The Art of Connecting
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‘How can we share our faith with those around us? As with most great revelations, the answer is simple. It starts with us telling our own stories, sharing our hopes, dreams and desires: simple stories of everyday, ordinary lives, shared between friends.
Here we discover an inter-connecting link of three stories that reveals:
As we explore this, we realise there is no manipulation, no ramming it down each other’s throat, we don’t demand a set of responses – it is comfortable, cringe-free, and something that makes our lives bear witness to the connection God offers.
Every person who has done this course has felt released and excited – because it works. They were challenged and changed. They began to understand that life is a series of connections, and in every connection God can do something through you.’
The Art of Connecting is a 7 week course. The leader’s guide provides all the session material you need to run three different streams: 11-14s, 15-18s and a student peer-to-peer stream.
The guide comes with two DVDS: ‘Art of Connecting’ DVD contains 13 filmed illustrations for the course and the ‘Talking Heads’ DVD presents the core teaching components for each session.
There are also 8 commitment cards for ‘commissioning’ your young people at the end of the course.
Available from YFC.
11-18 year old Christian young people who want to learn how to share their faith more naturally.
Very good. The different elements of each of the sessions are clearly explained and easy to follow.
Each session has a page explaining its purpose and how it fits into the course.
They are easy to follow although the timings are a bit off the mark in the 11-14s stream (there are no suggested times for the other streams). They recommend that the 11-14s and 15-18s stream are sessions lasting 90 minutes each. The student stream is designed to be run in a school at lunchtime and last 35 minutes.
Anyone who wants to help young people grow in sharing their faith, including young people themselves with the student stream.
Although the book refers to ‘The Art of Connecting' journals, I did not have a copy of this and they don't seem to be readily available any longer. There are a few photocopiable handouts in the book which are of suitable quality, although it would have been helpful if these had been included on one of the DVDS to make printing copies easier.
The DVDs work well and are well presented. However, to run some sessions you may find yourself having to swap DVDs over as there will be material on both discs that you want to show. This is frustrating as you cannot have all the clips ready to play quickly.
The leader will need to understand the different elements and maybe find a film clip or two, if desired. You will also have to check that the multimedia is set up and working.
The book does suggest two different websites for support but neither seems to be working any longer.
The course is designed to run as a group and includes discussion, activities and mutual support.
The pace of the sessions is fast and flows well, enabling different learning and delivery styles to be adapted.
This should work in most church youth settings and school CUs.
This is expected throughout.
The course is designed to run as a group and includes discussion, activities and mutual support.
The pace of the sessions is fast and flows well, enabling different learning and delivery styles to be adapted.
This should work in most church youth settings and school CUs.
This is expected throughout.
Session 3 focuses specifically on staying connected to God and explores how we can only share our faith if we have a living faith ourselves.
It offers ideas throughout for growing in faith.
The material helps participants to see how God can and will work through them and love their friends.
It is very good at pointing out the difficulties young people discover as they try to share their faith and how to overcome them.
This is the sole purpose of the course and is well delivered.
Participants are encouraged to build support networks and accountability so that they can reach their friends together.
This is not explored.
This is not explicitly explored in this course.
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