty about having time to myself and family but the change was needed to allow me to focus on what I could do best. The change that came, after declaring to someone that it was the last Job I wanted, was to take on the Chaplaincy at the local high school which was life giving to me as a Youth Worker and a job that allowed me to draw distinct boundaries of time around myself and family.

It may sound a little crazy that taking on more actually allowed me to do less especially in light of the previous two paragraphs but the reality was that I was able to be away from both forms of work when I was at the other, and they rarely crossed over. The boundaries became distinct and in the eyes of those who were watching I was at work when I wasn’t working. The important matter was that I was able to draw the distinct boundaries and that these were important for my health, my family and the longevity of the ministry that I was called to.

This is a lesson that I keep learning over and over and one that I constantly need to get back to as often as possible because best practice demands that what I do not only is effective for those I am working with, for and alongside but also provides time for my own sake and my family’s.

The church has at times been good at promoting self care and at the same time not very good at promoting self care. Some of the mandatory aspects of ministry involve supervision, professional continuing education and other required aspects of the work, these are very important to provide a safe basis for work and an understanding of the need for continual development as a worker. This paper is not arguing for these things alone but rather the complex interrelationship of what it means for you as a person to feel healthy and whole, as a professional, as a minister, as a family person and so on.

What are key areas of practice that provide wholeness and eventually longevity in ministry? There are many ways of dealing with this issue this paper will deal with the areas of best practice in self care in, Ministry, Spirituality, Personally and family.

Continue reading by downloading the entire essay below.

Download: Best Practice in Self Care by Rev Ernest Sorensen (pdf)

About the Author:

Ernest Sorensen comes from a very dynamic work background with many changes in career and strolls along different pathways of employment, one of these pathways has seen him involved    in    social    and community work for the last 20 years, a qualified social worker and now a specified youth worker working for the South Australian Presbytery and Synod as a Youth Mission Planner, Ernest brings his insights into self care for the worker with Young people and their families.

Ernest’s paper looks at the various aspects of life in ministry including family life and makes some observations about how to look after yourself personally with your family, spiritually and in ministry. Bringing these aspects of life together in a whole picture view of what it means to be practicing the best in self care and presents a challenge for each one of us to consider whether we are choosing to work the best and what impact it may haveonusifwedonot consider each aspect well.

From the very first time I heard Andrew Denton talking about his idea for the ABC TV program “Enough Rope”1 I knew it would be compulsory viewing at my place. It was similar to a US TV network journalist who chooses a town and then randomly picks a name out of the local phone book and phones to talk about doing a story on the equivalent of ʻA Current Affairʼ or 20/20 styled program. Oprah once asked this guy to randomly pick an audience member and he unearthed a Nigerian refugee medical student hoping to return to Africa and contribute back into his home community.

Dentonʼs original idea revolved around the audience survey they fill in booking tickets online where every so often a person is chosen to share their story and this would be the show. In development they realised that people might need some well known guests to tune in but they wouldnʼt just be on the latest book or movie tour.

In one recent episode Phil Jamieson the lead singer of Aussie band ʻGrinspoonʼ gave an amazing interview about his recent addiction to crystal meth or ʻice.ʼ A remarkably fragile and powerful story as illustrated by the acoustic performance of a new song called “Minute by Minute” and the studio outtake left in the program. [view the clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCR5cecZtQ]

Of course there are lots of different kinds of stories and sometimes they just make us laugh!

Regular listeners to weekend ABC radio 702 in Sydney will be familiar with the 10-11am DIY phone in with “The Weekend Woodies.” Of the three or four categories of caller the funniest are those with the cheapest and most dodgy method who call in the hope the chippies will endorse their plan. Better still are the now collected and published anecdotes known as “Boofhead of the Week2.” My favourite is probably the bloke who was fed up with his TV reception and decided to climb on the roof and adjust the aerial himself. Aware of OH& S he knew a safety harness was required. Lashing a rope to his four wheel drive he throws the rope over the house and climbs a ladder onto the sloping roof at the rear of the house.

