Worcester Spirit Mark

Over the last few years, Emma and I have been so pleased to see churches engaging with the Worcester Spirit Mark. This scheme helps parishes celebrate their good practice with children and youth. It seeks to help parishes identify ways in which they could improve how they reach out to children and young people and the ways they are welcomed into and included within worship and day to day activities of the church. Recently we have awarded Bronze Awards to Drakes Broughton.

 The Bronze Award itself represents a set of minimum standards in children's and youth work and ask questions such as ‘Are all those who work with children and young people possess a Criminal Records Bureau Enhanced Certificate?’  For parishes which are going further in the way they include and welcome children and young people and the diocese will be awarding Silver where, for example training has been completed and Gold awards where children and young people are routinely involved in the planning and delivery of services.

Now that the scheme has been running for three years we are pleased to be able to promote these churches which are demonstrably welcoming to children and young people through our forthcoming Children and Youth Friendly Churches page of the diocesan website. All those who have achieved any level of the award will be listed as a church recommended for families looking for a church to attend. We’d love to be able to add more churches to this page so do have a look at the details of the scheme or download the Bronze award booklet. Do get in touch if you would like advice about exploring the Worcester Spirit Mark in your church.

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.

Celebrating the Kingdom

We’re hoping children and young people will be a big part of our Celebrating the Kingdom day at the Cathedral on 22nd September 10am-4pm. As part of the event I’ll be offering an MP3 led pilgrimage around the cathedral which has been made in collaboration with students from the University of Worcester. There’s also a big picnic and an all-age celebration service at 3pm.

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.

Lording it up!

Young people from churches in Worcester Diocese are being offered the opportunity to visit the House of Lords and meet members of the Lords as part of a group including two other diocese.

The EIGHT young people will join with others from Derby and Oxford Diocese as well as members of the Church of England Youth Council (CEYC).

We will be meeting on Tuesday 30th October (Half Term week) to plan our visit sometime in the new year.

On the day of the visit we will be leaving Worcester early and arriving at the House of Lords for lunch before viewing the afternoon session. We will then meet with some members of the Lords for a discussion and may go on to have a tour of Westminster Abbey.

Members of our Youth Council will be among the group but there are also spaces for others who would like to participate.

Please do get in touch with me as soon as possible if you have young people who would like to take part.

Revive Positivity campaign

A REMINDER that the Church of England Youth Council (CEYC) is looking for positive stories about young people for their new campaign called REVIVE which was launched at the General Synod in July. They even have a video which I’ve put on the blog here. 

ALM Children and Youth

Emma and I will again be training a group of Children and Youth Leader’s as part of the specialism for the Authorized Lay Ministry course on two full Saturdays on 13th October and 1st December from 9.30-4.30.

It would be really good if you could hold the people on this course in your prayers as they reflect on their work with children and young people.

We will also be gathering together all our previous ALM Children and Youth Specialists on Saturday 8th December from 11am-3pm (including lunch) If you have been part of one of our courses before please do put the date in your diary.