Between 1992 and 2002 I was responsible for producing the output of CYFA teaching resources. Over that period I helped to publish about twenty titles in the Bible Based Resources for Youth Groups (BBRYG) series. Some of these (64 page A4) booklets took the Bible and asked 'What can we learn from this?' Others took issues and asked, 'What does the Bible say about this?' All bar one had ten sessions in them and included photocopiable work sheets.
To go alongside this I wrote or commissioned four volumes called Know Ideas (no, I can't take credit for volume 1, Phil Moon and John Simmons did that) which were packed full of ideas for games, ice-breakers etc. Also two volumes of Drama, Verses, Sketches which did what it said on the cover.
I did this from the offices of CPAS (Church Pastoral Aid Society) who have now decided not to sell such resources and have got rid of all their stock. Godstuff is a small charity which supports the work of my friend and former CPAS colleague Bob Clucas. It has bought all the back copies of all of these resources. We plan to make them available for almost nothing. That's right search engines. Find this post if anyone enters free or youth or resources.
The plan is this. The resources are, as you might imagine, dated. We will scan and publish online the first two sessions from each book and sell the books in bundles of five for £10 (a saving of £27.50). If anyone simply asks for a deal we will talk. If anyone is broke we will not worry about the money too much.
Beginning with Didn't He Used to be Dead? a BBRYG book on Jesus in Luke's Gospel which we have few copies of, we will be reworking the material so it is up-to-date and will then invite youth leaders who use it to add their ideas.
If you are an author of this material (I worked with some co-authors) and you are unhappy about this please get in touch. I will be trying to contact all of you over the next few days.
Apart from Urban Saints excellent Energize material I am not aware of what else is around in the youth market these days or of any organisation that has specifically taken on resourcing CYFA and Pathfinder groups from CPAS. Are you?
Showing posts with label CYFA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CYFA. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Mark Ashton RIP
Sad to see that Mark, who I gather had been suffering from cancer, has died. He was only 62.
Mark Ashton was CYFA Secretary from 1981-1987 (two before me, although the title had changed and so had the job by the time I took it on).
He had worked as a minister in Cambridge since then.
His seminal work, and greatest contribution to youth ministry in this country, was the book Christian Youth Work. In a period when many were beginning to look down on the fellowship model of youth ministry he outlined how it was meant to work, not as a Christian clique but as an outward-looking group of young people who were disicpled that, as part of being an ordinary Christian, one looked out towards those of no faith and invited them in.
In those heady days CYFA National Conferences (usually at Kinmel Hall in North Wales) attracted so many leaders they had to be run on two successive weekends.
Asked, in my early days, to write a vision statement for fellowship model youth work, I could do no better than repeat this, which Mark had sent round in a mailing some years earlier:
CYFA aims to help churches present young people mature in Christ as appropriate for them, using Colossians 1:28 as a key verse in understanding this.
It encourages groups to take these five principles equally seriously to ensure their work is biblical and balanced:
Prayer as the mainstay of the work
Bible as the backbone of the teaching programme
Gospel as the attraction to the group
Relationships as an essential (importance of the individual not the group)
Church as the context for growth
He also, and many of you may wish him ill will for this, at a Venture Leaders training day in about 1985 or 6, taught me the alarm clock joke that has accompanied me on my teaching journey over many years since.
It might be a fitting tribute to him to reinsert some value into the name CYFA as CPAS seem to have lost interest in it. Anyone else up for that?
RIP Mark.
Mark Ashton was CYFA Secretary from 1981-1987 (two before me, although the title had changed and so had the job by the time I took it on).
He had worked as a minister in Cambridge since then.
His seminal work, and greatest contribution to youth ministry in this country, was the book Christian Youth Work. In a period when many were beginning to look down on the fellowship model of youth ministry he outlined how it was meant to work, not as a Christian clique but as an outward-looking group of young people who were disicpled that, as part of being an ordinary Christian, one looked out towards those of no faith and invited them in.
In those heady days CYFA National Conferences (usually at Kinmel Hall in North Wales) attracted so many leaders they had to be run on two successive weekends.
Asked, in my early days, to write a vision statement for fellowship model youth work, I could do no better than repeat this, which Mark had sent round in a mailing some years earlier:
CYFA aims to help churches present young people mature in Christ as appropriate for them, using Colossians 1:28 as a key verse in understanding this.
It encourages groups to take these five principles equally seriously to ensure their work is biblical and balanced:
Prayer as the mainstay of the work
Bible as the backbone of the teaching programme
Gospel as the attraction to the group
Relationships as an essential (importance of the individual not the group)
Church as the context for growth
He also, and many of you may wish him ill will for this, at a Venture Leaders training day in about 1985 or 6, taught me the alarm clock joke that has accompanied me on my teaching journey over many years since.
It might be a fitting tribute to him to reinsert some value into the name CYFA as CPAS seem to have lost interest in it. Anyone else up for that?
RIP Mark.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)