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paulmtilley — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:30:19 +0000

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Meetings and Models: Win SWOT

paulmtilley — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:37:50 +0000

I’m running a meeting this week where I’v asked all people involved in children’s work to get together. I initially want to take the ‘temperature’ of that area of the church so I know what my next step will be.

I decided to put together a more creative way of getting to find out what people really feel about the ministry. So I am using several models/ideas and mashing them all up.

The main aim of the meeting is to find out what the volunteers see of the overall ‘win’ of the ministry. This idea of finding the win is from the book Seven Practices of Effective Ministry.

Once we have worked out the ‘Win’ of the children’s ministry, we’ll then think through a SWOT analysis of the ministry. I’ll do the SWOT analysis by getting the group into twos around tables with maybe a bowl of sweets or cake, to try to get a relaxed feeling. I will also give each table a card from my ‘Creative Whack Pack‘, these cards (from Roger VonOech) try to stimulate creativity by asking crazy questions of an idea like ‘What would a 6-year-old think of this’. Some people may not find this helpful, some may. The table idea from The World Cafe model. I will have a print out with other SWOT analysis pointers mindmap style like this:

Internal Strengths that help us meet our goal
- What would the church & community say are our strengths?
- What needs are we meeting in the church & community?
- What assets do we possess? (financial, property, key relationships, or maybe just awesome people)?
- We are incredible at…

The hoped outcome will be a clear idea what Win looks like in the children’s ministry with a few glaring things in each of the SWOT analysis categories that can be celebrated (SO) and addressed (WT) to make the Win happen each week.

So overall i’m using the some of The World Cafe philosophy with SWOT, mindmaps and Whack on the side of the head.

Lets see if it works

5 Tips On Youth Worker/Minister Productivity

paulmtilley — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:35:15 +0000

VISION = RIGHT IDEA = GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT = TIME MAPPING = CREATIVE TO DOS =PRODUCTIVITY

I seem to be in a constant battle with productivity and I just spend far too much time in-front of my computer mostly doing admin stuff (this is my day so its OK). So I decided over the last week or so to really try to get on top of my time and productivity. I therefore thought I’d share what I’m up to as it may help some other poor youth worker who spends too much time on the wrong stuff.

Where are we heading?

I first had to work out what I here to do. So I have spent some time working on vision/strategy and direction for the overall youth ministry. This means that I can then start to work out where I should invest my time and energy. More about vision here

What’s Good vs Right?

There are lots of lots of good ideas and no end of people will tell you their great idea that you should do! But once you have a vision and strategy, you then have a measuring rod for all these good ideas. You can then say ‘this is a great idea, but may not be the right idea for our ministry at this time’. This can save you a lot of time and help you be more productive on the right stuff.

What’s really worth my time?

I got this idea from a post by Tim Schmoyer that asked ‘What is REALLY worth my time in student ministry?‘ This is a challenging list to make, everything that you do in your ministry, write it down and ask is it really worth doing. Tim asked ‘Is it life changing‘, I kept that question but also related by to the ministries vision so also asked is it ‘missional‘? ‘Does it help people to go DEEP (into God) and/or WIDE (into the world)? This has helped me to start to see what things I do that I can maybe drop or give to others. For example do I really need to do flyers? Do they help people to change there lives, go DEEP and/or WIDE or is it a missional activity….eeeeerrrrr…no! Some stuff is no but you still have to do it like money stuff…O well. It also highlights stuff I need to do more of like meeting with young people one to one.

Time Map

OK so now we have looked at what we should do and what we do that we shouldn’t! I now think I/we need to think through our overall time. This was for me where a post off Lifehacker, one of one of my fav blogs, come along. It talks about mapping your week to examine what you spend your time on. This is sort of timesheet high-bred. I also read this post by REYouthPastor called ‘Youth Pastor Productivity’. In the post he states that for him his time should map out:

15 hours a week youth programs (including before and after time)
8 hours a week preparing for talks / sessions/ programs
2 hours a week think about small church youth ministry strategies and future planning
4 hours a week meeting staff
4 hours a week doing 1-to-1 stuff
hopefully 4-5 hours a week doing admin stuff, in reality probably a bit more.

