Book Chapter 7

 Chapter 7 – Working with children and young people.

I am on the kid’s side

In the war against adults...

....I am on the kid’s side

And when I grow up,

I want to be a boy.

Steve Turner

Upto date Poems 1968-1982 Steve Turner Hodder and Staughton 1987

On arrival in my first circuit I was given responsibility for youth work. This happened I think because I was young and because there were not enough ministers to cover all the various responsibilities that used to be headed up by ministers. So I found myself caught up in one of the best aspects of working with people.

      One of the occasional criticisms ministers face is the accusation that they are spending all their time with young people, or that worship is being directed for young people. The irony of this being that whenever I have worked out who I spend most time with, and how many services have a young peoples’ edge to it, it is not young people! In most Methodist churches I have known, out of 52 Sundays a year, the overwhelming bulk suit older people and cater for their needs, with a small allowance for young people. Of the many hours working with groups or speaking at meetings the bulk again are with older people. So be prepared if you choose to have an emphasis of working with children and young people to be criticised. It’s a bit like being accused of having an affair which you didn’t, but having the agro as if you had, and all without having had the fun!

This section then is about Sunday schools, youth clubs, school assemblies and being a governor.

Growing up in the Methodist church during a period when its work with children and young people was apparently strong meant most chapels had a Sunday school. Some churches, the larger ones, had maybe a youth club and various uniformed organisations as well.

    I grew up with the pattern of attending Sunday school and church, taking part in various circuit youth events, scripture exams and the like. It was in fact at a youth service, led by young people, in my home chapel of ‘Langdon Hills’ in Basildon, Essex, that I made a commitment to Christ.  

      As a young person I would travel up to London for the MAYC London Weekend (Methodist Association of Youth Clubs) the national event and be part of 10-12,000 young people. I was part of a church whose work among children and young people was strong and influential. In fact it was once the largest youth organisation in Europe.

    When I first entered into circuit ministry many churches in a circuit still had a Sunday school or junior church. The London Weekend event still drew thousands to it each year; there was much to celebrate. 

     After 41 years I witness a church that has failed to grasp the challenge to build upon its heritage in moving forward with its youth work. Its numbers have been decimated. That has led to most churches unable to run a small Sunday school let alone a youth club. London Weekend has gone, even though the attempt to produce something new, ‘Breakout’, was created but it died. We are left with a rump of our work. A glimmer of hope in the new event 3Generate gives cause for some hope. It is a sadness to me this diminishment of our vital work with children and young people. Into such a scene ministers arrive and work today.

     So I ask. What is the purpose of working with children and young people?  

I begin with the work in the context of the church community.

Sunday School –Junior Church – Youth Clubs (open and closed)

A number of things are being sought when running a Sunday school/Junior Church. 

• the opportunity to share the Christian faith in a hopefully relevant way
• to stop the children interfering with the adults worship
• to pretend that we are still having the influence like we used to
• to enable some adults never to go to worship so they can miss the boring bit
• to be able to claim we have young people at our church!

Now as you read this you may be forgiven for thinking I am being just a bit cynical. Please remember I have grown up and spent my life within the Methodist church. I too performed at the Sunday school anniversary. Took part in the raising of money through sunny smiles, (for NCH). Did the scripture exams and so much more. I know about Sunday schools that met in the afternoon and whose children never ever went to worship. To listen to people wax lyrical about the good old days of all the hundreds of children who passed through, is to know that some of that is true, and to an extent it gave an influence to the church beyond its real numbers. But, and it’s a big but, these children never came into a relationship with Christ because their contact with worship was non-existent, and no ground was given to make it easier for them to make that transition. It has meant I have met Sunday school teachers who themselves who never broke the cycle. Through Sunday school they went and became teachers, but never became disciples. This led in many places to poor quality of teaching and sharing of faith. It led to the wrong people leading others. The church has however colluded with this. For while its numbers held up, it did not have to face the reality of the failure to lead children into a relationship with Christ. 

