Dave Pegg leads the 11 -14s youth work at Belmont Chapel in Exeter. He ran The No Slumber Challenge earlier this year with a group of about fifteen 11 – 18 year olds. You can view his group’s video diary on Facebook here.
Network: How would you describe the atmosphere of the group throughout The No Slumber Challenge experience?
Dave: It was a lot of fun. When the guys get together for something like this they are excited about it. But there were a lot of frustrations along the way – it’s quite gruelling, isn’t it? It was quite a powerful mixture of fun and anger against injustice. And having those two together at the same time makes it really interesting and really powerful. Because they are identifying with the needs of real people rather than just raising money for them and then forgetting about it.
Network: What do you think was the impact on the young people who took part?
Dave: At the event itself no one could escape being impacted by it. We did a video diary and you could see some of them being rocked by it a little. And then – typically with young people – five minutes and it might be all forgotten and we’ve been catching up with people after it. People do remember it, but they do need reminding at the same time. I guess it’s part of discipleship isn’t it? There’s a moment where we learn a powerful lesson and then the following day, even, we don’t do anything about it and we’re still getting to the point where we’re going to have to act. But it was a really helpful moment that day to bed in some of those messages a bit deeper and for them to experience emotionally some of the injustices as well. But it is a life-long thing isn’t it? Continuing to learn, and continuing to act as well.
The No Slumber Challenge has been a catalyst. In youth work you need those big moments to punctuate your programme where everything else stops and you do something that’s really amazing, really powerful and really gets to you. And that helps to makes sense of the routine teaching that we do. It anchors it and gives you lots to work on and think about in the routine stuff.
Network: Did you find the pack useful?
Dave: The pack and the materials – I couldn’t fault it. I’ve done youth work for a long time and I just found them really decent and useable. All the hard work had been done – it was written really well by people who obviously knew what they were doing, and I think obviously by people who are youth workers as well. Or if not, they’ve got me fooled anyway! [Network: no fooling necessary Dave :o)] Just the timings, the practicalities – often when you get these things it looks nice on paper and then when it comes to it you know its not going to work out, but the stuff was really useable and that helped a lot.
To find out more information about The No Slumber Challenge and to order your free pack click here.