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Detached youth work

Putting the Go back into Gospel!

One Friday I was out on detached work in the town centre. We came across a group who knew us through the band nights we ran. One of the young men (17) asked us, “So what do you do apart from having parties?” My colleague replied, “We tell people about God.”

“Oh, well you shouldn’t bother with me”, he said, “I’m a Wiccan.”

What followed was the most inspiring and challenging hour or so I had that month. I asked him if he’d mind telling me about his spirituality and we had quite a long and very interesting conversation about Wicca and Norse mythology, the peace he found in his faith and the answers to prayer he had received from the Norse gods. We also discussed all the things that he feels are wrong with Christianity and the church. Most of his objections were theological or moral; a few were misunderstandings; many were points on which I agreed with him. Almost hidden, mentioned in passing, were two personal points. Having gone to a church primary school, he had developed a concept of a Christian God. He was suffering abuse at home and had prayed that God would help him. Nothing happened. He also told us that he is gay and knows he would not be accepted by a God whose church rejects gay people. This articulate, friendly, caring young man, this incredible creation described being abandoned and despised by his creator. He knew of no God of love with wide, welcoming arms, longing to relate to him and show him the route to fullness of life.

As I walked home I felt a weight of sadness, for in many of the things he had said about the church, this young man was right. Where could I take this spiritual young man to get to know a community where he could find hope and not have to deny his criticisms of the church, where he could take his boyfriend with him, where he would be loved and cherished and experience the Kingdom of God before being asked or required to conform? Where could I take him to join a community rather than subscribe to the membership conditions of a club?

This breaks my heart, because throughout the bible there are stories of God’s Kingdom coming, being renewed and being made possible through outsiders. Of the five women listed in the genealogy of Jesus, only one is definitely Jewish. Tamar may well have been a Canaanite woman, Rahab was the Canaanite prostitute from Jericho, Ruth was from Moab and Bathsheba may have been a Hittite as her husband was. It was Nehemiah who led the rebuilding of Jerusalem, but he was only able to carry out this task with the compassion, permission and sponsorship of King Artaxerxes. Rather than taking Esther’s life, as was his right, Xerxes enabled the Jews to fight for their survival. King Darius proclaims the worship of Daniel’s God as the state religion. Jesus ministered to and chose as his colleagues tax collectors, fishermen and prostitutes. When the apostles took the gospel to the world, although they went first to the Jews, it was the often the gentiles who accepted the message and opened their hearts to the Kingdom. We need to know and be stretched and challenged by those we might not regard as the people of God.

I believe that God is doing a new thing, giving the church a new shape, pouring his Kingdom into new wine skins and I believe that “outsiders” are going to be at the forefront of showing the world, including the established church, what can be. I expect this will be a scary prospect for some people as they worry about the abandoning of some traditions and practices, fear for the purity of doctrine, or simply experience the insecurity that accompanies change. However, I hope that the exploration, challenge, relationality, rawness and mess provided by people from the streets will inspire real joy and excitement as they show that a world that was lost is finding its way again and that a Kingdom that seemed to be in decline has extended into unexpected lands.

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In the beginning… An introduction to this theme

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing detached work with my friend Jonathan. He compared it to the scene of the vultures in the Disney Jungle Book film. In case you’re not familiar with the story, Mowgli is a human boy who has been raised by animals in the jungle. He is happy there, but the animals who look after him learn that Shere Khan – a man-eating tiger – has returned to the jungle, so they tell Mowgli that he must go and live in the man-village where he will be safe. Mowgli does not want to leave, and runs away from them.

When we encounter the vultures, they are sitting around, clearly bored. One keeps asking “What we gonna do?” and another keeps replying “I don’t know. What d’you wanna do?”. While they have their slightly irritable discussion, Mowgli wanders into sight. The vulture cheer up – entertainment! They start to tease Mowgli, but realise how miserable and lonely he is, so they offer to be his friends. Just as everyone is getting on well, Shere Khan appears and tries to kill Mowgli. The vultures, along with some of the other animals, join in the fight with Shere Khan and help Mowgli to drive him away. The drama is over. Mowgli leaves. And the vultures? The last we see of them, they have revived their earlier debate, “What we gonna do?” “I don’t know. What d’you wanna do?”, as if nothing has happened!

