Think Positive: Leaders Guide Dear Friends, Thank you for downloading or grabbing copies of Think Positive to explore with your youth group. We have had some incredible feedback on the resource and have created a short guide to help you get the most out of it. Think Positive is an encouragement to remember that relationships are designed to be fun, nourishing and, well, positive! Think Positive can be used individually by young people over a period of several weeks as part of a quiet time of reflection or as Bible study. It can also be used by a group, with the youth worker determining the speed of delivery (we would suggest at least 8-10 weeks of 45 min to 1 hour sessions), or it could also be helpful just as something to dip in and out of alongside other material your group may be using. A word of caution – we would strongly recommend against reaching for it purely at a time of crisis. This resource is better read as a form of relational encouragement or even early intervention if you have concerns for your group, but it is certainly not designed to be a mediation tool! There are so many angles we could have taken with a subject such as relationships, and we only scratch the surface; but that is where you as youth workers come in. Please do feel free to create your own resources off the back of this booklet. Pause when your young people need to dwell on a subject that is important to them, skip chapters that are perhaps not applicable to your group at this time; just keep pushing the agenda of fun and trust. Also, let ALOVE know what has worked for your group, so we can share good practice across the territory.

A little background from the author: ‘I have spent the last seven years working with all manner of young people as part of my job with a mentoring charity in London (and alongside the youth group at my corps). I have been fortunate enough to be involved in all sorts of formal and informal programmes; I’ve been a detached youth worker, a 1:1 mentor, a sports coach, teacher and have worked with young people crossculturally. I’ve met incredible young people who are now youth workers in their own right, continuing to amaze me with their achievements and commitment to pursuing God in their lives, and I’ve worked with extremely broken young people – shattered by circumstance. I am reminded of one particular group where a girl scrawled “I hate you” on the exercise sheet, drew an arrow pointing to me, and then essentially slept for the remainder of the session. This girl had been excluded from school several times by age 14. She talked often of her relationships with grown men, and came from a notoriously violent family within the borough. I would like to say that our intervention transformed her experience. It didn’t. After a few weeks, she had stopped coming to the Pupil Referral Unit where we were working, and the school threatened her mum with fines and court appearances – a mum who had her own broken relationship to educational establishments, and debt problems too. No real solution to be sought there. I can only hope that my organisation was one of many loving experiences this particular girl will experience in her life. All that is to say: whilst I have by no means cracked the best way of supporting young people, I have seen both beautiful and destructive things come about as a result of us being relational beings. For all the incredible things that come from relationships, it was perhaps the let-downs and break-ups that drew me to writing this resource – stories such as the one above. I have seen far too many young people emotionally burned and bruised, or carrying heavy guilt from where the relational picture painted at church on a Sunday became almost impossible to uphold come Monday. I relate to those young people. It doesn’t seem too long ago that I myself was trying desperately to work out how to make new friends at college, having left a good group of friends at school; or how to attract and keep a girlfriend for more than a couple of weeks; or how to resist the urge to cross sexual boundaries. I desperately wanted to keep that part of my life clean for God – and I think that having that mind-set even made it more difficult at times (but worthwhile). I spent a lot of my time with non-Christian friends who didn’t get this at all! And whilst my generation of contemporaries were hardly angels, it seems that the dawn of mobile internet and data-sharing devices has made the world our young people inhabit even more difficult to live in. Porn is only a click away, provocative sexual imagery finds its way on to supposedly safe sites like Facebook, and big questions of sexuality are discussed openly in all media – except perhaps at local church. It seems that family and the church are often the last places young people feel comfortable to bring these sorts of thoughts and concerns to, when they should be the first.

So whilst it seems odd to construct a positive relationships piece whilst conscious of the negative perspective, “Think Positive” is there to help you set up a framework of non-judgmental, transparent and honest conversation that might well be just the relief and safe space your young people are craving. For me, writing this piece quickly moved my perspective from a place of empathy and fear for our young people, to reminder after reminder of how our Father and Creator God offers love and his incredible father/child relationship to us all. Relationships always impact our self-worth, our sense of belonging and purpose, and future opportunities to thrive. The depth and quality of relationships we are invested in, and the ability to love and feel love, are the truest asset any individual can possess. I fervently hope that you use this little booklet to ensure young people see God’s picture of relationships and not the gossip, politics and exclusion they may encounter elsewhere. And remember that as a youth worker, YOU play such a vital role, living this out for them in the flesh! One last word of caution: The resource may open doors to uncomfortable conversations, and perhaps this is why churches often shy away from the tougher subject matters. Do take the time to remind yourself of the Safe & Sound principles, and perhaps share and trial-run the material with your own support network before starting with young people.’

Chapter Guide: Chapter 1: Relationships 101 This chapter is designed to help you get a read on where your group is at in regards to relationships. It will highlight their emotional feelings and their ability to articulate those feelings in a group setting. This should help you determine the pace of future sessions and the depth of discussion you might expect. You might also spot which group members are engaging most, and those who will need extra support to really get involved and participate. There shouldn’t be anything too heavy in this section. It is intentionally quite big picture – although be prepared for surprises with exercises such as Are relationships meant to last for ever? And Circle Time. It is vital that you use the initial Genesis excerpt to set the tone for the series – that love is a gift of God, and whilst mankind seems to be in constant rebellion to that offer of love, and call to love, it is important that we as individuals and as a group learn to love each other in healthy Godinspired ways.

Pay particular interest to p8, and help the young people explore what has influenced their strongly held beliefs regarding relationships. Why not revisit this exercise at the end of your series to see areas of growth and development!