In some places people began to address the issue and a change of name from Sunday school to Junior church ensued, now it might be called anything. Children would come into the first part of worship and the children’s address was born. Preachers then and now struggle with this, while adults whose level of understanding of the faith is itself poor, because they go nowhere else to learn, lap up the simple sometimes simplistic talk, while the children yawn and further slip away from the church or just find it a relief to get out into Junior church and hopefully activities suited to their learning styles.

I could go on. 

It was into this world I arrived as a young minister. It was the world I had somehow grown through thanks to parents and some wonderful individuals who believed that the gospel was for children and young people. Most of my generation have long deserted the church. In my first appointment three of my five churches had Sunday work though not large groups of children. At my larger church we didn’t have young families so many were either grandchildren  or dropped off. In one village (very middle class) it was a fairly large Sunday school that met first and joined the congregation at the end of the service. Another held an afternoon Sunday school that once a month joined in a ‘family service’ So all very different.

The thing that struck me then as now is, How can people lead young people if they themselves never worship and learn themselves? It was a struggle and it took a crisis in the larger church to create a pattern whereby we had teams of teachers having a month on and a month off. Not only did this work, but the Junior church grew and it became fun for all involved. God was good because by this time families had begun to join the church and new leadership was created. Added to this was the importance of creating training events for leaders across our circuit to encourage, motivate, share good ideas and so train people in the task. You do have to equip people if you want them to do this ministry well. I have sought in all my appointments to bring this about. It worked in a market town, a large suburban church which already had good numbers and it worked for a period in my third appointment, until distracted by wider needs I was not able to give the attention and push to keep it moving. Sadly I recognise getting things embedded into a system is hard. If the minister does not think it’s important enough it often will not happen. I recommend this approach to the way we run such groups to all even if at first you think it can’t be done. You will be surprised by those who come on board and who are prepared to help if they know it does not mean every week. Of course you have to believe children are worth it because you will get flak. In my third appointment I was surprised to find a large congregation but a small junior church. Once I saw what they did each week and experienced the ‘Sunday school anniversary’ it was obvious why it wasn’t growing. So a struggle began as gently but firmly we did away with the Sunday school anniversary whereby they practiced for weeks before. Instead we had a workshop Saturday which followed a theme and within which we created the worship for the Sunday. It was spontaneous, fun and the worship was fresh. Bit by bit we identified people to create teams of teachers, though we never managed to persuade the leader of the younger group and she was a young woman herself, so it’s not an age thing, to form a team. So she never attended worship a real weakness. 

In all of these changes in different places as minister you are seen as wanting to change everything. To mess up the history of how things have always been done. And you will get the blame if it goes wrong, but never the thanks if it works. So be clear in your own mind. Are you prepared for the criticism? If not don’t go there. As I was writing this I was in my fourth appointment seven years in. When I arrived I found in the nine churches we had in theory five Sunday schools. Very few in number attended and it felt like a step back into the 19^th century and so a question. What had people been doing these past twenty five years? Because where ever I have been it’s been a priority. However even my commitment to this area of ministry was undermined as I was caught up in reorganising a circuit and working with others to bring together eight circuits. As in all areas of life there is only so much time and there is a trade off. That for me meant I had less to do with children and young people and I am the poorer for it.

This raises the question what next? The issue is that if we want families to be able to attend Sunday worship together then we have to provide both worship and other work to meet that need. Is though a Sunday school/ Junior Church any longer part of the answer? Key for me has always been the need to pray for the right leaders because when that has happened it has worked. Alongside this is the need to create at least some worship that is children and young people friendly and in this we all continue to struggle. The ‘Family worship’ which became ‘all age worship’ depending on leaders has to a greater or lesser extent not worked in my opinion. It’s still trying to do too much in one act of worship and usually it’s the children and young people who vote with their feet that tells you it’s not working.

