2. Learning outcomes
• 1a What is Youth Ministry? – Young people
today and their context
• 1b Values of youth work and ministry –
Relational Discipleship and spiritual formation
4. BEFORE THE GREAT AWAKENING
• Slave trading – 46,000 in one year (1750)
• Corrupt commerce
• Inhuman punishment – 160 capital offences
• Prisons – hell on earth
• Children - mortality was about 74%
• Alcohol – in 1751 11 million gallons of gin
• Gambling – huge sums bet and lost
• Cruel sports - commonplace cruelty
What is Youth Ministry?
5. WHAT HAPPENED?
John Wesley.
He preached 42,000 sermons, set
up free pharmacies, schools,
pleaded for tolerance, freedom,
social justice. He rode up and
down the country preaching any
where he could get a hearing. He
left 150,000 followers drawn into
self organised groups.
He taught God loved the poorest,
meanest, most impoverished. The
last, the lost and least. He and his
followers brought a moral
revolution through personal
spiritual transformation
What is Youth Ministry?
6. TRANSACTIONAL TO
TRANSFORMATIONAL
• Religion as transactions is about gaining some
kind of satisfaction from enacting or
participating in religious ceremonies.
• Religion as transformation is consciously
looking for profound changes, for discernible
growth, for the unexpected.
What is Youth Ministry?
7. Sunday School Movement – 1780’s
• Pioneers: Robert Raikes and Hannah More
• Responded to the need around them and their
Christian conviction
• Informal ways of working: Day trips / sports
teams
• Some schemes flowed from very conservative
views, others sought radical social change. As a
result, there were some tensions and conflicts
between different groupings.
Links: http://infed.org/mobi/hannah-more-sunday-schools-education-and-youth-work/
What is Youth Ministry?
8. The Youth Club...
• Rev Arthur Sweatman – 1850’s
• Really developed from 1880’s & 90’s,
predominately by Anglican and Catholic
Priests, inc. provision for girls
• 1875 – Anglican Girls Friendly Society –
purpose was to ‘unite girls and women in a
fellowship of prayer, service and purity of life,
for the glory of God’.
• 1885 – 821 branches in England and Wales
What is Youth Ministry?
9. Uniformed Organisations – Boys
Brigade
Set up by William Smith, starting in
Glasgow. He wrote:
• ‘By associating Christianity with all that was
most noble and manly in a boy’s sight, we
would be going a long way to disabuse his
mind of the idea that there is anything
effeminate or weak about Christianity’.
• Around 800 groups by the end of the 19th
century
What is Youth Ministry?
10. Scouting...
• The emphasis on drill,
evangelicalism and
regimentation in the Boys'
Brigade worried a number of
commentators, inc. Robert
Baden-Powell
• Concerned about both physical
and mental well-being of young
people.
What is Youth Ministry?
12. Review...
• Church and Christians at the forefront of
developing youth work
• Came out of people’s faith and views on life
alongside identifying a recognised need / issue
in their local community
• Predominately volunteer led
What is Youth Ministry
13. Questions
• Is our youth work in response to the needs
around us, our Christian faith or both? Why?
• Are there conflicts / tensions within our
churches concerning the focus and delivery of
our youth work? If so, what are they?
What is Youth Ministry
14. World Wars
• Following 1st World War, stuttering towards
state funded youth work
• Onset of the 2nd World War saw the start of a
organised response to issues arising with and
for young people.
• ‘Open’ youth clubs and ‘detached’ youth work.
What is Youth Ministry
15. Albemarle Report – 1960
• Heralded the heyday of the large youth club or
youth centre
• Declared that the primary aim of the youth
service should be association, training and
challenge.
