Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Vicars and children

We had a good session at Romsey Mill today. Partly because there weren't very many in the group, mostly because I spent much of it playing with K-Nex. Here's the Ferris Wheel that I made in a feeble attempt to 'engage with the young people'.
And engage we did. One by one everybody joined me for a few minutes to add a bit, or to have a chat. Why didn't we get this out weeks ago? One boy finally realised, after 7 months, that I'm a trainee vicar. It didn't change his foul language at all, but it completely threw him off balance because, in his words, "vicars don't work with children."
Which in turn threw us, the leaders, off balance. Why on earth would vicars not work with children?
The reality, from my side, is precisely why I'm working at Romsey Mill - we need to work with all ages. When I first started thinking about training somebody told me that she could never see me being a vicar because "you're no good with old ladies". It was amazing how many old ladies crossed my path and befriended me over the next few weeks to enable me to firmly rebuke that statement.
In other news, we're out of the croquet tournament. Trounced by the vice-principal and the college's main sportsman, 8-2. Next year maybe.
Meanwhile here's a short film of Gavin and Ruth demonstrating the Ferris Wheel and trying to be relevant to da yoof.

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