Youth Ministry Misfits

Isabella Choate has worked and volunteered across several sectors, as a youth consultant, independent advisor, Boorloo Justice, as a co-Chair in many different settings. They share about their wisdom on the intersectionality between mental health, gender and sexual diversity, and disability. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!

Sara leads the youth ministry over at Quinns, and has studied a Bachelor of Youth Work with another institution. She loves being on the 'brink' of chaos, and this is a good model for our practice with young people. She boils down youth ministry to a simple art - but it's not easy because it requires getting uncomfortable. 

In this episode I met with Nathan Forster, who is a counsellor at Alta-1 College. He shared about his story of faith, and how he now reflects on his days in youth ministry with fondness, but also with some cringe because of the things that could have gone wrong. Listen to find out what he would have done differently!

For more information on Alta-1, visit https://www.alta-1.com.au.

For more information on training in mental health, and Tabor Advance, complete a contact form here: https://tabor.edu.au/contact-us/

I revisited my Masters thesis, sharing about why young people leave the church, and discuss some of the conclusions to how we can make youth ministries a safer place. In short? Equal power relationships, and Spiritual Accompany.

Thanks to Jon Bergman of Avenir Leadership (https://avenirleadership.org) for a great conversation about humility and thoughtful dialogue.

I chatted with Dr John Tan of Youth Work Association of Singapore (YWAS) who shared a bit about his own story of faith, as well as how his experience of the church led him to facilitate youth ministry in a new and creative way. We discussed how people in youth ministry and youth work can stand in the gap between the "adult" world and the world of young people. You can listen to his podcast here: https://shor.by/drjohntan

Inspired by the song of the same name, I discussed who are the poor and the powerless, and what youth ministries can work on to help them to 'sing out Hallelujah!"

I've been preparing for a subject I'm teaching next semester about violence, and I felt compelled to share some of the things I've learnt as I prepare! There are some big implications for youth ministry. 

Schoolies week has just come to an end in Australia, and with it comes many media misrepresentations of young people as violent, dangerous, but also as vulnerable. How do our assumptions and labels of young people affect the way we do youth ministry? 

I chatted with my sister - who felt like a misfit in the church after some life experiences that caused people to respond to her differently. 

We chat about what this means for the church as a whole, but also for youth ministry.