CYP, Groups and Inclusion

In this podcast episode, Robin Barden discusses group work in children and youth ministry with Joe Griffiths and Becca Dean. They talk about the concept of facilitation and how it involves enabling the group to shine rather than organizing them. They define facilitation as being like a conductor in an orchestra, bringing different elements together to create something amazing. They discuss the importance of understanding group dynamics, setting the tone in the space, and being prepared. They also emphasise the need to get to know the group and allow for flexibility and responsiveness in the facilitation process. They highlight the value of co-creating with the group and giving young people leadership responsibilities. They stress the importance of reflective practice and prayer in facilitating group work. Overall, the conversation focuses on creating an inclusive and engaging environment for children and young people in ministry.

Transcript

Robin Barton:
Hi, and welcome to this going deeper discussion for session one, children, young people, and learning. My name is Robin Barton and I'm very pleased to be talking to Becca Dean and Jo Griffiths.

Jo Griffiths:
Hello.

Becca Dean:
Hello.

Robin Barton:
I wonder if you'd like to introduce yourselves.

Jo Griffiths:
I'm Jo and I am tutor for Children's and Families students at Ridley Hall.

Robin Barton:
And Becca?

Becca Dean:
And I'm the tutor for youth ministry, so all things youth at Ridley Hall.

Robin Barton:
Fantastic. So Becca, you in the video, you talk about this holistic learning. When did you first encounter that?

Becca Dean:
Ironically, I think you'll relate to this as well, Jo, but probably at my degree and that sense of... Part of the training you get when you are training for youth ministry is that you get this training in how people learn and then you start seeing yourself in that training.
It's one of those penny drop moments. It changes your mindset from thinking about yourself as whether you were good or bad at school to what you are good at and how you might participate and grow and how that isn't to do with how many percent you get in a test or even what mark you get in an essay. A sense of, you've got a contribution to make.
So I guess it's also a slight twist from thinking about learning as something you receive and something instead that you participate in, something that you work towards.

Robin Barton:
How did that new understanding of learning impact your youth ministry? Jo, how did that start to make a difference to how you understood yourself as a youth worker?

Jo Griffiths:
When you come into children's and youth ministry, and on this course, there is a focus on this thing that Becca talked about in the video, about reflective practice.

Robin Barton:
Yes.

Jo Griffiths:
And that was a game changer for me. It changed everything. It was hard because I became much more aware of myself. Self-awareness. I think when I began to do the reflective practice, that how I responded... Well, how I reacted. That's where I first learned about myself.
And especially in youth work, those early days were about how I reacted to things of my own upbringing, of my own biases, and the patterns of thought and the ways I had been thinking and suddenly these things were being challenged through reflective practice and because I was thinking much more intentionally about the other person, about a young person, or someone I was working with, or an incident.
I was being forced to think in different ways rather than just one way. And that was the big change for me. And it was hard in the beginning to get going with that, but then once I did, it just becomes then second nature, I suppose, that continual reflecting, thinking on your feet. Yeah, considering other ideas or thinking more about context and stuff like that. But yeah, it just really changed.

Robin Barton:
So I hear you both talk about the experience or something you were sharing in the video, Becca, which is called cycle, and I can hear you talking about going around it and talking about it as reflective practice, and talking about it as holistic learning and that's really exciting.
One of the things I was just wondering as you were both talking is, where was God in all of that for you? We don't want to go too deep in this, okay, obviously God's in everything, but where was God and your faith and the faith of the young people in this for you?

Jo Griffiths:
I think, for me, when it comes to bringing the Bible into my work, the most straightforward way in is, okay, where was God in this? I know we said all that, but I think a more specific question is, what is the good news in this circumstance, or in this situation, or how can I bring good news into this circumstance? And, for me, good news is the gospel, story of Jesus. I mean, always a good place to start, isn't it? And what would Jesus do? Yeah, that's my starting place, really.

