All NexGen Pro articles – Page 57
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IssuesFrom the horse’s mouth: ‘My background has allowed me to see both sides of Northern Ireland’
This month, Mark McFeeters interviewed Tierna, who has just started her A-levels. She’s football crazy and an older sister to three brothers. Mark has been a youth worker at Youth Initiatives for twelve years, where his focus has been outreach to marginalised young people. He is doing a PhD exploring spirituality, young people and transactional analysis. Mark and Tierna discuss being a Christian young person in Northern Ireland. Mark: Tell us a wee bit about your upbringing.
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IssuesChildren behaving badly
How do we encourage our children to have fun in our children’s groups and church, while ensuring their behaviour doesn’t hinder anyone else’s worship or engagement with God? Margaret Pritchard Houston shares some thoughts and practical suggestions
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Faith at homeForming faith rituals: Christmas
Christmas is a great time to celebrate Jesus. However, it is also a very busy time, so how do we make sure we find the space to celebrate Jesus together as a family? I think we need to be intentional, get prepared in advance and keep it simple.
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IssuesTidings of comfort and joy
Christmas is coming and our inboxes are probably filling up with numerous suggestions of how to make the Nativity story relevant for our children and young people. But how can we reach beyond our church walls this Christmas? Emily Howarth explores some activities and projects we can encourage our groups to get involved in
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BlogCraft: Good Friday
Good Friday can often be a tough part of the Easter story to explore. It involves sadness, pain and despair, and can be a source of deep conversation with children and young people. It would be easy to gloss over this part of the story, but it is important to allow children to explore the depths as well as the highs of Easter. Here are some crafts, which will help children to explore the events and emotions of this day in a visual, hands-on way. As usual, each craft allows time and space for discussion and freedom of creativity.
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IssuesMentoring: Creating robots
I recently trained to be a full-time firefighter. The training was hard but they ingrained one thing into us: they are not trying to create robots who just follow orders, but crews who think for themselves and use their skills as each incident requires. It’s not enough to go through the motions - that could kill you. Something about that resonated with me regarding mentoring.
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Issues
Gardner’s World: Dream on
Have you ever heard someone talk about that moment when they are suddenly reminded of why they do what they do? In my experience, it is always told with a wistful smile and a faraway look in the eye, pointing to the idea that when you remember why it is that you do what you do, you feel nice.
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Faith at homeA story for home: Easter
Here is a story for you to tell at home, perhaps at bedtime or as part of a God-time during your day. You can break this story up and tell it verse by verse, or tell it all at once. You might want to tell it every so often over the next few months up to Easter-time, so that your children grow familiar with the Easter story. You could also use this in a children’s session.
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IssuesYCW Investigates: Religious education
Across society, you won’t find many calling for an end to the teaching of religious education in schools. Even renowned atheist Richard Dawkins once said: “I don’t think religious education should be abolished. I think it is an important part of our culture to know about the Bible, after all so much of English literature has allusions to the Bible.”
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IssuesGames: Small-group games
These games are great to play either in a small-group setting or in a large group, competing as small groups. All of them act as brilliant team-builders, giving each individual in the group a time to bond, become better accustomed to each other’s strengths and cheer one another on in the process! Most of these games require little to no resources, making them perfect to play with children and young people.
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BlogParable: Matt and the missing juggernaut
Matt put down his brush and looked at the final juggernaut. It was perfect - the snarl, the threatening stance - and it was his best painting job by far, not that the other nine were amateurish. He hadn’t dared to imagine how great they would look when he bought the ten juggernaut figures for his Warhammer collection.
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BlogSinger/songwriter Chloe Reynolds talks about teen struggles, her second album and being on tour with Lulu
If you are looking for a positive role model for teenage girls, look no further. Deputy editor of Premier Youth and Children’s Work Emily Mitchell spoke to Chloe Reynolds about her music and how she has coped with low self-esteem as a teenager
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BlogMothers under fire: a mother’s response to Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali
Being a mother can be immensely joyful and rewarding but it can also be incredibly tough. Motherhood is even harder when we face criticism.
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BlogCyber bullying: how digital citizenship lessons should just be the beginning
One quarter of teenagers admit to bullying or insulting someone on the internet. Think tank Demos says the government should respond by funding digital citizenship lessons. Lahna Pottle from Youthscape explains why she thinks this is a good start but cannot be the only answer.
