Artisan youth work

The reason that the word artisan is so popular is that people are sick of the mass-produced, the shallow and the throw-away. They want things to be real, personal and deep. This is true of young people and how they respond to resources as well. Yes, there are some really excellent youth work resources on the market that have certainly helped many to enable young people to grow spiritually, but I have always adapted them for the particular young people I was working with at the time. This skill of creativity, adaptation and originality is what makes so many of us great at being artisan youth workers.

In The artisan soul, Erwin McManus writes about our very nature being that of an artist. In his opinion, creativity should be an everyday experience, as common even as breathing. He says: ‘A soul that is free and alive is a soul that creates. We need not only a new view of God but a new view of us. We need a new theology and a new anthropology. Humans create.’

DRAGON FRUIT

I know there have been occasions where God has given me ideas that have worked for a certain group of young people, at a certain moment in their life together, to spur them on in their pursuit of Jesus.

Some people love chocolate, for others it’s ice cream, for me it’s fruit. Yes, fruit. And there I was, new in town, meeting church youth groups for the first time and discovering a whole different culture.

One group, while being quite welcoming to me, were particularly confident of their intellectual abilities and, as the new girl, I was facing an interesting dynamic. Not feeling overly confident of my own intellectual abilities, I prayed a lot, and bought a dragon fruit. At the time, I was just excited to have discovered a new fruit that was so spectacular! But then, as I chatted to people, I realised it was not a bad talking point, and as I went out the door to go to the youth group, I picked it up and took it with me. As the young people arrived at the group, I left the dragon fruit casually sitting on the sofa and one-byone, adults and young people alike tried to guess what it was.

I kept shtum. Everyone was dumbfounded. No one knew what it was. And then Elena arrived. Elena was an unusual young person who saw the world differently to most people and whose perspective was not always appreciated. As she walked in the door she asked, ‘Why is there a dragon fruit sitting on the sofa?’ The whole room erupted in laughter and congratulated Elena on being the first to know the name of the fruit. At the end of the evening, we gathered together and, in what can only be described as a significant ceremony, I sliced the dragon fruit in two to many murmurs of amazement. We all sampled the unexpectedly beautiful flesh within, and I talked about a new era in all of our lives where we would do things we had never done before, learn things from each other and God that we had never learnt before and believe and pursue Jesus’ words to his followers that they would do ‘even greater things’ than he. Thus began a new culture in the life of that church’s youth ministry, where we did things we had never done before with God and everyone grew. This only happened because I allowed room in my ministry for God’s creativity to inspire me.

THE ARTISAN

In Mark DeVries’ book Sustainable youth ministry, he talks about three essential staff roles in youth ministry: the craftsperson, the general contractor and the architect. The craftsperson is where many of us really thrive in our youth work. I’m going to call this person ‘the artisan youth worker’ – they are great at building relationships with young people, creating fun games, developing inspiring teaching tools and encouraging young people towards Christ through their own example. They take inspiration from contemporary culture and help young people connect with Christ from many diverse starting points. But they don’t just do all this on a wing and a prayer: this creative approach takes hard work. Erwin McManus says, ‘The immense capacity of the human imagination can be leveraged with talent, skill and hard work’. So what does that look like for us youth workers?

Prayer

To live in step with the Spirit requires an every-day, every-hour, every-moment submission to Christ. Prayer gets us there. It’s how we connect to our father and it’s how we get to know his heart for the young people we are seeking to serve. Pray in ways you never have before. Pray God gives you the words to pray and then pray them. Pray freedom, courage, inspiration and revelation over yourself and your youth group. And then stop talking and listen out for God’s ideas on the way ahead.

Preparation

The artisan youth worker creates real, personal and deep youth ministry moments; you can’t rush your preparation for these times. Do the reading. Consider culture. Talk to people. Involve the young people in the process and give yourself plenty of time to gather all you need.

Practice

Creativity takes courage, and courage grows over time as we take more risks, so practice being courageous in your creativity. Be patient with yourself as you learn by making mistakes, and trust God that he will work in and through and beyond and despite you in the lives of the young people in your church and community.

JESUS, THE ARTISAN

As we do line-management and strategic leadership in our youth ministry, let us not neglect the importance of the work of our inner artisan. Let us continue to foster this spirit in our own ministry to young people, volunteers, and the wider body of Christ. Let us do this not only because it’s part of our job, but because it’s fun and because it’s what Jesus did as he told stories rooted in the everyday experiences of his listeners: fishing, farming, parenting, losing stuff, finding stuff, buying, selling, gardening, cooking, banking, policing and politics. Many of the miracles he did acted as experiential learning for those with eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand.