Thats a good start to looking at how my week could pan out, so I’m not doing too much admin( worth my time?) and more face to face (worth my time). So I put into my little time map that above list.

More Creativity with To Dos

Iv also started to use FreeMind to mind map my To Dos. I use DEEP and WIDE are guides and try to keep my To Dos liked, so it always comes back to Where I am heading and is this a good To Do or a Right To Do?

I am also using FreeMind to be more creative with other parts of my ministry and to clear my head!

VISION = RIGHT IDEA = GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT = TIME MAPPING = CREATIVE TO DOS =PRODUCTIVITY

Film and Theology Notes

paulmtilley — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:08:50 +0000

I did a day on Film and Theology at Bristol Centre for Youth Ministry. Here are the notes.

Movie Sound Clips Trivia Game

Mark Driscoll: Avatar is demonic clip

The Arts & Faith Top 100 Films

Our Youth Ministry Vision. What, Why, Who, How

paulmtilley — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:24:56 +0000

This is the ‘vision’ I see panning out for the youth work/ministry at Malmesbury Abbey. Its based on the our core values of youth work: voluntary participation, empowerment, equality of opportunity and informal education. And a few ideas that I have stolen from other book etc.

WHAT

I really like DEEP & WIDE from Dare2Share , I came across it through Life in Student Ministry but I found that their strategy for implementing DEEP & WIDE would not translate well into my context so I ‘borrowed’ the terms but left the strategy!

DEEP & WIDE helps us know WHAT we are.

Abbey youth…a missional community striving to go DEEP into God’s love and WIDE into the world

WHY & WHO

I made us of some of the Purpose Driven Youth Ministry first because it makes you ask WHY. Then the ‘target audience’ part makes you ask WHO. The TA I think is far to rigid and we live a much more fluid world then I think TA gives credit but I use TA for big brushstrokes.

HOW

I inherited a lot of great youth ministry. And at one level I had to think how it could fit into the above. Fortunately I didn’t have too much trouble. This is how I think it all fits together…

WHO are we trying to reach? Main Group	WHAT is our aim? Main Aim	HOW will we try to do this? Programmes
Community (no contact)	WIDE (Evangelism)	Detached (not yet in place)
Congregation (Some contact)	WIDE (Evangelism)	Friday Night Thing (open aimed at non-churched)
Committed (Regular contact)	DEEP (Discipleship)	Pipeline/Trax
Core (Leader)	DEEP (Discipleship)	Pipeline +

THOUGHTS

Is shaped a great deal from inherited youth work
Has to work in mid-sized church
I need to expand on missional
A lot of the current youth ministry focuses on DEEP need more WIDE
It quite modernistic

How much should we do?

paulmtilley — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:46:44 +0000

I had a group of young people ask me to do a sleep over during holy week (they have had one the last few years). I said sure- sounds like a good plan….i’ll help you sort it out if you want! There was a slight puzzled look and one of the young people said that it was my job to sort it out not theirs. I responded by saying ‘is that really my job’?

And there is the question. How much do we really need or should do for young people. Empowerment is the key word here, if we continue to do everything for young people then eventually we get burned out, young people learn nothing and we became little more than providers of spiritual entertainment

On the other hand, how much do we do ourselves? Because if we never do anything…well, what do we get paid for! Maybe our ministry should always be working with young people to enable them to be empowered to run the youth ministry themselves…. brilliant! Scary!

- Should we plan, or always plan with young people?
- Should we run bible studies or help young people run them?
- How about ‘evangelism’, street work, schools work?

Interesting, the young people, with the help of a volunteer leader, got together last week and worked out loads of the sleep over…without my help!

Church/Youth Ministry 1.0, 2.0, 3.0

paulmtilley — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:43:58 +0000

This is one of my first blog posts a long time ago. I was re-looking at it and thought it was quite interesting inlight of how the emerging church, mission has developed, also since I have done a degree in youth work. Moreover, with Mark Oestreicher’s Youth Ministry 3.0.

