All Issues articles – Page 52
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IssuesHide and Seek
Children connect with God in amazing, unusual ways. Yet often, in churches, we try and train it out and ‘normalise’ them into our own form of spirituality. But how do children connect with the spiritual world? What do we need to pay attention to and what can we learn? Children’s spirituality expert Rebecca Nye shares some of her wisdom…
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IssuesUnsung Heroes Honoured
The 2014 Christian Youth Work awards have been launched with a new award for this year. The Unsung Hero award will recognise those who work behind the scenes in youth work, making a huge impact in communities and the lives of young people, often without getting any credit.
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IssuesStart Here
How much time do you spend thinking and praying about vision? How often do you and your youth work team take the opportunity to ask the really big questions about your youth ministry: where do we want to go? How are we going to get there?
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IssuesHelping young people respond to terrorism
In recent months we have witnessed a number of horrific terror and ‘lone-wolf’ attacks across the continent of Europe, as well as a number of under-reported terrorist atrocities across the globe. When our young people are bombarded by news of attacks that have happened in places and cities that look very much like their own, this can highlight fear, cause distress and breed uncertainty. How do we help young people process these events? And in the midst of the brokenness, how do we focus on the hope that we find in Jesus?
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IssuesHeaven and Hell
In his work among young people in some of the world’s most challenging urban areas, Patrick Regan has seen evidence both of the Kingdom of heaven breaking through, and the reality of hell on earth, literally taking hold. As he tells just a few of those stories, he challenges us to take seriously Jesus’ call and example: to love the hell out of young people.
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IssuesService: the heartbeat of youth ministry
A year after David Cameron unveiled his Big Society vision, which places community groups at the heart of public service, Andy Burns asks what it might truly mean for us to serve our communities, and suggests how doing so might begin to transform them in ways the Prime Minister never envisaged.
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IssuesOpen up your heart
Recharge is a bible study just for you, to nurture your own relationship with god. So stop, sit, breathe and read. This month, Gerard Kelly looks at resurrection
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IssuesJessie J hears the Voice
Pop star Jessie J has revealed that her latest single, ‘Thunder’, is dedicated to God.
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IssuesYouth Workers and Spiritual Health
40% of employed youth workers ‘struggle’ to worship in their church.
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IssuesHolistic Health
If someone asked you how healthy you are, how would you answer? Would you think in terms of your physical body?
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IssuesSexual Healing
So, how often do you do it, and how do you do it? Not as often as you would like? Or are you bored at just how often you end up doing it? Well if that’s the case you might be the exception to the rule, because ...
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Issues
Ready-to-use Worship: Letting the World hit you on the head
A few years ago we were running the older youth venue at a big Christian event, and decided to incorporate some prayer for the world in our
evening celebration. Sara stood up to lead the prayer, using an inflatable globe as a prop. At the end of the prayer, she threw it into the crowd. We thought it would be a bit of fun to bop the globe around during the sung worship, and we also wanted the global prayer focus to linger for a while. -
IssuesReady-to-use Mentoring: Straw Polls, Straw Hats and Straw…Berries?
Youth ministry is often earmarked by its use of tenuous links. Making bread is a good one (to lead into talking about what ‘yeast’ we allow to grow and rise in our lives) or having a Nerf gun fight (to introduce the topic of what ‘fiery darts’ we shoot at each other with our speech). It struck me that this approach works well in mentoring too. As many of us meet in cafes, there’s often plastic straws knocking around so here’s ten ideas of discussion starters using straws!
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Issues
Young people now ‘less happy’
Young people’s happiness has dropped significantly in the UK in the last few years, according to a major new report.
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IssuesWhen the Worst Happens
The death of a child is an unthinkable tragedy. How do you support a family through the grieving process? Hospital chaplain Reverand Paul Nash gives some starting points.
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IssuesQ&A: Hannah Oakland
Hannah Oakland suffered with postnatal depression following the births of both her children, who are now aged 5 and 3. She runs a support group in association with the charity PANDAS for other parents affected by perinatal mental illness in Reading. She spoke to Lucinda van der Hart about her experiences of motherhood, mental illness and finding God in the midst of it all.
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IssuesRedeeming Halloween
October 31st: the date of the year’s most controversial ‘festival’ for many Christians. So should we ignore it, replace it, or try to navigate a path somewhere between the two? Experienced children’s worker Margaret Pritchard-Houston explains her passionately held belief that children need to explore the darkness in order to truly understand the light.
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IssuesQ&A: Paula Hall
Paula Hall is a former youth worker, who is now a therapist specialising in sex and pornography addictions and is widely recognised as the UK’s leading expert in the field. Paula has recently authored Confronting porn, a comprehensive guide for Christians struggling with porn and churches wanting to help them. She spoke to deputy editor Ruth Jackson about how we can help young people struggling in this area
