When you’re ready to come back, I’ll be right here waiting.

Jeff Daniels character in ‘The Newsroom’ said this; “The first step in overcoming a problem is to recognise there is one!” (I think Zig Ziglar said it too, but he wasn’t in The Newsroom!)

Our problem is this: the church is finding it harder and harder to offer consistent and relevant youthwork provision. Now obviously there is no easy solution and there are clearly many factors and reasons into why we find ourselves in such a position. I also read that the way to start overcoming any problem is not to be in denial or make excuses, but simply to admit the problem exists. The church has a problem! Years of seeing youth work as a ‘second rate ministry’, poor investment in training and people, inadequate line management and support, lack of job progression, less creativity and innovation in job descriptions, salaries that don’t fit the role or location and the churches inability to adapt and pivot to the needs of young people. OK so I admit I am listing some excuses there, or maybe they are causes, either way it’s important to name the problem and also some of the reasons we are where we are! If you then you add in the challenges and adversity faced by young people over the last 2 years you can see why the issue has been magnified and in need of confronting!

I have been reflecting on some of the challenges we are facing in 267 with connecting with young people, particularly through residentials and camps. We have had to change our plans twice now which is hugely frustrating especially as last summer we took 45 young people away! I don’t have an answer but maybe a reflection which is going to shape what I might be doing over the coming months.

It occurred to me that maybe in this season our purpose isn’t to be ‘doing’ things but to be remaining present, almost waiting for the next season to arrive where our ministry will be what is needed. I have been reading Malcom Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’ and he speaks about a lawyer called Joe Flom. Joe Flom practiced law in the 50’s and 60’s but couldn’t get a job with a major firm due to his immigrant background. So, he found work where he could with ‘lower ranked’ firms. He took on the cases that no one else wanted, the ‘hostile takeover’ type cases. Then in the late 70’s and early 80’s when the rules and economy changed, these types of cases were the most popular and so good lawyers were needed. And what Joe had been perfecting and practicing for almost 20 years was just this type of law. What he had spent two decades working on suddenly became very valuable indeed. Now the law firm that Joe is part of has nearly 2000 lawyers, 23 offices around the world and a turnover of over $1 billion a year!

So, our call is maybe to ‘hold the line’ to ‘stick it out’, to ‘keep going’, to ‘endure the slog and plod’, and all those other appropriately resilient terms. What if our time, our season, is just around the corner and so we must be ready? Our heart for residentials has never changed and neither has I think the need for them, or indeed the kids and young peoples love of them. Maybe the perfect storm of challenge has happened, and people are just too weary, stretched and unmotivated to even consider getting involved. But this season will pass, the storm will leave, and the clear skies and new day will emerge, and so we need to be there waiting.

There are so many parallels to the story of the prodigal son, what continues to strike me each time I read it is the realisation that the father came out every day in the hope of seeing his son. What if the son started to head home, and saw no welcome, could he have turned round and left, feeling unwanted? I believe we are to ‘come out every day’, watching, waiting, hoping, and then ready to run, embrace and bring home. We are called to ‘dig in’, to hold to our calling and passion for youthwork, to be ready for the landscape to change, to trust Gods timing and to be there waiting.

The best things do come in small boxes!

Many of us can probably remember what January 2021 was like, maybe we would rather forget those times. Forgive me for reminding you; another lockdown had begun in England, we all had Deliveroo and JustEat on speed dial, America had a new President and a stormed Capitol building, the pandemic was in full force with an array of ‘variants’, and, after a short reprieve, all our work, school and social interactions were thrown back online!

My reason for taking us back in time is not to give you homeschooling flashbacks but to share that for the youth ministry at our church it was the birth of something hugely special. This time of frustration and difficulty actually started one of the most incredible seasons of ministry for our bunch of young people.

So it was January 2021 and we launched ‘GODBOX Online’ – a 12 week journey of games, fun, discipleship, sharing and discovery. What made GODBOX even more successful for our group relationships was it required every young person to have an adult with them, for some this was a parent or grandparent, for others it was a carer they had ‘bubbled’ with. We don’t often model this sort of partnership but in this season it worked brilliantly and the humorous and thoughtful interactions between older and younger were significant and a blessing. For me, to attempt this multi-generational way of doing youth and kids ministry was both exciting and daunting. There was a sense of ‘we had nothing to lose’ but what actually happened was that we gained so much more than we could have possibly fathomed.

There are many reasons why it shouldn’t have worked; it was online, it involved young people partnering with their parents/grandparents/carers, it involved an age range of 9 – 16’s and it was at a time where we were all pretty fed up with Zoom! As I sit here planning for the next term I have been reflecting on why it worked in the hope that the gold we discovered could be encouraged and replicated in other spaces. The first observation I think is that this “experiment” wouldn’t have worked with a bigger group! So, if most of our churches have smaller groups (3-12 young people) then I want to learn from our time so that more groups can experience the fruit and growth of relationships and faith that we have seen. When you are a smaller group there is a sense that you are almost having conversations around a meal table, rather than leading from the front and speaking to a crowd. This more familiar style allows deeper relationships, more interaction with more of the group, discovery of everyones story and their questions, and also I think each of the characters of the group are allowed to be seen and encouraged more.

For us particularly, it allowed us to build and grow. The smaller numbers and the regular conversations allowed us to build deeper relationships and invest more time and energy into discipling a few. The fruit of this we are still reaping, and this weekend we have 9 young people being baptised or confirmed, nearly all of them having journeyed with us on our ‘GODBOX experiment’!

So what can I encouraged you to take away from our story? Well can I share with you three pieces of wisdom I discovered which I am also using to shape my ministry in this next season:

1. Don’t worry about numbers, invest deeply in the few. If you have 3 young people, pour into them, see them as the most precious gift you have ever been given. Make time for meals together, simple joyful conversations, varied expressions of doing church, open and honest discussions about life and faith and just enjoy one another’s company. These times will allow deep relationships to form which in turn will allow discipleship to happen and gifts to be discovered and used.

2. Explore various ways of staying connected and encouraging one another. Our group has hugely benefitted from being part of a WhatsApp group. Now obviously some of them are too young to have this, and some don’t even have phones yet! But even with the parents and carers as messengers, our WhatsApp chats, prayers, stories, pictures, encouragements and activities have allowed our group to encouraged one another by sharing and ‘doing life together’, and giving and receiving ongoing prayer and support for one another. Now I know you may not need another WhatsApp group, but believe me this one is life-giving not life-sapping! I think also beyond the young people, the adults have been encouraged and I truly believe their own faith has also grown and been given life.

3. Tell people about your group! It is vital that the church hears about your youth group and prays for your youth group. Your group may not be a massive number, they may not appear in church every Sunday morning, they may not even ‘fit’ into the way your church expresses their worship. But, and this is key, they are still part of your family and so you need to include them wherever possible. This inclusion is vital to how the group see themselves; not separate but connected, valued, known, loved, family, church.

“I am so small, said the mole. Yes, said the boy, but you make a huge difference.”

Charlie Mackesy