Jonathan’s point was that detached workers often operate in contexts like this: places where young people have already gathered, wanting to be together, wanting something to happen. Where sometimes they make their own entertainment, such as playing football with an empty Coke can or challenging themselves to climb on to a rooftop, and sometimes they wait for entertainment to come along, someone like Mowgli to tease or a tiger to fight or a passer-by to throw snowballs at. Detached workers offer themselves as that unexpected “something” that the young people are waiting for.

In saying that, I don’t mean that detached workers exist to be a source of entertainment! In fact, detached work is quite the opposite. Here are some of its key characteristics:

Based solely on relationship Often youth work is initiated through the offer of entertainment and tries to attract young people

with its facilities – the “come to our club, we have a Wii/climbing wall/music studio” approach. Detached work is about forming relationships with young people where they are and then meeting with those young people to have those relationships. The relationships may lead to activities, but the youth worker is primarily there to be there, not to be an activity provider. One organisation I worked with saw it like this: “We were asked to work with a group of young people who were hanging around a churchyard behaving in an anti-social way, so we thought and prayed about it and figured that our response should be to go and be the opposite – social”.

One of the advantages of this approach for the youth worker is that young people are engaging with YOU, not what you provide and the relationships tend to be more genuine.

Long-term Genuine relationships are not built overnight. Getting to know young people, them getting to know

you, developing mutual respect, reaching a point at which you are open and able to learn from each other, discovering your shared values and concerns – all of these take time. They cannot be forced or rushed and so they demand a long-term commitment to allowing relationships to form naturally and develop organically.

More equal power levels Any youth work which involves a building places an automatic power dynamic in the youth worker/

young person relationship. The youth worker dictates which days the young people are welcome, what time they can arrive, when they must leave, which parts of the building may be accessed, what kinds of behaviour are acceptable and what activities take place. The youth worker is responsible for

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health and safety issues and is usually accountable to someone else for looking after the building. Therefore, they must exercise some control over the young people who attend. In situations where young people test the boundaries, conflict is inevitable.

In a detached setting, the youth workers are on the young people’s ground – they are there anyway – and the youth worker has no responsibility for the venue. Without the need for authority, there is much greater equality between the young people and the workers. Control is minimal – partly because it is unnecessary, partly because it is inappropriate. You are there as a guest!

Unattached not semi-attached Detached work is not attached to a building. It does not ask the young people to come to the

workers – the workers always go to the young people. Quite a few local authorities run “outreach”, which looks like detached work as it takes place on the streets, but the intention is simply to meet the young people there and encourage them to engage in a youth project. In some cases this might be a bus or lorry which has been kitted out as a mobile youth centre, in others it might be centre-based clubs. Detached work is different in that it is NOT a first step to getting young people off the streets – it is consistent in meeting them where they are.

Variety of settings Detached work often takes place on streets or in parks, but that isn’t always the case. I’ve been

involved in several projects in churchyards, and it is completely possible to use the principles of relational work, long-term commitment, equal power levels and being unattached in town centres, shopping centres, school playgrounds and night clubs. It’s about how, rather than where, you work.

REFLECTION: What might be the reasons for starting a detached work project rather than using another youth work method to engage with young people?

Thinking it through Some theory

There could be a number of prompts for developing a detached project. It may be a response to a group of young people you have spotted around where you live. You may be asked to work with a particular group by a third party (e.g. police, local residents, council). You may be responding to a need for youth work provision e.g. in a rural community where there is a lack of facilities. Whatever the reason, here are some guidelines to get you started.

(Taken from “Meet them where they’re at”, Richard Passmore)

PrinciplesSome basic principles to help you to start right and make sure you keep going in the right direction are: Get the structures in place – as with other forms of youth work it is crucial to have appropriate

support structures for your team, policies and procedures and ways of recording what happens during your sessions and feeding it back to the people who need to know. You need to fulfil your legal obligations to work with young people, e.g. CRB checks, as well as good practice such as working in pairs or threes – not alone, appropriate gender of workers and young people.

Serving young people – the project should put young people first and focus on supporting, enabling and blessing them.

Do what you see the Father doing – identify where God is at work, where young people and/or communities are open to Kingdom values and ideas, and then focus your energy on joining in with God in his mission. You don’t need to work with every group you meet across your whole community. You don’t even have to work at the same level with every young person in the group(s) you target.

