The Learning Exchange

The Learning Exchange is a free online network for extra-curricular practitioners and other professionals working with children and young people (Ages 5 – 14)  working in and around schools.

A wide range of free training is available including: improving outcomes through extra-curricular activities; developing your mentoring skills; social media master class; internet safety workshop; and Sage Accounts workshop.

One in a Million

The Frontier Youth trust have a great new FREE RESOURCE called ONE IN A MILLION to help churches think about the burning issue of Youth Unemployment.

This issue was discussed at general Synod in November. If you would like the church to reflect on the situation many young people face in the current job market why don’t you download their useful resource pack here or their summary of the research

Christmas resource

You might be interested to follow the progress of this new Christmas resource from SGM which presents the Christmas story for teens in a Japanese graphic style.

New term, New Resources

If you have young people changing schools or heading off to university there are some resources that might be worth checking out.

For those starting secondary school, Scripture Union have something they have perfected over the last few years called It’s your move. See their leaflet for churches or the website for more details

If your young people are older and heading off to university then Youth for Christ have produced a new Mettle  book designed for the first term at university.

The Fusion network also offer a School leaver Pack to help young Christians connect with others at their new university as well as find churches in their new home town. Fusion also offers a leaders’ pack of four sessions to run with your teens before they head off to university.

Other new resources in the diocesan WARes include Soularium from Agape International which offers a set of images for reflection which would work really well with teenagers. The pack includes fifty images and five simple exploring questions that allow the user to engage in one-on-one or group spiritual conversations with non-believers.

Resources

For groups in the Worcester area, you might consider asking Worcester Action for Youth to help you with a session. They can offer all kinds of experts in crafts, creative arts workshops and sports. Check out their booklet for this term which is enclosed.

To make a booking you can contact the office on 01905 350550 Tuesdays 10am - 2pm Thursdays 10am - 2pm. Worcester Action for Youth, The Old Scout Hut, Medway Road, Worcester, WR5 1LN Email info(at)wayworcester.org or visit their Website .

  The National Church is offering some really good resources at the moment, One of these is the Going 4 Growth website which is regularly updated with useful things and includes things linked into the Olympics if you want to do some forward planning. They recommend Scripture Union’s Decathlon which will be in our resources library soon. They have also launched another great new resource called Worship Workshop which is now online. See the flier for this fabulous new resource for helping groups of children, young people and adults plan worship for schools and churches.

Get set Go!

For those of you thinking about doing something to fit in with the Olympics, why not check out:
SportMakers or More than Gold. Scripture Union also have a good book called Decathlon.

Remember the Olympic torch is coming to our area on 24th and 25th May and 30th June and 1st July .

Resources

I was lucky enough to join lots of other Youth For Christ Trustees at one of the YFC Focus days in the summer and got some great deals on some of their new and older resources. The resource library is now a proud owner of all of the after school club kit Crux, RE resource exploRE, a few copies of Uncut, which is a discipleship course with an edge (especially good for those with no experience of church) and an upgraded The Art of Connecting which is a fantastic resource for helping young people share their faith with others. If you’re looking at the new term and wondering where to get some inspiration, how about the fabulous playing cards from schoolswork.co.uk? These are useable as normal playing cards but also contain icebreaking questions about you, others, the world and beliefs. I have a couple of sets to borrow and Emma also has some for the Primary school age. I also have a set of their artcards which use images created by young people to help you reflect on the meaning of life. Some of the images are fun and others are more challenging. There’s also a lesson pack to go with the art cards and ten ideas for using the playing cards which you can download from their website.

Too much PAPERWORK??

Looking for some interesting papercrafts for your youth group which http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifarehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif out of the ordinary. Have a browse of this wonderful blog called Paper Forest which gives links to all kind of free downloads for papercraft designs which are far from childish! For example I found this site called Flickr Monkey through it!

"Rights" of Passage

Well this would have been a useful book a few years back!

The Journey of Christian Initiation
by Paul Avis, Martin Davie, Harriet Harris, Christopher Hill & Stephen Platten

It's described as:

This helpful volume sets out to clarify the Church of England’s thinking about baptism, confirmation and admission to communion, and addresses some very practical questions in relation to ministry in this area.

Discussion of the topic is grounded in the New Testament and the early Church, and is traced through the development of the Church’s theology and practice of initiation from the mediaeval and Reformation periods up to the present. Drawing on the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the Thirty-nine Articles and Common Worship, as well as on Scripture and the Church’s tradition, it sheds light on contemporary practice and understanding, which can – and do - vary locally.

Anglican approaches to Christian initiation are also explored in relation to those of other churches.

Hopefully a useful read now for churches thinking about admission to holy communion before confirmation and considering that age old question of "what age confirmation?"

Not read it yet as it's just out but hope to get hold of a copy soon.

Pulse Ministries

Wanting to start some work with children or young people but not sure you have all it takes? Pulse Ministries offer to come in and help you run training for leaders as well as holiday clubs and special one-offs for children and young people.

Check out their vision document here.