Safely anchored he spends some time sorting things out. Meanwhile his wife realised morning tea would require milk and fresh bread. She jumps in the four wheel drive and heads to the shops. By all reports he hit the ground on the front footpath.

Download the entire essay: “The Pursuit of Happyness” Stories and Storytelling as Best Practice by Rob Hanks (pdf)

About the Author:

Rob Hanks is Youth Worker with over twenty five years experience in attempting to explore and access music, films and other mainstream creative arts in helping people discover, express and grow faith. He is currently working as the NSW Synod Youth Unit Coordinator for the Uniting Church in Australia.

Rob’s    recent    projects include:    “Worship Unplugged” a resource to promote    creative participation    in    worship including 150+ simple ideas; the “Meaningful Soles” art space of collected pairs of shoes and their story; AND exploring stories through the ‘Enough Rope’ principle that everyone has a story to tell and is worth hearing.

These skills are currently being honed at the expense or pleasure of daughters Lucy aged 6 and Ellie aged 3 hearing and readings stories from ‘Who’s Poo?’ to ‘The Adventures of Jumping Jack Flanagan’ which are made up nightly on the spot! Describing himself as a ‘lethargic academic’ Rob is interested    in    context, conversation, good food and humour. There is absolutely no truth to the rumour he is Australia’s biggest ‘Midnight Oil’ tragic or knows way too much about the worlds biggest rock band ‘U2’.

Check out Rob’s blog: www.pumphouse.blogspot.com

She was 15 and I was 23. She had been living in loose proximity to her older sister (21) in a caravan park somewhere on the outskirts of Brisbane. I was in the same city for a church leadership conference. She had been filling her days smoking dope and going to bed with a variety of the male residents of the van park. I had been learning to ‘move in the Spirit’ and experience an intimacy of quite a different kind. We met in an emergency accommodation youth shelter. She was there because she had nowhere to live and no family to belong to, I was there for a week of live-in ‘observation’ before returning to my church and home in North Queensland. The shelter manager gave me a summary of her story and it broke my heart. Her name was Sharon.

How does a 23-year-old, emerging church leader, living a comparatively comfortable and conservative lifestyle, offer meaningful support to a vulnerable, yet street-hardened, sexually active, homeless young woman? I didn’t have the faintest idea. My saving grace came in the form of the lounge room pool table. Sharon liked playing pool, so did I, neither of us were much good at the game but it gave us a point of contact. Over the following 3 or 4 days we played quite a few games of pool. During these times I would try to initiate meaningful conversation, the dialogue flowed like cement. By the end of the week I had found out one or two personal details about Sharon and we had one brief conversation about God. Most of the time we just played pool and exchanged the occasional sentence or two.

Towards the end of my final day at the shelter I was standing in the hall with my suitcase packed. Sharon walked past and I stopped her to say goodbye. Her eyes opened wide with surprise and she said, ‘where are you going?’ I thought that she had picked up, through general conversation, the fact that I was just a visiting ‘worker’. She hadn’t, and when I told her that I was going back home to Townsville, she started crying. I was stunned, I really had no idea that my coming or going would make any real difference to the street-wise, independent, young woman I had tried (unsuccessfully I thought) to get to know.

Reflecting on this scenario, I realised that, despite the awkwardness of my conversational attempts and my feelings of irrelevance, I had managed to convey a meaningful non-verbal message. My attempts to ‘be’ with Sharon during the week had in someway ‘spoken’ to her need for authentic companionship in the midst of a dark and lonely and confusing experience. I hadn’t done a thing to alleviate her logistic or social circumstances, I hadn’t helped her to work out any kind of long-term strategy for her future accommodation scenario (others in the service were attempting to address these important issues). I simply offered her the security and comfort of caring presence.

