In Depth:  Jonny Woodbridge

youth ministry

Jonny Woodbridge

This term at our children's groups, I made the decision to attempt teaching the doctrine of union with Christ — with mixed results!

It got me thinking about how we teach tricky concepts and ideas to children, and whether that's a good idea or not. Let me tell you what went well, and what didn’t go quite to plan.

youth ministry

Jonny Woodbridge

Back in April, I started writing a little three part series for en looking at the role of the traditional youth and children's worker.

We started by establishing that there was a role to be played by the church in teaching youth and children and that it wasn't all the parents' job. Then we looked at some reasons why I believe it is a very legitimate thing to do to appoint someone to do that role in a church. As we finish, I've got just three thoughts for churches as they think about employing and supporting someone in this role, based on everything we've looked at so far.

Jonny Woodbridge

In my article last month, we started looking at whether there was a place for a Youth and Children's worker in today's church.

We began to do so by establishing that while the family has a role in bringing up children to follow Jesus, the church also has a key role to play.

Jonny Woodbridge

There has lately been a big push back in youth and children's ministry against leaving the job of discipling young people just to the "professional", the church youth and children's worker.

Instead there has been more of a return to the Biblical idea that God has given the responsibility of bringing children up to love the Lord primarily to their parents. This shift has encouraged churches to work with families and help them to do this discipling work, rather than just employing a youth and children's worker to do it instead.

youth ministry

Jonny Woodbridge

Anyone who has prepared a youth or children's programme for a church weekend away will know the feeling: your minister is due to chat to the speaker, and once they have, you will have your theme for the weekend.

We try to teach the youth and children the same thing over the weekend as the adults, so this is a big moment - if the theme is Jonah, you're laughing; Lamentations (as we once had) - less so! So you can imagine how I felt when the theme came through as "learning to groan well," looking at three tricky psalms of lament! My initial thoughts were "no thank you, let's do something completely different," but my fantastic team convinced me to think again.

youth ministry

Jonny Woodbridge

There has been an article that has caused a bit of stir recently; arguing for children to remain with their parents in the main church gathering rather than leaving to key into different age groups.

It is quite in vogue to make these sorts of arguments and while this piece won't address all of those, I thought it might be good to be reminded of some of the benefits of having groups for different aged children (and maybe also youth!).

youth ministry

Jonny Woodbridge

Over the Christmas period our church, like many others, had several evangelistic events. We had the classic Christingle and Nativity services, as well as a youth carol service.

We also had a meal for our youth to invite friends to, as well as a big, immersive theatre event for Year 2 children from local primary schools to attend.