So for their sake I have found it important to provide not just training for leaders but opportunities for children and young people to explore worship and be responsible for it. So worship workshops with drama, dance, puppets, music etc have brought great fun and joy. New material written to tell key stories afresh while teaching important points. For example this book includes the nativity story for Christmas as told by the only two who mention it Luke and Matthew. They are different stories so we ensured the children knew this. We didn’t want them growing up with the nice safe merged story as told so often. The jury is still out on the way forward but other ways of working are appearing with messy church on other days of the week.

Another important aspect of church life for me was youth work both uniformed and non-uniformed. My interest has always been non-uniformed. You have to be clear in your mind what sort of group you are seeking to run. 

Closed - in which only church children or those you allow to join. 

Open - where kids drop in and you have no real control over it except for age. 

Or perhaps semi-open - in that you seek to keep a control reign on it, but you are looking to draw kids in who don’t normally come to church. It’s been this middle area I have essentially worked with, but I have worked with Sunday night groups of church young people and across a circuit of churches worked with the same.

In my first appointment identifying the need for some kind of mid week group my wife and I with the help of a young adult created a small key stage 2 group for two of the churches. We decided to meet every other Friday and see what happened. The format was simple games as they gathered for the 1 ¼ hour club ( it later became 1 ½ hours), then some songs and prayer that then led into a theme for the night which could be delivered through crafts, drama etc. Something we were doing was right, and the club grew in numbers from about 16 to 32 as the children asked if they could bring friends, always a good sign. Of course it meant we needed new leaders. Again praying about it we always found that new people came forward, not least a trained youth leader. The club continued to grow. We soon realised another club was required because the kids outgrew the club. That’s what they do they get older! This was where the decision to meet alternate Fridays proved invaluable. So we created another club for key stage 3 (years 7,8 & 9 at secondary) on the alternative Friday. With the new leadership we had grown we now had two clubs fully staffed with 50-60 young people. The joy of meeting every other Friday meant it did not become too onerous for the leaders or their families. And still the club grew both in numbers and age. So we then had to create an older club for key stage 4 (years 10 and above). Being older they could meet after the younger club. On leaving the church we had three clubs with leaders and about 80 kids. We did of course take them to special events like our national MAYC London weekend to be part of something larger. At least one of the young people to my knowledge went onto to be a church youth worker. In this example of what can be achieved and experiences in other places I come back to a key factor. Do you believe in children and young people’s work? There are many ministers who chicken out because older people complain. The need for good leaders is critical and their training is vital. This meant getting trained  myself so I could deliver both the Sunday workers training programme and youth workers programme. In this way you can have an even greater influence 

Beyond the church community is a whole area of ministry that enables you to break out from the confines of a very narrow and often all consuming world if you allow it. So to the wider community. Living in a locality you do your shopping there, you go into the doctor’s surgery, post office, hairdressers etc. Without at first realising it, people get to know who you are and what you represent. One aspect of this may well be the invitation to lead a school assembly. This may be a regular weekly or monthly event. It may be you are wheeled out for special occasions, harvests, Christmas, Easter and the bonnet parade. It may well be that parents are present or not. If it’s a Primary school there may be songs and prayers. If it’s secondary it could be ‘it’s over to you to do what you can style’. 

      

Where ever I have lived I have always been involved in the local schools. This in turn has led to going into classes to speak about aspects of my work which fit into the curriculum. I have found myself on governing bodies of schools, usually just the one because of the time commitment, but in my third appointment I sat on a local primary school and the local High School where I served as chair of Governors. It meant that after twelve years I had journeyed with some children from reception to the end of high school and their GCSE’s. Now that I do consider to have been a privilege, getting to know them, and having an influence upon them for that period of time.