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Step 1 – Preparation If you want the project to start well, be successful and effective and be safe for you the rest of the

team, you must undertake a lot of groundwork. Church/equivalent: If this project will be part of the youth work of your church or local Urban

Saints, there are people you will need to explain it to – trustees, church leaders, church members, management group, etc. You will need them to understand your work in order to be able to support you as you undertake it. If this project is not going to part of the work of any one organisation, it will still be important to have a supportive group to oversee and encourage the team. It may well be necessary to educate people to understand the nature and role of detached work. It is important to be clear about your goals and what outcomes can realistically be expected. It is not always the case, but detached work very often engages with young people with very little awareness of the Christian story and for whom church traditions and culture are completely alien. It is long-term work.

Community: Get to know your area well by carrying out a community profile. This will involve connecting with relevant people, such as the local authority youth service, community police officers and PCSOs and checking census information and other local data. See “Don’t just stand there” section for more detail. Carrying out this research not only help you to define your project, it will also get you known among the adult community as well as providing you with subjects to talk about as you are getting to know young people – ‘I hear there is a youth club, do you ever go?’

Identify services which might make useful contacts to refer young people on to. For example, what is your local drug agency, counselling service, homeless project and sexual health clinic? How could young people access a lawyer, or a doctor who is not in the area?

ACTION: Map out what your area looks (shops, transport, phone boxes, shortcuts, police stations, schools, etc.), then map out what it’s like for young people – where is there to hang out? Where can they shelter from rain, get food, not get moved on, get to easily, have some seating and light?

Step 2 – SurveillanceThis step is about working out the habits of the young people. It involves going to the area in which you intend to work and observing without making contact with the young people. Before you start surveillance, make some sort of identification card for each member of the team,

including their name, a photo, the name (and logo) of the overseeing organisation and a reference telephone number. Log a copy with the local community police and inform them of who will be going out, roughly where and at what times. You should already know the neighbourhood police team from your community profile.

Your observations are to discover who is there, how often, with who, at what times of day, which days and whether or not there is a core group with fringe members, several distinct groups or general gathering.

ACTION: Make up an example plan for a month suggesting arrange of times and routes to walk around your area that would help you to build up a good picture of the young people’s habits. How would you record what you observed?

Step 3 – Cold contactYour goal is to build genuine long-term relationships, so you can afford to invest time at each stage. In initial or “cold” contact, mirror the way relationships naturally happen.

During your surveillance, you will have started to notice familiar faces. Start by acknowledging those young people – maybe with a nod, a smile or saying hi.

After the acknowledgement stage, you can move on to a bit more interaction. There are all kinds of non-verbal ways of prompting interaction. You could take a ball/Frisbee/kite out with you, play near the young people and, if they show signs of interest, invite them to join in. Take out tea/hot chocolate/food and offer it to the young people (bearing in mind food hygiene). Have a

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questionnaire or video camera (bearing in mind child protection) and ask their views about the area/something in the news/etc. Take your child or dog with you – they can be a good icebreaker.

Even if you start interacting through one of these tools, at some point you will have to make a verbal introduction. Have something in mind to say that tells the young people who you are and what you’re doing, but doesn’t overdo the amount of information. Something like, “Hi, I’m Jane, I’ve seen you around. I’m a detached youth worker with Bridge End Baptist Church”. This explains who you are – not just an individual randomly approaching young people! – and opens the opportunity for them to ask questions if they want, like “What’s a detached youth worker?”! Show them your ID card as well. They may not remember what it said, but if they are explaining later to a concerned parent that some adults approached them and their friends, at least they will know you had ID.

Leave on a high. If an encounter is going well, it can be really exciting and you might be tempted to keep talking all evening. However, as in any brand new relationship, you will probably find that conversation dries up sooner or later. To avoid that awkward, lukewarm ending, leave the impetus to the young people and walk away while things are still going well. Tell them that you will be around again and when.

xercise your judgement about when to mention that you’re a Christian. In the example above, Jane said that she was working with a church, so the subject would have been highlighted, even if not made explicit. However, if the group you are with has a less obvious name, this connection won’t necessarily be made. In my experience, the young people usually ask exactly what it is you do and why, so opportunities to tell them that you’re a Christian do come up. Don’t feel under pressure to have the conversation straight away. Be authentic – if you usually tell new people you meet that you’re a Christian straight away, do the same with young people. If you don’t, fine. As living sacrifices, our faith will inevitably show up at some point.