He began his ministry by taking the opportunity to turn water into wine to both bless a wedding party and speak of the start of a new era of God’s work with people on Earth. Like Jesus, I want my life to be prophetic, not just in the words I say or write, but in the things I do and in the way I do them. He is the greatest artisan, crafting experiences that draw those who know him deeper into his love and those who don’t know him towards his beauty. This is the work we are called to. The heart of the artisan youth worker is to communicate to young people how high and long and wide and deep the love of God is. And it’s not hard to go to a big effort for those we love. We are family. They are our siblings. By loving young people with an extreme love, a gracious love that goes far beyond unconditional positive regard, we work with God to win their hearts. And we do this by creating beautiful bespoke youth ministry moments that communicate to the young people we work with that they are unique and valuable and worth it. And this is one of the ways we show our love for Jesus.

So, if you are struggling to find your inner artisan, maybe take some time out to return to your first love, to rest in his love, and to rediscover his and your own capacity to create, because it starts in our hearts.

Toy Shark

I often ask young people, ‘how big is a shark?’ An adult great white shark can apparently grow to around 22 feet. I then introduce my 2 inch long toy shark and ask what would happen if I found a tiny baby shark and kept it in a 2 foot long aquarium in my house. It wouldn’t grow. That small shark has the potential to grow into a 22 foot long killing machine roaming the oceans but will stay as a harmless pet. It will never reach its potential. I use this toy shark to have conversations about potential. What holds people back from reaching their full potential? How can people be helped to reach their full potential?

The most valuable thing in the world

The Queen has received some pretty unusual gifts during her time on the throne. She’s been given a sword made from shark’s teeth, an elephant, a bottle of dog shampoo and 500 cases of tinned pineapple chunks. But when she was first made queen, she was given a very special gift, and the person who gave it to her said that this particular gift was ‘The most valuable thing in the world.’ At this point, I take out a small bag containing this gift and ask young people to guess what it is. As you’ve all guessed by now it was a Bible. It was just an ordinary Bible, not valuable because it’s expensive, but because it’s precious.

Questions Board

My first experience of youth work was helping on a summer camp when I was surrounded by sporty extroverts. As a non-sporty introvert, I felt intimidated by the other leaders until I realised that what I could offer the young people was a listening ear. I soon recognised a desperate hunger in young people to talk about themselves. Like a lot of introverts, I like to collect things. What I like to collect is questions. I collect individual’s questions, lists of questions, games with questions, and any questions I can find. But what I like to do then is organise them, first into categories, and then into degrees of difficulty. I can then organise them into a table with six categories. An example table might have questions about love, the future, spirituality, the internet, school and family. Each category gets six questions organised from general and easy to answer, through to deep and personal. I then either ask teenagers to choose questions or, if they’re feeling brave, to throw a dice to choose a category and a dice to choose a question.

Newspaper

As well as questions, I like to collect statistics. The i newspaper has interesting statistics on page two daily, and I regularly drop these statistics into conversation with young people to encourage them to open up about how they see the world. Statistics are one of the best ways to get teenagers to open up. But I don’t just ask about statistics from the newspaper, I also conduct my own surveys. The simple reason for this is that young people love to be asked their opinions and are even more excited to know that you will be recording that information.

Playground drawing

I’m a massive fan of Pip Wilson’s blob trees and use them regularly. But as a fan of the handmade and artisan, I started developing my own ideas for reflective drawings. I have around 20 now, including a drawing of a school playground which I use most of all. This picture has scores of crudely drawn stick figures getting up to a host of everyday activities in a typical school playground. Some are trying to escape, some are getting up to mischief, some are playing, some are being kind, and others are being mean. I’m not great at drawing, but I put in the time and effort to develop beguiling characters. Some characters have speech bubbles and say things like ‘I’m unique,’ ‘I’m bored’ and ‘I’m popular.’ It’s a brilliant way of inviting young people to open up about life. I ask who they think is happiest, who is most like them and which characters might be Christians.

Post-it notes

I keep post-it notes for collecting answers and statistics but also for game after game of the name game. This is the simplest and most adaptable game I know. Each player is given a post-it note and pen and asked any question which requires a short answer, which they write on their note. These are then collected and read through twice. It’s both a guessing and a memory game. A player is chosen randomly to start and they ask another player a person if they wrote a certain answer. If they get it right, the person they guessed is out and the player asks again. If they get it wrong, the person they incorrectly guessed can choose a different person to ask. I love this game because it fits any conversation as the question changes every time.

What these things have in common is that they’re simple, effective and fool-proof ways of inviting young people to talk about themselves. I have found that young people rarely care if things are flashy, they love my ideas because they are personal and easyto- tweak and made just for them. Anyone can be an artisan youth worker. It just takes a have-a-go attitude, a trust in God and the prompting of his Holy Spirit, along with a desire to help young people open up about themselves and grow to reach their full potential.