Rock Solid has been running for 6 months. One of the problems we face is the fluctuation in the group size, from it being very consistent to now seeing big differences between weeks. I think partly this is because of the stop and start nature of breaking when schools break, and this term Monday’s being interrupted by bank holidays. Also we notice more and more that the young people have such increasingly busy lives, and more so in the summer term. All we can do is continue and encourage those who come regularly.
We need to work out how pastoral we can be outside of the confines of the group environment on Monday’s. I think part of this falls on the young people themselves, seeing them checking on peers and encouraging them. We’ve seen this to be more effective than the adults of the group; perhaps adults asking young people just seem too intimidating. We’ve had some big pastoral issues recently and the young people seem to be a rock for one another and this is so encouraging. I think often adults think we know best, where as this group allow young people to sometimes know best. This said we still have lots of cliques, we are trying to get over this boundary, but is this just a natural part of life or should we be trying to force more cohesion.
Two key things we still want to work through in the group is prayer and social awareness. Prayer has taken a bigger role this year, we pray at each group, sometimes with an adult leading prayer, and at other times written post it prayers. We are looking at having a prayer wall so everyone can write thanks, or requests so that others can see and pray for them, encouraging them to take responsibility for praying for one another but also helping those who want prayer but not sure how to go about it yet. We are aware that we still have divides between those who are ‘used’ to Christian ways of living and those who are still exploring.
Two areas to highlight for need to improve are;
-Engaging better with each other individually.
-Mentoring key people to take on more responsibility for the group.
Social awareness is also important, something we need to cover more this term, we would like to see the group giving something back to the local area, but also within the group, I want them to start to take responsibility for caring for one another more.
I recently read an article about learning styles through preaching in the YouthWork magazine, looking at three learning styles I wanted to think about how we at Rock Solid work these in so that we meet everyone’s learning styles.
The three styles are;
-Visual learners.
-Auditory learners
-Kinaesthetic learners.
Looking at these I think we often fall into the danger of audio learning. Though we spend little time talking at them, a lot of it is discussion based. As far as visual learning we often use illustrations through gospel magic or film clips. Kinaesthetic learning is probably the one which we struggle the most, we play games with a meaning but it is an area we need to look at more and grapple with.
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