Robin Barton:
How do you both work out what Jesus would do, if we just have that classic realization that we're no longer in first century Palestine? Culture's moved on, life's moved on. How on earth do you sit there as you are working and ministering with young people and conceptualize what it is that Jesus would do?

Jo Griffiths:
I was listening to a podcast last week where someone was talking about his very thing. They were talking about what would Jesus do? And he said, "The last time we looked, we weren't all first century Jewish rabbi types." So he said the question he would always ask is, "What would Jesus do if he were me in this situation?" Which I thought was just a really helpful way of thinking about it. So if Jesus was a fifty-something year old woman from northern Ireland doing in this situation. What would he do?

Becca Dean:
And I think the other thing is this brings it back to us being learners. We are disciples, so if we are not spending time with Jesus in prayer, in reading the Bible, we are losing that opportunity of growing in relationship and growing in that sense of familiarity and building that sense of, oh, actually Jesus did some quite surprising things. And there's certain patterns of things that he'd do, like answer a question with another question, or tell a story, or do something really strange and subversive like drawing in the sand or taking a tax collector out for dinner.
So it just doesn't work, does it, to copy and paste. It would be really strange if I took a tax collector out for dinner as part of my youth ministry. It would be strange in any way. I don't think I know any tax collectors.
But something about seeing who Jesus was, by learning that and trying to emulate that. So there's something about the incarnation there, isn't it? What does it mean to go into those places and speak the language of Jesus, but in 2024 rather than not BC?

Robin Barton:
So you both talk about wisdom, you both talk about knowing God and being Jesus and what would Jesus do? And it feels like at the heart of that and in spiritual disciplines to stay in our own discipleship journey. It feels like at the heart of this is us learning and knowing more about who God is so that we can communicate that in different ways. Is that...?

Becca Dean:
If we are living in a way that we are seeing the utter gift that it is to be a child of God, to live with God rather than without God, to grow in knowledge of God, that's easier to talk about with the children and young people that we work with than if we are thinking that we need to say something really clever that will be the thing that convinces them. I think it's that... Is this a genuine recommendation? Is this coming from a kind of overflow?

Robin Barton:
As you grew in your understanding of God, how did that impact your children and youth ministry?

Becca Dean:
In some ways it made it harder a quest, and I think it still does in the sense that you feel less sure in the black and whiteness of what you know.

Robin Barton:
Okay.

Becca Dean:
So it brings an element of complexity. The more perspectives that you explore, the less sure you are of your perspective being the definite one. And there's a wisdom to that unknowing that then takes a while to build up, so you're almost developing different ways of knowing and how to be so that, again, not necessarily feeling like you have to be the all-knowing, all-powerful leader, but that you are involved in this flexible growing, living thing that is learning and participating in the community of God, getting to know God. It's a more holistic, responsive thing.
But also I think it... Strangely, you balance it with that sense of I'm just a person making it up as I go along. So in some ways, it's the kind of learning and unlearning. Developing skills, but realizing how many more skills you need.

Robin Barton:
It was back to that theory, that we can never remember where it comes from, where it talks about being unconsciously incompetent and then consciously incompetent and then consciously competent, but the goal being unconsciously competent. And I always love the end bit because they always say, how do you know someone's unconsciously competent? Because you go up to someone and you go, "That was brilliant." And they're like, "Oh, I didn't really think I did anything," because they've forgotten what it is they've learned that makes them so good.
So I was going to say, so we can end with this, but what's our goal in the learning? What's our learning goal? Here we sit in a university, and we always have to have learning outcomes. We always have to have learning aids for everything we do. Even Catalyst has them, if you want to look. But this quite holistic learning within children and youth ministry, what is our aim? What are the outcomes we're looking for?

Jo Griffiths:
That children, young people, will love Jesus more, that is my basic thing. And, for me, is we teach them how to do that. Show them, model it. Show them how life-giving it is. But yeah, to love Jesus more.

Robin Barton:
Thank you. That was great. Thank you very much for your time.

Jo Griffiths:
Thank you.

Becca Dean:
Thanks. Thank you.