REFLECTION: What skills/tools do you have that might be useful to use as a non-verbal contact starter?

Step 4 – Forming relationshipsYour relationships in detached work will develop bit by bit, just as any relationship would. There are a few special points to consider though: A new context means new rules. You’re on their territory as their guest (at least early on) which

means that there are different rules about discipline. With the nature of your relationship being more equal and the fact that you are in public space, your authority is different. “That is not to say that a detached worker doesn’t challenge certain behaviour, but it is done in the context of relationship rather than authority and responsibility.” (Richard Passmore, p21) As a friend and equal you may question choices and behaviours, but you cannot place sanctions on them. You may need to withdraw from a situation for the rest of the session if you have a significant concern.

Self-awareness is important. If you are conscious of your own culture and expectations, you are less likely to impose that on the young people you meet. If you are aware of what is Christian culture distinct from what is the gospel, you are more likely to be open to learn from the young people and to hear from God through them.

Your relationships are dependent on your communication skills, so it is important to be aware and intentional about how and what you communicate, especially when it comes to non-verbal aspects.

You may find that you are engaging more with groups defined by area than based around age group so you may find yourself working with individuals who are older/younger than you expected.

REFLECTION: Look back to the session on personal witness. What were your core, “non-negotiables” in terms of the gospel? What do you value, but recognise is cultural rather than gospel?

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Step 5 – Doing youth work “We need to give our work with young people the kind of freedom where it can take unexpected twists and

turns. That means relinquishing any notions of power we may have and letting the young people set the agenda” (Richard Passmore, p21)

Within this framework, detached work seeks to pursue the aims of good youth work. To support the young people’s personal development so that they are able to realise their full

potential, to become agents of social change and to participate meaningfully in political decision making processes. This is not the same as changing the young person’s attitudes and behaviours to make them more socially acceptable, which we call social control. Part of this may be referring young people to specialist services and helping them to engage with and make the most of the services available to them.

To maintain a tone of respect for the mutual and voluntary nature of relationships between young people and workers and to explore issues, make plans and facilitate change through dialogue and negotiation.

To appropriately challenge attitudes, words and behaviours which impact negatively on the young people themselves or on others. This means sensitively questioning the idea/behaviour, not criticising the person who has expressed it. If a significant incident occurs, workers should make a record of what happened and any action they took. It may be more helpful to debrief the incident with the young people on another occasion than to engage with it in the midst of a conflict situation.

Step 6 – Being and doing churchSomething to be aware of right at the beginning, and to make clear to the people supporting you, is that you shouldn’t assume that this kind of youth work will lead to increased church attendance – in fact it probably won’t happen. This doesn’t mean that the work is failing; it is just a statement about the nature of the work. It is likely that most of the young people you encounter will have had little or no exposure to Christian beliefs and traditions and will not easily engage in church as we know and love it. “Thinking of the work in a missionary context is helpful. Missionaries need to build churches that are relevant to the people they are contacting, in the language of the culture in which they are working… discipling marginalised young people has more in common with this than it does with traditional youth work. Change doesn’t happen overnight.” (Richard Passmore, p42)

As you work with a group of young people, listen for God in their lives. They may not use the language that we would, but listen for their moments of awe, their expression of Kingdom values (love, justice, mercy, compassion, hope), their insights and transcendent experiences. Cooperate with God where he is at work with the young people and support them on their journey towards a conscious relationship with him.

NOTE: Detached work is a huge subject and each of these stages could be a training session on its own. Please seek further training if you decide to set up a detached project. FYT’s StreetSpace network can offer training, guidance and support. Contact details are in AOB below.

Faithing the FactsSome theology

ACTION: Read John 4: 1-42. Richard Passmore (in “Meet them where they’re at”) calls this “a brilliant example of detached work”. As you consider the story, can you identify some of the principles that Jesus is role modelling? Below are the ones Richard noted. Do you agree? If so, in what way do you think he did these things?

