A sneak preview of what we're going to be looking at on Sunday night at our "Generate" youth gathering at The Church on Rise Park. This time's theme is the "I am's" of Jesus, to help us think about who we are in the future sessions.

An ice-breaker made to encourage young people to mingle at a District-wide gathering today. Upward of 80 young people and some leaders playing at once. Seemed to do the job.

There are plenty of these templates out there, but none of them quite seemed to be what I needed for a mixed group of young people, so I made my own. Feel free to steal/amend accordingly!

Rules are simple:
1. You can only use yourself once, in the box marked "You";
2. Each box has to have a different person signing their own name in it;
3. No lying.

(Click the image for a PDF download version... Aren't I nice to you?!)

Another cheat blog...
This time is this morning's welcome service for the new Year 7's at National Academy, which was conducted at St Mary's in the town.

The theme was "Blank Page", encouraging young people to use the fresh start and the blank page that is in front of them...

Prepping for a series of assemblies at one of the secondary schools I am linked with, with the theme of "Hope".

Remit is 2 classes of young people, for about 15 minutes. Numbers are for references to slides/visuals/transitions used.

Feel free to "borrow" any ideas, and let me know how you get on...

NOTE: This is for a church school. Even then I am careful about how I present Christianity. Be sensible with what you say when you do assemblies ANYWHERE! You're entrusted with a privileged position and you represent us all...

People get old.
Assuming that they are healthy, they can go on for a while.
But it's not the number you reach that determines the value of your life, rather it's the number you reach.

I'm a youth worker. It's my job to work with young people. More than that I believe it to be my calling. And normally I think I'm pretty good at it... Except I don't think I'm made for all youth work, not all youth work is the same, and not all youth workers have the same strengths.

The real secret though is this:

It's been a while since I wrote my Honours dissertation, and nearly as long since I read it, but from memory, I'm still committed to the baseline principle:

We all watch things, and we all need to be able to understand what we're watching.