Clergy has a place in delivery of youth work

There was a packed congregation as he delivered a sermon concerned with the church being at the centre of the community, serving believers and non-believers alike. He spoke of being called to serve and how he believed that his calling required him to involve and make provision for all members of his parish.

That provision included youth work, both a church youth club and more open youth work. I know all of this because I was his youth worker. And he was the chairman of the trustees of the youth and community centre, to whom I was accountable. There were many times when we had our private disagreements, usually as he stood between the more punitive and judgemental stances of some trustees and my own attempt to sustain a commitment to even the most wayward and recalcitrant young people. Sometimes even his own understanding and tolerance of open youth work was pushed to the limit because he was the one writing endless funding applications for modest sums of money and I was the one using it to repair frequent accidental and occasionally malicious damage.