Renew Normal Reflective Exercises for youth leaders review by Becky Lawrence
Renew Normal Reflective Exercises Booklet for youth leaders review by Becky Lawrence, Youth & Kids Worker, St Marks MK
National youth charity Youthscape led a great online conference a couple of weeks ago called Renew Normal for
youth leaders to help explore what we’ve learned and what’s next. All delegates recieved a free copy of this reflective exercise booklet resource as a download. (Anyone can buy it on their online shop!)
The Renew Normal booklet contains 10 reflective exercises for youth leaders after a year of COVID-19.
“As we venture back out into the world, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to press the reset button; to choose to do things differently. Far more profound than any New Year, this is a chance to try to create new habits of behaviour that will help us to live the kind of life that we aspire to.” – Excerpt from Renew Normal booklet
Youthscape say this about the booklet:
“One year on from the first UK lockdown in March 2020, life still looks and feels unrecognisable in so many ways from life before Covid-19. Many of us are desperate to say goodbye to the turbulence and the change, and usher in whatever ‘new normal’ is to come our way. Yet in the face of this desire, we remember that this change and turbulence, this stripping back of what we have known and practiced is an incredible opportunity for us to take a moment to carve out and create that new normal for ourselves. We don’t have to sit back passively and watch the ‘new normal’ unfold in our youth ministries, we can play an active part in building a ‘renewed normal’.
Renew Normal is our chance as a youth work community to pause, look back over the last year and think about what we have learned. We want to take time to journey together and reflect on what went well, what we want to leave behind, and what we want to bring forward in our youth ministry as we rebuild a renewed normal. We’ve highlighted four key elements we want to think through as a community:
- Renew yourself
- Renew connections
- Renew discipleship
- Renew vision
‘Renew Normal’ is a workbook filled with different creative tools, exercises and reflections that will help you to think through each of these key elements. Our hope is that this resource helps you to reflect and to see God’s work in and through you over the last year. That you feel encouraged and inspired to think even bigger, stripping back the limits of what you think possible, dreaming about what your youth ministry could look like going forward, carving out your own renewed normal.”
The Renew Normal conference and booklet has been a great tool for me to inspire me to pause, reflect and take stock of our youth and kids work. (via our friends at St Mark’s MK) It’s been amazing also at helping me renew my passion, vision and excitement for ministry. Some things we’ve done with our kids and youth have worked great during the pandemic but other things have been a real challenge, moving forward It was important to think about what we did pre pandemic, during and our hopes for what we want our youth and kids work to look like afterwards. It’s so important to seek God’s direction too and not just rush into youth and kids work again in our own steam. I totally recommend this resource as a starting point for anyone wanting to begin reflecting on their youth and kids work perhaps before or during (if you’ve already started!) making plans for what comes next.
Buy your own printed booklet here for £4.95 : https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/product/renew-normal