Mark Driscoll the pastor of Mars Hill Church Seattle, USA, has a really interesting post here on Church 3.0. I have put the post into a grid to see the different ‘grades’ of church side by side:

CHURCH 1.0	CHURCH 2.0	CHURCH 3.0
In this version, the church is traditional and institutional…	Today’s dominant church form is contemporary and seeker-sensitive…	This incarnation of the church emerging and missional…
The cultural context is modern.	The cultural context is somewhere between modern and postmodern.	The cultural context is postmodern and pluralistic.
The church expects to have a privileged place in the larger culture.	A culture war is being fought to regain a lost position of privilege.	The church accepts that it’s marginalized in culture.
Pastors are servants and teachers.	Pastors are CEOs.	Pastors are local missionaries. The whole church are local missionaries.
Church services are marked by traditions most comforting to Christians, such as choirs, robes, hymnals, and organs.	Church services recycle 1980s and 1990s pop culture, such as acoustic guitars and drama, in an effort to attract non-Christian seekers.	Church services blend ancient forms and current local styles. Do we have to have ‘Church services’?
Missions involves sending Americans and dollars overseas through denominations and missions agencies.	Missions is a church department that organizes overseas trips and funding.	Missions is “glocal” (global and local).
		Along with the emergence of Church 3.0, an escalating debate is being raised over such cultural issues as sexuality and gender, as well as theological issues such as the atonement and hell. In the coming months this column will further explore the emerging controversies and trends of Church 3.0.

I have found this a really interesting post and has got me thinking about Youth Ministry 3.0:

What would that look like?
How would Youth Ministry 3.0 fit into Church 3.0?
How can church/Youth ministry 2.0 move to 3.0?

I think that Youth Ministry if often the first area to upgrade in a church and so often is already 3.0, but the rest of the church is still 1.0/2.0…

Reflection by Steve Collins on emergingchurch.info called urban church

paulmtilley — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:21:00 +0000

I like this photo essay by Steve Collins called urban church.

John Sentamu Anglican of Archbishop York cuts up dog collar

paulmtilley — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:28:00 +0000

I was reading this article in the Guardian Newspaper today. The Archbishop of York , John Sentamu, I have always admired since hearing about his peace vigil back in August 2006, I wanted to go and join him in his vigil but never did

Anyway, his collar cutting was as protect against the Zimbabwe president Mugabe. The Archbishop said that Mugabe “destroyed the identities” of his people through oppression and economic mismanagement. “As an Anglican this is what I wear to identify myself, that I’m a clergyman.” “Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity and literally, if you don’t mind, cut it to pieces. This is what he’s actually done to a lot of (people) – and in the end there’s nothing. So, as far as I’m concerned, from now on I’m not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe is gone.”

Sentamu urged those who were moved by his gesture to “pray, march, protest and collect money” for Zimbabwe and Darfur – where charities say hundreds of thousands of people are facing starvation.

What a guy, just think how powerful it would be if Christians took issues such as Zimbabwe as much as Sentamu. I recently heard an interview with Brian McLaren talking about his new book Everything Must Change. He made the point that with Christianity being the largest world faith, if Christians took environmental issues (for example) to heart we really could make a dramatic change and truly this world a better place. Unfortunately, it seems to me, that Christians just seem to get into a fuss about issues are just non-issues outside the church.

What Would Jesus Buy? The Movie

paulmtilley — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:30:00 +0000

What Would Jesus Buy? What a great question to ask ourselves and help young people to ask as well. I think it raises so many questions about power, trade, and ultimately…us, the consumes.

Its interesting that the makers have chosen to use the gimmick of WWJD and a church minister. Why the religious imagery to get across a social message, is it just the Christmas thing or is it that really we, the church, should be asking these questions and we are not? Just a thought.

I like the look of this film, will have to ‘buy’ it!