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He went on to her turf He did the unexpected He broke through cultural norms which should have kept them apart He started where she was at He was natural He asked her to do something for him, put himself in her debt He built confidence and respect, and he relaxed her

Detached work is arguably the ultimate in incarnational youth work. Jesus’ incarnation was not just entering and living in the world of human existence, living every day for us and eventually giving up his life for us – it was doing all this “at just the right time, when we were still powerless … while we were still sinners” (NIV), or as The Message puts it:

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us while we were no use whatever to him.” (Romans 5: 6-8)

For each and every one of us, God’s love and grace existed before we knew we were in a mess, while we were powerless, weak and rebellious, and before we began to realise that we might need a saviour. God didn’t wait for realisation to dawn or for us to tidy ourselves up a bit before he set out to meet us. He came to us first, knocking on the door – not asking us to come to him, but rather to let him in (Revelation 3:20).

This is what detached work is: going to young people as they are, where they are; knocking respectfully, acknowledging we are on their territory; being the first to reach out and to go; not requiring that they have shown any interest in youth clubs, youth workers or God. John gives us our mandate:

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4: 9-11)

Story from the Edge“Graff” – Youth Work Stories From the Edge

It wasn’t really something we’d ever planned to do. One Eighty targets skaters, not graffiti artists. The only art we know is skateboarding! But through our detached work sessions, the problem of good artists who were expressing themselves illegally on the local skate park and surrounding areas, became obvious. These were young people who seemed on the fringes of even skate culture and to be honest, they scared me a little bit. Our presence always seemed threatening to them, if we caught them spraying they thought just that, that we had caught them.

A few of the writers were ex skaters that I knew and one in particular was the only young person out one day during a detached session. As we chatted to him he started to talk about his love of graffiti art, and shutting him up proved difficult! He went on and on about famous writers, different styles, paints and pieces. He was passionate about graffiti, not because he occasionally gets bored and writes his name on a wall, but because he is an artist that needs to paint. He told me about several of his friends, who felt the same. I had to set something up for these guys.

I knew of an old council project that had been set up to work with young people involved in illegal graffiti, but had folded due to no young people accessing the service. I discovered there was still a

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significant amount of money available for this kind of project and support for us to run it alongside our current skate sessions at a local youth centre, where boards surrounding a basketball court were available for our use along with paint, masks, canvases and caps.  I contacted an ex ‘graffer’, now a student at a local arts college that is attached to a church who helpfully is already involved in youth work, and ‘Graff’ was born.

The project is not advertised, our aim here is not to encourage illegal graffiti, but to celebrate and improve legal art. Young people arrive at the project through referral from other agencies, or by being given an invite by a One Eighty worker. The two hours they are with us are spent drawing designs, spraying boards and having a break at 8pm to join with the other 180 lads in listening to a staff member give a talk as part of the ‘Think Slot’. The talk makes no apologies for being overtly evangelistic but relevant and non threatening and the young people make no fuss about this, they know it is a part of One Eighty and they respect it.

In all the different types of youth work I have done, I have never come across a group of young people who are so grateful, attentive, respectful and completely in shock that anybody, let alone a bunch of Christian adults, would care about them, value what they do, build on who they are and give their time and money investing in them.

For me the best thing about the project is knowing that another group of marginalized young people, criminalized and rejected by society are now able to be loved, cared for, and most importantly through words and actions, be told about the very man who was marginalized and criminalized the most.

How does your youth work build on young people’s own ideas? How does art feature in your programmes? What about the ‘God slot’ – do you do it? If you do – how is it going? Does it work? How else might you do it?

Jo Dolby – Bath YFC One Eighty Project (www.one-eighty.org.uk) – supported by Frontier Youth Trust

Don’t just stand there… This section contains ideas for action – methods, tools, approaches to engage with young people – based on the session subject/content

ACTION: Look through your youth work policies. What would you need to adapt to make them suitable for a detached project? What is missing? Is there anything you could delete as unnecessary in this context?

ACTION: Consider what information about a detached session you would need to keep a record of. What sort of “out of the ordinary” incidents might happen that would need to be recorded? Design a couple of forms to record sessions and incidents.

ACTION: Carry out the mapping exercise suggested in “Thinking it Through, Step 1 – Preparation”. Here is list of questions to shape your exploration:1. Location: How is your area defined (e.g. by main roads, railway lines, rivers)? How does it

relate to the wider district? Which local authority does it come under?2. Landscape: What does the area look/feel like? Where are likely places for young people to

congregate?3. History: What routines or events does the area have? What are the key attitudes held and

where have they come from? What was the area like before? 4. Statistics: How many people live in your area? How many are young people? Which ethnic

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groups are represented? What is the marriage rate? How many people live in the average household? What do the figures on crime, health and social services tell you?