What is Youth Ministry
16. Youth work provision decline
• 1980’s onwards – number of young people in
youth centres started to slowly decline
• Growing competition from entertainment at
home and other leisure activities
What is Youth Ministry
17. Growing after-school provision
• More and more schools offering breakfast
clubs and after-school clubs
• Connexions Service
• School – exams – more pressure
What is Youth Ministry
18. • Christian specific youth work degrees
• Rapid rise of paid Church based youth workers
• Evidence that this has slowed the number of
young people leaving Church, but not
reversed it yet
Professionalised Christian Youth Work
What is Youth Ministry
19. • Secular youth work cuts
• Rise of NCS
• Less full time paid Church youth work posts
• Focus returning to the Lay Workers
• Aurora developed in response to this context
Youth Work ‘Crisis’
What is Youth Ministry
20. Pick 1 question...
• Are we still called to be pioneers? What does
that look like in your context?
• How can we continue to respond to the needs
around us and to our Christian faith?
• How do you want to use Aurora to become
pioneers in your youth work setting?
23. Family Life
A quarter of children now grow
up in single parent households
More than a third of all children
living in poverty are in single
parent households
Children living in one parent
families are 1.8 times more likely to
experience poverty
www.ymca.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/Family-Misfortunes-
v1.1.pdf
24. Family Life
Children who experience family breakdown are more likely to
experience behavioural problems, perform less well in
school, need more medical treatment, leave school and
home earlier, become sexually active, pregnant or a parent at
an early age, and report more depressive symptoms and
higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during
adolescence.
http://www.ymca.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Family-Misfortunes-v1.1.pdf
25. Good Childhood Report
Family: most important topic for
children today.
www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/TheGoodChildhoodReport2015.pdf
Being Loved
and Supported
Having
freedom
Stability
&
Security
Mean satisfaction of 8.4 out
of 10 for 10-17 year olds
26. School
Pupils on free school meals: 3 terms behind their peers by
end of primary school
Attainment levels: half that of fellow students by GCSE’s
Fewer than half of those without qualifications are in
employment
44% of individuals in persistent poverty have no
qualifications
Individuals without qualifications are more than twice as
likely as those with qualifications to live in persistent
poverty
What qualifications can we enable our young people to take? First Aid;
Food Hygiene; Music Exams; Archbishop of York Young Leaders Awards
27. Economy
IFS Report:
• Incomes for those aged over 60 rose by 11% over the
period
• Aged 31 to 59: no change in incomes
• Aged 22 to 30: fallen by 7%
• Two-thirds of cases: children in ‘poor’ families have a
person in work.
•Middle income families with children: 30% of their
income from the state (compared to 22% 20 years ago).
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36826166
28. Economy
Brexit
Blog about Bexit at www.nya.org.uk/2016/07/blog/
• Major decision which will affect the future
•Uncertainty – unsure of the full impact
•How can we enable our young people’s voice to be
heard?
Editor's Notes
Put in more detail
Youth work is quite a fluid things because we as youth workers define, interpret and develop it.
It’s important to remember that the various activities and expressions of youth work were established in response to specific issues in specific contexts at specific times. It’s important to remember that we live in a culture and a context which is different to the 1700’s, and we need to ensure that our work with young people is relevant to the issues that they are facing today in 2016.
We can see how theological positions can lead to different types of organisations today:
To lead people to Christ, engage with faith and the Church (Modern day version: Centenary Project)
In response to poverty / material need (Modern day version: CAP)
In response to educational needs (Modern day version: TLG)
In response to social issues: Drunkeness / night-time economy (Street Pastors)
They’re all motivated by the Christian faith, but all look completely different and have a different focus in terms of what they proclaim in terms of faith. CAP – quite explicit about inviting their clients to Church; Street Pastors – generally only talk about faith if initiated by the people they meet, often in full knowledge that they’ll forget the conversation the following morning – the main thing is looking after people practically.
Is our youth work a response to the social and spiritual needs that we encounter? Or is it a response to what is expected of us? Those conflicts / tensions still exist today as well – e.g. Caron & Sonia (YMCA) – very different understandings of what youth work is and very different contexts of youth work practice. Is there conflicts / tensions within our youth work teams or within our Churches? If so, who are those conflicts / tensions between and why do you think they’re there?