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 Alan Witchalls is a Youth Pastor living and serving in London, UK. He works for a church in South East London where he teaches teenagers from the Bible and equips and encourages them to live for Jesus in every area of life. In 2004, he spent three years studying for a degree in Youth and Children's Ministry at Oak Hill Theological College in North London.
This section of the site contains articles and essays that Alan has written for various publications, initiatives, projects or purely to address a topic or an issue.
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Open youth ministry is the opening of church youth groups to allow them to be places where young people can hang out in an implicitly Christian environment. The idea being that non-Christian young people will recognise something different about the group (the loving atmosphere, or the time devoted to the group by the leaders) and want to know more. In my 14 years experience in youth ministry so far, I have encountered several versions of open youth ministries, all of which appear to have repeating life-cycle, to some degree or another. In this article, I put forward my own observations on this cycle for comment and discussion. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 July 2009 11:04 )
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Essays
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Written by Alan Witchalls
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Harry Potter. A simple name worth billions of pounds in books sales, movie franchises, merchandising spin offs, and so on. You cannot fail to be astounded at the success of what is in effect a simple idea: a story following a young boy as he discovers he is a wizard ('and a bloomin' good one at that!') and his journey into the magical world hidden behind secret spells and enchantments that keep the ordinary world in blissful ignorance. Such a simple story has created quite a complex dilema for Christian parents: what values do the Harry Potter books and films portray to their young readers? It is this issue that the following essay, submitted as part of my youth and children's ministry degree, seeks to engage with. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 July 2009 13:36 )
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Essays
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Written by Alan Witchalls
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This article is the full dissertation submitted towards my BA (Hons) in Youth & Children’s Ministry at Oak Hill Theological College in May 2007. The full title for the dissertation is as follows: A defence of infant baptism in the context of the growing practice of the dedication of children of the church, with particular attention to “discipleship” in Matthew 28:18-22 and the New Testament. It is my hope to provide an abridged version of this dissertation, one that is a bit more readable for people 'on the ground' (so to speak). For now, the full technical version will have to do. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 July 2009 13:34 )
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