    

It may sound obvious but do be clear in your own mind  why you go in to take an assembly? What you hope to achieve? You must acknowledge the need to be sensitive to those who do not share your Christian view. I see the minister’s presence in the school context as a means by which we forge a link into the wider community. As such you represent your local church community, and of course you represent Christ. I do not believe you go into a school to convert the children and staff. Rather you go to share the Christian perspective on life in a way that celebrates life, and helps people make connections between their experiences and God. So you are inviting people to consider that maybe you have discovered something that they might want to explore. You will be true to your faith but that does not mean walking over others of different faith or no faith. 

    Taking/leading a good assembly is not an easy thing to do. It requires :-

• good preparation and presentation. 
• with both primary and secondary on the whole a visual dimension. 
• story telling which is very helpful.
• putting energy into what you do. 
• no room for a dull presentation given in a ‘holy way’ which is a real turn off. 
• to give out a challenge, but it wants to be interactive where ever possible. 

The regular involvement with a school means you build up a rapport so you can speak to teachers and pupils in an informal way. So you will be able :-

• to refer to school life. 
• to show knowledge about the school and about the curriculum. This means that what you present can fit into what the young people are doing.
• to encourage laughter which is essential and a willingness to be laughed at is vital. 
• to get their guard down so they are relaxed with you, and so become receptive to your message. 

On a personal level I have found that of all the schools I have led assemblies in, the ones I least enjoyed, are church schools. I find the pretence of being ‘holy, polite and nice’ a real turn off. Give me a normal non-selective school any day! At this point I should declare that I do not believe faith schools are a way forward to create good social cohesion.

    

I believe all schools should have high on their agenda religious education. There should be the opportunity for corporate worship, but not to have a particular faith or denomination responsible for the school. I believe this because even at primary level, parents and school collude with the pretence that having a ‘faith education’ is important.  What parents really want is a good moral basis, a so called good school and one that gives good exam results.

    This applies even more so at secondary level where parents are looking for good GCSE results, not faith. As a minister you may well find that families start appearing at worship. Then a request comes from them or the school for a reference asking about their attendance at worship. You are placed in the awkward position. Do you tell the truth i.e. they have only started coming so they can gain a place in the so called good church school, or do you collude with the parents? In the end I stopped writing anything.

   I always reported if a family attended and for how long. However one local church school who only accepted pupils by selection had a scheme that gave points depending on if the child had been baptised etc. So the ludicrous situation arose that a family who came regularly to church, but their child had not been baptised, had no points, but a family whose child had been baptised, but who hardly ever came, gained points. So I gave up colluding with the system. When writing this I feared for the breakup of our educational system, and I still see its fragmentation. The introduction of academies, free schools, the fact you can have untrained teachers, the growth of faith schools are all undermining the delivery of well resourced education for all. It plays on peoples prejudices and reintroduces a form of selection that will divide society. For me it has no place in the Gospel of Jesus.

School governor

There are different ways you find yourself on governing bodies. You can be elected as a parent governor or be a co-opted governor bringing a community dimension to the governing body. I have held both these positions, being a parent of three daughters has meant ample opportunity to get involved.  It further reinforces your involvement in school and community life. Education is a major area of social and political life and the faith community should have something to say. It can be the means of opening doors to young people to create new lives for themselves.

In three of the  places I have lived I have served on a primary school governing body. Doing so gives links to other members of the community, councillors, doctors, parents. The opportunity to work to create schools which transform lives and so in turn transform communities is great fun. Oh yes of course there is the routine of meetings and even on governing bodies there is the normal politics and power play. So yes you help to remove the stuck in rut chair of governors at one primary school to help move things on. Yes you ask awkward questions. Your concern is for the well being of all pupils, staff and parents. You do so because your faith motivates you to want the well being and wholeness of all regardless of so called ability. All of this ties in with the leading of assemblies, class talks and visits to your church buildings.

