The "mini sabbatical" is over...
My 1 month (ish) sabbatical is over. My dissertaion is submitted. Now I just have to see if it was any good...will probably post more on my thinking/conclusions another time.
It was nice having some clear time to put into it.
Meanwhile back to work!

On Saturday we had a "forum" day related to "Bite the Bullet", to make space to listen to young people and try and get a "top 5" issues they face, especially with violent crime as the background noise. We ended up with a top 6 issues : Consumerism & money, peer pressure, identity, fear, respect & power, the double standards of the wider (adult) world. The standard "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" along with gang stuff seemed to the group to be symptoms of these underlying issues. Was an interesting day!

Some updates are not improvements
Why do companies have to fiddle with perfectly good products?
I'm sure we can all think of examples where the "new" or "improved" version was worse than the previous (from Windows to food products).

Over the last year or so Tizer has re-entered my life as one of my favourite tipples. Made from fruit juice with no artificial stuff, it is high in sugar but tastes great.

That is until today, when the cans I bought had the label "now with added bite".Hmmm. Not good.
A new formula with artificial sweetener, and not such a great "original taste". Nope it's a let down. I'm sure it's market driven, but frankly I'd have been happier if they had left it well alone!

Back in Derbyshire
Taking a break from dissertation writing for a day or so, hopefully will clear my head before the final push...but I can feel the dealine looming
I'm at Baptist Union Council again at the Hayes Centre.
Will probably take the chance to nip up to Cliff College for visit to the Library to check out some stuff while I'm up this way.

Mind the Gap
I've very much appreciated Jason Gardner's Mend the Gap.
It's a book that has resonated very much with my heart for the church, in fact it's one those books where you think "I wish I had written that"!

There's so much in it about how youth work may not be the only answer for the church's reconnection with younger people, about how we can be church together, and about how we ended up here.

A couple of quotes:
"The answer the church has found [to the generation gap] is not to equip the older generation to relate better to the younger but to appoint someone else to do it on their behalf" (p149)

"If we see the role of youth workers in our churches as subordinate to the role of Senior Pastor, then it seems that we're guilty of viewing children and youth as 'becomings' and not 'beings' in their own right" (p155)

"what teenagers look for in a church is a tangible fervour for God" (p163)

This will definitely make it onto my list of books recommended for churches to read when thinking about youth stuff, especially as it's from a UK perspective. Which makes me think what else would be on that list? But that's for another post I think!