Lent Resources

After their great Christmas resources, Spurgeons now have some Lent resources on offer. So for those of you already planning your Lent sessions, you may want to have a look.

Roots Advent resource

WAITING FOR GOD: An Advent calendar for all ages

The ROOTS’ Advent Calendar 2010 helps to remind us of some of the many words, images and names given to Jesus in Scripture. A mixture of active, prayerful and practical suggestions to help us prepare to celebrate Christmas.

Follow this link to download a pdf of the Advent calendar in colour or black and white,

plus more of our free introductory material.

If you would like printed copies of the calendar for mailings, or more information,

email Allison Ward at rootspromo@rootsontheweb.com.

West Midlands for 2012 launches the Games and Me

Following the launch of Worcestershire's 'Inspired?' Toolkit (and Small Grant Scheme), the West Midlands region is continuing the theme of 'inspiration' with an initiative called 'The Games and Me'. People can find inspiration in many different forms and be inspired in many different ways. Inspiration (in its many different forms) always precedes change and in these difficult times the 'Inspired?' Toolkit and 'The Games and Me' initiative are testimony to the once in a lifetime inspiration the Olympic and Paralympic Games can generate.

There are hundreds of London 2012 inspired activities and events that are happening all across the West Midlands right now, so why not get involved and create your own Games and Me story! Read more:

For the launch of The Games and Me each of the West Midlands regions featured a sub-regional story and Worcestershire was represented by Alex. Alex's Games and Me Story - Read more

Spurgeon's Christmas resources

More FREE Christmas resources now available online!

It gives me great pleasure to tell you that we've added even more free items to the package of resources, which you can download from our website. These include:

DRAMA SKETCH - The Rich List

COLOURING SHEET - Perfect for engaging children with Sami's story in your Sunday school or Christmas services.

THE OTHER SIDE OF SAMI'S STORY - PowerPoint presentation showing the reality of life for AIDS orphans in the slums of Kibera and how Spurgeons Academy is transforming many lives. Optional presentation available for anyone interested in sponsoring a child like Sami.

KIBERA FACTSHEET - Useful facts to include in a talk or presentation.

I look forward to hearing how you are using Sami and the Ultimate Christmas Gift to encourage many people to support our work among some of the poorest and most disadvantaged children in Africa and here in the UK.

Quest – Pre Alpha Course for free!

Quest, the fantastic pre-Alpha course from Toronto Youth for Christ is now free! The DVDs used to cost £100 or so, but the organisation that produced it have now made the clips available as a free download. They are big files, but well worth getting. Visit http://www.quest-opensource.com/

One World Week Resources

Please see below One World Week’s pioneering range of online teaching resources on Islam, international development and citizenship. These have been produced in partnership with Islamic Relief.

The resources are available now, free to download from the OWW website.

I hope that these resources can help to enrich teaching and learning in your school and community; please let us know what you think.

Switch

Switch is a 12 session course designed by Bath Youth for Christ to introduce skateboarders to the Christian faith. It has been written by One Eighty; Bath YFC’s skateboarding outreach programme, to take the Good News relevantly to skateboarders.

Sessions include topics such as: ‘What is Prayer?’, ‘Does God Exist?’ and ‘Who is Jesus?’ Booklets are provided for each young person who takes the course. The booklets have a similar look and feel to skate magazines and are designed to accompany the course as well as to encourage further thinking and reflection.

A leader’s pack is also provided, with a DVD, full guidelines for planning, preparing and running the course and practical ideas on what to do after the course has been completed. One of the sessions is a weekend away similar to the Youth Alpha format and the Bath team were recently able to run a weekend residential for Switch participants at a PGL centre. Jake, 13, enthuses: “I took Switch to find out whether God was real. The course helped me to understand more and on the weekend away I had an amazing experience of God and became a Christian, which has made my life much happier!”

Jo Dolby, the original Skate Outreach Manager for Bath YFC, developed the course and ran two successful programmes before moving on to complete an MA in Theology and to pursue work with a local church. Jo explains what led to the production of the course: “We wanted to develop a course that was suited to the young people we were working with through One Eighty, to give them the opportunity to explore what they believe in a context that they could relate to and present the Gospel to them in a relevant way.” The course has proved so popular it has even been used further afield in Sweden, South Africa and the United States. The course is online and available to buy and download through the One Eighty website, www.one-eighty.org.uk.

Lent and Easter Resources

If you’re looking for some resources for Lent and Easter why not try 21M from CMS which presents the five marks of mission through the examples of people who are living them out. Or how about The Agent or The Follower from the Saltmine theatre company? I’ve just invested in a copy of each of these for the WARes library. Why not register with the LCET and download their free poster series called Easter Journey which consists of posters on various Easter themes designed by young people:

Quest

The fantastic pre-alpha course which has been used in some churches and schools across the diocese is now available as a free download here. It is quite a lot to download but you can preview the videos there or on youtube.

Prison's week

Resources are available for churches wanting to engage in Prisons Week. This year’s theme is Hold Fast to Hope. Check out this link for drama sketches, service help, stories of hope and a PowerPoint presentation.