A piano, a ball, a cup and some food!

If I gave you a few random objects I wonder what you might do with them? For example, I give you a piano, a ball, a cup and some food. You might think “amazing” and be able to entertain yourself for hours, or you might eat the food and then simply stare at these items not sure what to do next. My reason for this curious question is because recently we ran a 36 hour residential for a bunch of young people, and the most used items over the weekend were; a piano, various balls, some cups and some (well a lot) of food!

267 loves to gather and so back in January we gathered five youth groups together for a trip away. There was joy, there was a lot of food, there was some hilarious and crazy games, there was healthy competition, there was deep friendship, amazing music and loads of unhurried time together. It had been a while since 267 had run a residential and afterwards I had two revelations; I forgot how much energy they take to run, and I forgot how incredibly life-giving they are. God was right in the midst of all we did; as we played, as we unpacked a bible passage, as we heard incredible stories, as we sat and laughed together. We saw ‘full life’ happen, and we are seeing more and more ‘full life’ happening because of our time away. Let me catch my breath and have a rest, and then lets do it all again!

But as I reflect on the time away I am a little astounded that so much of our time was brought to life by the involvement of seemingly ordinary things used primarily outside of my meticulously planned programme! Obviously there was a part of me that then thought why do I plan so much, I should just turn up, drop a few things in the middle of the room and then sit back and watch youthwork happen. But wisdom, experience, God’s favour and years of pouring into youth groups tells me these life-giving environments don’t just happen. They need intentional time, again and again, to be set aside for these safe spaces and joyous gatherings. They need relationships with leaders and young people to be built, trust to be forged and community modelled often. I believe the reason these ordinary items took on such energy and joy is to do with how the young people ‘feel’ in the gathering. They feel welcomed, they feel safe, they feel seen, they feel like they belong here.

It was hugely encouraging if a little bizarre to see how easily these young people embraced simple fun and being present with one another. In all the free time there was always someone at the piano, and then an array of other teenagers surrounding them and singing along to whatever song was being played. Youth asking for a ball just to play ‘catch’ or so many other invented-in-the-moment games! It was simple, beautiful, joyful and reminded me of youth ministry long before tech shaped our world. I know we can’t go back but in the right space we can counteract all the pressure and judgement and comparison and isolation that the online world can cause.

We did put a few things in place to encourage this ‘life’ to happen: we limited phone use, we played a lot together, we had a lots of quality time in smaller teams – incorporating both play and conversation. We talk about ‘intention’ a lot in youthwork, and what that means is ‘doing things on purpose’. Yes we want relaxed time for young people to chill in one another’s company. But the whole aim of our time away was to build relationships, to discover gifts, to explore faith and to connect more deeply as a group. This may happen in a completely natural way but not always, so we long to create spaces where it is easy to connect and form deeper relationships. What has helped us is most of the group, made up of 5 church youth groups, have been journeying together for the past year. This residential was almost a wonderful extended time of our monthly gathering but with the added benefit of starting and ending our day together, sharing meals together and also not having to rush off home at the end of the session.

Our hope always is that the gathering becomes more than the sum of it’s parts, a simple realisation that people benefit from just being together. What happens in the gathering can be planned or random, it can involve organised activity or empty space and time for life to emerge and thrive. I continue to realise we mustn’t ‘do’ youthwork to young people, we must ‘be’ with young people and encourage them to be with one another. So much of what I see in youthwork at the moment is around these ordinary spaces coming to life as young people gather. In them we play, we tell stories, we seek God together, we share thoughts and questions, we laugh, we compete, we embarrass ourselves, we share frustrations and challenges, we explore growing up and pursuing dreams. All these things mustn’t be programmed into our youthwork, our role is to make the time and the space for young people to be together and then allow God to move as they spend unhurried, un-pressured, in-real-life time. I think what you will find happens when you do this is a hunger for all the youthwork things we are told to pursue by our churches and parents, and that we also absolutely passionately hope to do; discipleship, leadership, worship, fellowship, friendship.

Growth happens when just a few things are in place. I am not at all a successful gardener but I know that if you can offer light, warmth, appropriate amounts of water and nutrients, and a little protection from weeds and hungry garden dwellers, then things will grow.

If this is in place, growth happens, this is where we see God performing miracles. We plant, we water, we tend, we protect but the wonder and majesty of growth and life is ALL down to God.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”1 Corinthians 3:6-7