The ministry of presence is at the very heart of meaningful youth work. I have so many memories of turning up to youth group gatherings on a Friday night, and having at least 5 or 6 teenagers all at once trying to tell me about the events and experiences of their week. What’s that all about? Its about a mixture of things really. Its about the fascination that young people have with their own lives. Its about the need that young people have for the validation of their experience and existence. Its about the need for adult comfort in times of pain and vulnerability. Its about the need for a kind of security which can only be met by the availability and attentiveness of a safe and familiar older person.

Recently, at a mother’s day service in my home congregation, the worship leader invited people to talk about a significant memory of ‘being mothered’. One man spoke of his mother’s support of his life-long passion for cricket. His significant memory was simply that, at every game he played, he knew that at some time during the day’s play he’d look up to see his mother’s car parked outside the boundary. She might stay just for half an hour, or an hour of play, but every game he could count on her presence for some part of the match. A woman in the congregation stood to recount, in tears, her memory of her mum canceling an important evening engagement to stay home and spend time with her after she’d had a particularly bad day at school during her year 7. For both these 30-something people, now both parents themselves, the outstanding memories of their own experience of being parented had to do with the ministry of presence.

Of course we are all aware that the kind of parental presence, represented in the above stories, is all too rare a commodity in the context of the complex demands of contemporary life. Even for those young people who are blessed with an attentive and available parent/s, the proverbial truism , ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, calls for a broader response to the presence needs of young people. This calling has so much to say to our philosophy and practice of youth work.

I’m always a least a little disturbed by ‘outcome’ or ‘purpose-driven’ approaches to youth work, and to ministry and people work in general. Youth workers in the welfare/community sector are increasingly under pressure to prove the value of their service through documented evidence of client ‘outcomes’. The funding bodies of such services will tend to define these outcomes in socio-economic quantifiable terms. Therefore, it becomes all-important to demonstrate the fact that the ‘client’ is being enabled to successfully engage with the culturally orthodox systems of education, training and employment. In the process of demonstrating that ‘clients’ are being adequately motivated and supported in the quest for the Western cultural ‘Holy Grail’ of economic independence, the far more difficult to measure, holistic and quality-based approaches to youth work are under-valued and pushed to the margins. The ministry of presence, if recognized at all, comes to be viewed as an optional extra, rather than as the core business of youth work.

A similar dynamic can also affect church and para-church based approaches to youth work. In the Christian sub-cultural context of youth work, outcome-focus is stated in terms of ‘discipleship’ and ‘spiritual growth’. The discipleship-outcome driven youth ministry is often characterised by a programmatic and systematic process which is focussed on moving young people through a series of ‘stages’ in their spiritual development. Purpose statement-style slogans such as, ‘making fully-fledged disciples’, tend to reflect a ‘production-line’ approach to ministry. In the outcome-focussed Christian youth work culture, every relational and community experience must demonstrate a pragmatic developmental outcome to validate its existence. Small group ministry must be specifically structured around the core strategies and goals of the overall program. Mentoring relationships must be intentional, contractual and developmentally productive. The ministry of presence, if it operates at all, is viewed as a means towards an end: the relationship becomes the subservient medium to the all- important pragmatic ‘spiritual’ goal.

Now, I’m playing something of a devil’s advocate game with regard to my criticism of outcome-focussed youth work. I’m really not opposed to the idea of developmental goals and strategies. The concepts of economic independence and spiritual development obviously represent important transitional tasks which have huge potential to impact a young person’s sense of dignity, self-worth and ability to play out a meaningful role both in society and in the Kingdom. However, I am genuinely concerned that in our approach to youth work, pragmatism, structuralism and professionalism do not displace the essential gift and way of being with young people which is suggested by my use of the phrase ‘ministry of presence’.

Continue reading The Ministry of Presence by downloading the entire essay below:

Download the entire essay: The Ministry of Presence – A reflection on the essential ‘work’ of youth ministry. by Phil Daughtry (pdf)

About The Author:

Phil’s specialty is the spiritual & professional formation of new youth workers & the dialogue between Christian spirituality & contemporary society and professional life.

