Purposes of appointment (three-fold)

The Youth Worker’s main purpose is to invest in our youth through facilitating discipleship, youth activities and outreach. The Youth Worker is to invest: -

Around 13.25 hours for a mid-week/Friday evening & Sunday morning (1 & 2): To plan and facilitate fun, stimulating and safe sessions for young people from the ages of 10–18-years. These sessions are to be fun and meaningful, with an atmosphere created whereby it would be easy for the youth to invite their friends to ‘come and see’. The aim is to transform lives in Jesus’ name, to equip the youth for effective service, and to encourage them to grow spiritually and reach out to others, while serving as a spiritual leader and role model to the youth.  

Around 6.5 hours for relationships both within St James’ and beyond, into the local community of Brownhills (3): As a Youth Leader, you will join our church ministry leadership team; work with others to build a youth work team, and work to be a presence for Jesus in Brownhills local community working amongst disaffected young people. This is an exciting opportunity to work with young people from a variety of backgrounds within the church family and within the local schools, and to help them get to know the Lord and/or to further build their relationship with Him. 

Accountability

1.     To be directly accountable to the Vicar and members of the PCC for all aspects of their work.

2.     To attend a weekly supervision session with the Vicar on Mondays at 11 am, followed by the weekly staff team meeting that happens at 12 noon, and participate fully in the conversations and prayer times that will conclude both.

3.     To provide bi-monthly written and verbal reports to the PCC about work undertaken.

4.     To receive and explore more in-depth feedback for development during a focussed annual session with the Vicar and members of the PCC.

5.     To email holiday requests to the Vicar at least 6 weeks in advance. The Youth Worker is to receive 6 complete weeks of annual leave per calendar year, that are to be inclusive of 6 Sundays. In addition, they will have summer term Bank Holidays but will be working on Christmas Day morning, on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday.

6.     Connect with other youth workers and organisations within the Love Walsall, Love Black Country networks, and more widely around the West Midlands, to support with achieving his or her 3 main purposes.

Job Description

A mid-week/Friday Evening

·      To be responsible, in collaboration with the Vicar and his or her fellow youth and children’s leaders, for youth from the ages of 10-18 years.

Sunday Mornings

·      To lead the youth (10–18-year-olds) on Sunday mornings, and to work with the Vicar and their fellow children’s and youth leaders to ensure the smooth transition of children, from children’s ministry to youth ministry.

·      On the first Sunday morning of the month, when the youth, children and adults don’t separate, the Youth Worker would be expected to give an all-age-talk around 4-5 times a year.

Other tasks: -

1.     To lead the Youth Team, including encouraging and equipping them to lead young people.

2.     To pray for the youth volunteers and team, the youth work programme and the young people.

3.     Communicating well with parents and young people, including being able to accept both positive and negative feedback whilst maintaining a professional manner at all times.

4.     To spend time in the community talking to the young people and inviting them to join in youth activities.

5.     Preparation of teaching material, resources for sessions and the delivery of the lesson (for Sunday morning and for a discipleship time-slot during the mid-week/Friday evening session).

6.     To radically challenge the youth to be distinctive because they follow Jesus. We are praying that our Youth Worker will be confident in God and will be able to enable and empower our youth to also have their confidence in God, so as to be courageous for Him.

7.     To devise programmes that will enable the youth to invite their friends to participate.

8.     To organise quarterly a social event for the youth.

9.     To cast a vision for, and energise the youth to know and believe that they are the hope for Brownhills local community and our nation.

10. To encourage the youth to take up serving opportunities in the church and the community as a means of service to the Lord and as part of their training for future careers.

11. To make provision for the pastoral care of designated young people.

12. To be diligent and vigilant about your safeguarding responsibility to the young people in your care during the designated times that you are with them, alongside fellow volunteer youth leaders.

13. Your attitude and actions are to be conducive to a supportive, caring and safe environment for the youth.