5. Housing: What types of housing do people live in? What proportion of the population lives in council housing, private ownership, etc.? How many derelict properties are there?

6. Education: What are the schools like? Are there further/adult education colleges in the area? What is the local attitude to education?

7. Employment: What is the employment rate in your area? How many people are working part –time? How many are unemployed? Who are the main employers in the area? Are young people working? If so, where?

8. Facilities: Are there local shops, swimming pool, library, community centres, etc.? If there are shops, cafes or pubs, what is their attitude to young people? What clubs and activities are available for young people? What proportion of many young people are attending? Why might this be?

9. Transport: How do young people travel? Where to and from? How much does it cost?

ACTION: Walk around the area where you live and/or do your youth work, use your senses and make some observations. Explore where alleyways lead. Wander round the park. How does it feel? What’s the atmosphere like? Do you see any graffiti, or signs of alcohol/drug use? Where are groups of young people gathering or where do you think they might choose to gather? What would attract them to a place? What would put them off? When you see young people together, how are the groups made up in terms of age/ethnicity/gender? Do you think they are from the same schools? Into the same music? Share the same interests? Why or why not? How would you feel about approaching one of these groups? Why?

ACTION: Make a directory of support services for young people which could be useful referral contacts. If there are a few of you, you might want to divide up the topics – one person look into housing, someone else look at health, addiction, careers, etc. Collect information leaflets and contact details and familiarise yourself with who does what and for whom. Check out their confidentiality procedures and opening times. Pool your research and collate the information so it’s easily accessible when you need it.

Just when you thought it was all over…

ACTION: Organise a night out with 5 or 6 friends following these instructions – None of you may spend more than £5 You may not meet in any of your homes You may not go to any places where young people are not allowed to go You must only use forms of transport that under 16s can use Afterwards, reflect on your evening. What did you enjoy? What was frustrating? What did

you learn about young people’s experience?

AOB Contacts, resources, links that relate to the session subject/content

Training:

Christian Youth Work Training – www.cywt.org.uk provides information about Christian youth work training in the UK. The site is now run by David Howell, a freelance consultant in the fields of training, Further Education, Higher Education and Christian youth work.

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Frontier Youth Trust - www.fyt.org.uk Please contact if we can help you to look a little deeper at this theme or other youth work related topics.

You can also find out information about FYT’s detached project, StreetSpace (http://www.fyt.org.uk/showdetails,project,3.htm). Based on extensive experience of running detached projects, we can help get projects set up from scratch, or help a church or organisation that wants to expand its youth work into the local community through detached work. We also run StreetSpace Alongside which provides mentoring and coaching for local people around missional youth work and being part of our community of practice, a network of like-minded people to share and discuss ideas with. Please contact: admin@streetspace.org.uk.

Some Web Based Resources:

Theory, ideas and practice for youth work and other informal education: www.infed.org

'Detached, Street-based and Project Based Youth Work' - This article looks at how detached work began and developed and detached work today: www.infed.org/youthwork/b-detyw.htm

'Starting out in detached work' – This is a booklet based on youth workers’ experiences of setting up detached projects (it is a bit old now!): www.infed.org/archives/nayc/rogers_starting_out_in_detached_work.htm

Find out more about the projects in the StreetSpace community of practice and get ideas and tips: www.streetspace.org.uk

The Federation for Detached Youth Work exists to support, promote and develop detached youth work. Their website is: www.detachedyouthwork.info/

Recommended Books:

'Meet Them Where They’re At', by Richard Passmore – This is now quite hard to get hold of in print, although there are a few copies for sale through Amazon. I’d suggest the Youth for Christ online shop as they seem to have a few: http://www.yfc.co.uk/shop/category/35. Alternatively, you can buy the Kindle version from Amazon.

Amen Corner

“In working with young people, do not try to call them back to where they were and do not call them back to where you are, as beautiful place as that may seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have even been before.”

Vincent J. Donovan, from Christianity Rediscovered

REFLECTION: Think about where you are – spiritually, theologically, culturally, etc. You might want to draw a map or landscape to represent the place you are in. What things seem beautiful or good to you about this place? What might you want to share with young people? What good and beautiful things may hinder you from going to a new place? What fears might you have about going to a new place?