Phil can be contacted on pdaughtry@adelaide.tabor.edu.au

There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self-control I fear is never-ending
Controlling,
I can’t seem…
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
I’ve felt this way before So insecure…
(Linkin Park, ‘Crawling’)

Supporting young people around issues of depression, self-harm and suicide risk has been a consistent theme in my youth work practice during the last 5 years. Australia shares with other Western, industrialised nations the social reality of an alarmingly high number of young people on medication for depressive illness, and the commonality of self-harming behaviours. In the stories of the young people with whom I work I regularly encounter the personalised reality of what the statistics suggest: an experience of youth as a wilderness sojourn in an freakish landscape of rapid emotional mood-swings, daily threats to identity, dignity and personhood, difficult and sometimes insurmountable social obstacles, ambiguous, indistinct and conflicting life-direction markers.

It can be lonely and frightening out there in the world where teenagers actually live. Friendly, supportive and truly helpful voices are experienced as far and few between. Some young people find themselves simply unable to find enough reasons or resources to continue and so resort to their final remaining coping strategy, the termination of their earthly existence.

Our Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that a relatively small number of young people actually make this choice: one in every five thousand young men and one in every twenty-one thousand young women, aged fifteen to twenty-five years, take their own lives.iv However, informed estimates also suggest that for every completed young male suicide, another fifteen young men attempt ‘unsuccessfully’ to take their own lives. The ratio of completed to attempted suicides for young women has been estimated at an alarming ratio of one-to-one-hundred. Add to this the broader incidence of self-harming (cutting, burning) as a non-suicidal expression of intense inner distress and the burgeoning number of Australian young people on anti- depressive medicationvi and you have a portrait of a crisis in Australian (and Western) youth culture.

In my own engagement with this crisis at a pastoral and research level I have become particularly interested in the influence and impact of spirituality in suicide prevention and adolescent well-being. This interest has developed along the following lines:

Noticing the way in which spirituality has emerged as a factor for consideration in the social/medical science and therapeutic dialogue around suicide prevention and the broader concept of resilience.

Considering the unique place of Christian spirituality within this dialogue. •    Pastoral theological reflection on aspects of Christian spirituality as factors contributing to young people’s experience of ‘risk’ and ‘resilience’.

In the remainder of this paper I will discuss these points with reference to a suicide prevention conference event and a focus group discussion with four Christian young women.

Download the entire essay: “If it wasn’t for God I wouldn’t be sitting here now …” – The place of Christian spirituality in suicide prevention. By Phil Daughtry (pdf)

About the Author:

Phil’s specialty is the spiritual & professional formation of new youth workers & the dialogue between Christian spirituality & contemporary society and professional life.

Phil can be contacted on pdaughtry@adelaide.tabor.edu.au

This paper, presented at Seminar Week in July 2005, explored the theme “mobile theology” through a focus on the theological connotations of the question “Where are you?” which God addresses to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3: 8-10).I re-articulated the question for two different audiences. Firstly, what happens if we ask youth “Where r u?” Secondly, how might those interested in youth ministry respond to the question, “Where r u?”



Where R U?
In 2001 I noticed that young people were no longer using the normal social etiquette for greeting people. When answering a phone, they asked “Where r u?” instead of the traditional “How are you?” Of course one of the reasons for this change was the move from land lines and stationary phones to the use of mobile phones which allowed young people to be located anywhere. Youth in Australia have adopted mobile phones in extraordinary numbers with a McNair Ingenuity Research2 project in January 2003 reporting that:

1. Mobile phones are more commonly used by men (who are 30% heavier users of mobile phones that women) and, in particular, young affluent men.
2. Most people aged from 18 to 29 use a mobile phone daily and 95% of 18 – 29 year-olds have tried one.
3. Approximately 1/3 of Australians are regular users of SMS text messaging, and 1 in 6 sends SMS messages every day.
4. Text messaging is the domain of the young: on an average day in Australia, less than a quarter of Australians will send a text message, and only 3% of people aged over 60 will use SMS, but nearly 2/3 of people aged 18 to 29 will use SMS.