After many years of primary work on governing bodies I found myself with the opportunity to serve on the local high school. A place where our three daughters were all to attend and most children in the neighbourhood attended. We always chose to send our children to the local school. This is where you discover church folk don’t think as you do. The local high school was for many not quite good enough. So comments were made implying you didn’t really care about your children well enough because you sent them there. There was of course immense personal pleasure taken when our eldest poor thing! going to such a school! went to Oxford! 

For me, as difficult as it can be, I have to live and work in the community I have been sent to. I cannot bus my kids out for a so called better education. I cannot collude with an elitist approach and I just don’t believe that is what God expects. But yes it is a personal view.

My time on the high school body a period of two terms of four years saw the opportunity to become chair of governors not long after being appointed and a new head came. We formed a good working relationship. He happened to be a Christian but his willingness to be open about information, my opportunity to be around the school during the day talking to pupils and staff, and reflecting back, meant it all helped to create a critical and constructive approach to the role. I like to believe that staff came to trust me so they could convey their concerns in the knowledge they would be heard without being identified as I drew the heads attention to important matters. 

The spin off to this role was of course I became increasingly known in the community, the relationship with the school meant we held our circuit covenant service there, and both high school and primary school helped at the church with musical events to support the work of Christian Aid.

My final comment is one of finance. The church has to accept that it costs to work with children and young people. You don’t always see anything directly for your money. You do in fact subsides the work. Children don’t tend to put a lot into the collection plate. Yet a church which is not prepared to finance the work, and encourage those who work with children and young people will lose them.

An interlude - Ghost Buster & soft touch?

At one point in my ministry my daughters began to see me in the role as exorcist.

From time to time the phone will ring and the request will come to perform an exorcism. In fact on arrival at my third appointment in Staffordshire it seemed every week a call came to go and perform such an event. Of course you were not trained at college for this. So what do you do?

My experience has been that essentially we are dealing with an area of life that we do not fully understand. That in most instances the issue lies with the individual, not with any sense of a haunting, a Ghost etc. From the lady who could not sell her house because she said it was cold and not right, well switching the heating on and a fresh coat of paint wouldn’t have hurt. To the photograph album that seemed to upset the person and needed blessing.  I have found a listening ear, a non judgemental approach and simple prayer for peace upon the place and person has sufficed. Well I have not been called back so it either worked or they went elsewhere. It is important to take people seriously. We all walk a fine line of mental stability and our interpretation of events can be very subjective. How many people wear the same clothes if their football team win and do so week after week, well until they lose? I am sure that here scriptural advice is right. Don’t dabble with the occult because for some people it can screw up their lives. My work with CRUSE the bereavement organisation meant I met people who had sought answers through spiritualist groups and were left more disturbed than they were helped.

The other challenge that comes across the manse door is the request for help. I have made a practice of not giving money out at the door. I have always offered goods in kind and this can lead to funny instances. We had a regular visitor at one appointment. He called and I was out but my wife duly set about raiding the kitchen cupboard for food. His only request was could he have some of those dried up things your husband gave me? It turned out he wanted noodles. On another occasion he had finally been given a flat did we have an Ariel? By chance we did have a small portable one and so it too was donated. I have filled up car tanks with petrol, been into homes to put money into electric meters, or money onto top up cards. I was once offered a baby after a service so desperate was the man apparently. I chose not to give money because I have found those who really need help receive goods with gratitude and most understand your reasons. The issue of those dependent on alcohol and drugs you cannot address directly yourself. Very rarely have people become aggressive towards me. We have made a point of not inviting people into the home so we can protect ourselves just in case. However one early Sunday morning a caller asked if he could have a meal and we gave him a much needed cooked breakfast. He explained he had come out of prison and was on his way to his sisters. Oh what did you serve time for? Breaking into and stealing from a vicarage!

It is a good idea to check out if your church or churches have a small fund to help you meet these varying costs. Normally called the benevolent fund it is usually at the disposal of the minister who can request from the treasurer funds as and when need arises. Many of my churches agreed to set aside a certain sum each year and top it up as and when necessary.