Attracting Attention: This chapter is an opportunity to discuss positive self-worth, and how we view others. This is a great chapter to mix up the order of activities depending on the needs of your group. EITHER: stick with the booklet chronology – starting with the story of Jacob and the love of his life, moving through Here’s what attracts me (a great exercise for cutting through bravado and emphasising more than pure physical attraction – ask your young people to rate how prevalent they think that behaviour is within the Salvation Army / Church), and progress to the end of the chapter; OR: Flip it all around, and start with the young people expressing how they see themselves. Don’t miss the chance to remind each individual that they have beautiful qualities that are seen by God and others.

Getting Intimate: This short chapter is designed to get young people thinking about the similarities and differences between human intimacy, and the sort of intimacy God is capable of, and wants to offer us. We start with a silly quiz – think about how you might split the group up and make this interesting (think buzzers, prizes etc). Next (p19) we get inside the head of a teenager, with a first-person perspective story taken from a real young guy living and going to school in London. This story is positioned on the page alongside questions about The Salvation Army’s and local corps’ perspectives on intimacy. The purpose of this is to tease out any clashes of perspective the young people may be harbouring. Take the time to talk to your group about specific questions they have regarding issues like kissing (within relationships, and more casually as in the case of the story), pursuing relationships etc. Also, leave space for bigger-picture discussions about how the pursuit of a holy life makes us feel, how we are perceived by others, and how we feel about the world our non-Christian friends inhabit – are there areas where we might sometimes envy them? Intimate God – this exercise works much better if you take the time to choose a good resource to read or watch together. There are examples given, but feel free to find you own.

Don’t Get Burned: Youth workers: Do you offer guidance like the bullets on this page (p22)? Be prepared for some honesty from the young people about how helpful this guidance is to them. For many, having a very black-and-white, ‘yes and no’, ‘this is OK / this is crossing the line’ benchmark is useful; other young people, however, may wonder if there is a little more grey to the discussion. Some young people will have crossed the boundaries described, and so this exercise should emphasise God’s forgiveness and support for those who feel they have let him down, or for those who have been let down by others. This chapter is one that can potentially bring up a lot of hurt and guilt. You do not have to use each exercise – instead tailor it to your group. Pages 24 and 26 are perhaps the most important foundational exercises for group application – if you have teenagers who are in relationships, or even couples within your group, you may want to emphasise the Warning Signs quiz (if both partners are present, be prepared for potential conflict should one score higher than the other!).

Dangerous Ground and Porn: The Silent Addiction: Continuing our exploration of the risky side to relationships, we enter the world of technology. We focus on the way perfectly good and fun activities such as internet browsing and socialising can be corrupted and used as an avenue for bullying, grooming and porn addiction. Perhaps the best way to move into this section is to set some boundaries about what you and the young people feel comfortable discussing. This can be noted on A3 paper and then mounted for referral later. It is possible that you have a youth group made up of incredibly forthright young people, who have stood strong against peer pressure and hormone-induced urges to check out pornography. It is also fairly likely that you will have group members that are adept at hiding their interest and comfort with what adults may describe as the darker side of the internet. The stats on page 33 and 34 are fairly compelling in demonstrating the degree to which porn has become commonplace in the lives of our young people. Such young people are often one step ahead of their parents in disguising their browsing history and knowing all the tricks of the trade. Please do not write off young people who are this way inclined. Youth leaders and pastors are increasingly coming forward to say that they have struggled in similar ways themselves. If young people are using pornography, that does not mean that they are not interested in God’s best for their lives – pornography is rapidly being accepted as an addiction that affects the brain in similar ways to other stimulants. The resources suggested in these two chapters advocate a long-term strategy for helping young people conquer an addiction, and the youth group setting should be a place to support this in a non-stigmatising way.

That said, there will be conversations that are better had outside of the group dynamic. So again, please make sure your young people are aware of reasons where you might have to share their disclosures (for example: where something disclosed is against the law, or describes a scenario where someone may be at risk of harm). Most of the exercises in the chapters are informative in nature. This is a great opportunity to listen to the ideas and misconceptions young people are picking up about love and relationships from their friends and the internet, and offer biblical perspectives – perhaps even a good time to invite respected Christian couples in your corps to come and talk about what it means to be in a real, long-term committed and monogamous relationship (ask your young people who they would like to hear from, and set strong conversational boundaries at the outset). This type of conversation can be critiqued against the case study of David and Bathsheba (p36).

Let’s Take A Breather: The exercises contained in this chapter are designed to be reflective. You can use this as a plenary to recap and consolidate all that your group have learned and shared together over the series. The chapter starts with ten great Love verses. Why not ask young people to choose a favourite, and explain why it speaks to them. You could commit to learning and meditating in prayer on a verse each week coming out of the series as a continual commitment to pursuing God’s type of relationship. The book ends with the Big Questions exercise (p44, 45) which is perhaps the element that drew you as a youth worker or a young person to the resource in the first place. It is certainly the exercise that best summarises the ethos of the whole resource – that there are no quick answers to life’s tough questions, and God is perhaps more interested in our attitude to chasing his will. Allow your group opportunity to write their questions out (either anonymously or collectively) and discuss them from different perspectives. Spend some quality time on the suggestions on page 45. Do not feel that you have to have all the answers; again, why not invite a corps leader, DYO or other respected leaders along to this session to get a good spread of ideas. Reinforce the fact that lots of theological questions are best wrestled with through more of an ongoing dialogue than stating a specific answer – and that God is interested in being part of that conversation.

Conclusion: Thank you for using Think Positive. We pray God’s blessing on you and your group as you wrestle through concepts of what it means to love God and love your neighbours. Please don’t forget that we are here to support you, and have a great many additional resources to help you and your young people grow in faith.