Children’s use of mobile phones is increasing dramatically as they are initiated into their use by parents who want to know “where they are” so they have easy access to them. A McNair Ingenuity Research on children’s use of mobile phones (April 2003) reported that:

1. One in four (25%) aged from 6 to 13 now have a mobile phone.
2. More than 90% of children aged from 6 to 9 have used a mobile phone, usually one belonging to their parents.
3. As children get older more of their friends have mobile phones which the children sometimes use, and over 1/3 of children aged from 10 to 13 have their own mobile phones.
4. Young girls are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age, and are significantly more likely to have their own mobile phones.

A Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council3 in 2002 reported that mobile phones rank as probably the most important product for young people. Mobile phones symbolised freedom, growing up, excitement and having fun and were ‘must haves’ for teenagers wanting to achieve social acceptance. In keeping with their clientele, and for their sake, Youth Workers were some of the first church professionals to adopt the use of mobile phones in their ministry. They must be mobile – connecting to the youth culture and flexible in their working arrangements.

Mobile phones have had a pervasive impact on Australian youth in terms of socializing, mobility and relationships. Since noticing the prevalence of this question of location, I have been eavesdropping on mobile conversations (especially while travelling in England).

“Sorry I’m on a train. The signal’s weak. Can you ring back in an hour?”

“We’re leaving Winchester.”

“We’re stuck at Clapham Junction. The train has some problems.”

“We’re on the train. Can Dad pick us up at Christchurch?”

“5 minutes outside of Parramatta.”

“Hi. …. I don’t know. …….. Yeah we’re at the roundabout ….. The big roundabout at Sopley. … ok bye!”

These quick, one sided train or bus mobile conversations are predicated on existing relationships and require context for the cryptic comments to be deciphered. Usually they are between parent and child, or partners with one waiting to collect the other, to begin the meal, to get ready to change shifts and exchange parental duties. Long conversations are not required on mobile phones that are used mainly for quick connections and emergency, geographic locaters, which according to an Ericsson survey on August 4, 2004, is the top service required by purchasers. Other services of interest were alerts, positioning (mapping), friend locator and video telephony.” Hopefully deeper and more meaningful conversations are held elsewhere to build and maintain these relationships.

“How are you?” is a different kind of question, which, if it is to be asked and answered honestly, requires adequate time. It is a much more personal interrogation. I remember a very difficult period in my life when I hated this routine enquiry of “How are you?” because it was so often used as a pretext for people to slide into their own agendas. When queried, I would have to do a double think. Did they know that my mother had died last week in a horrible accident? If so, they must be interested in my spiritual or psychological welfare. If not, then I would have to decide whether I had the energy to tell them the gruesome details.

Fortunately I rarely shared my personal story because the interval between questions was usually so short as to be embarrassing. One day I did respond to a casual request. As I walked down the corridor of the old Pitt St church office a woman I hardly knew asked “How are you?” Suddenly, I was annoyed by this paltry question and replied, “Not very well. My mother died last week.” She had reached the end of the long corridor before I finished speaking and had to walk back to offer some semblance of care. I felt a little guilty that I had selected her to carry my anger but as a stranger she seemed a safer person upon whom I could download some of my grief and pain.

In this busy world, there is so little time for or interest in asking how people are because their responses too often would interfere with what we want to achieve and use up our valuable time. “Where are you?” seems to be an easier question to ask and answer. Young people can make nippy connections and locate themselves quickly in time and space before moving on to their next party or activity.

Continue reading the essay “Mobile Theology” by Christine Gapes by downloading the pdf file below.

Download the lecture as a mp3 file (8MB) from here: Mobile Theology – Where R U?

Download:  Mobile Theology – Where R U by Dr Christine Gapes (pdf)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Christine Gapes has served on the faculties of United Theological College, Australian Catholic University, Charles Sturt University, NSW; and Trinity Theological College, Qld. She has presented papers at academic conferences around the world. She has been a major planner of and speaker at national youth conventions in Australia and other places. Her research interests over the last twenty years have focused on adolescent bereavement and the theology of youth ministry.