In Depth:  Steve Couch

Have you ever tried to match people you know to characters from books or TV programmes? (Just me? Maybe I should get out more.)

The staff team of my church contains good matches for Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring, Air Raid Warden Hodges and Private Pike (who is probably reading this - Hi, Tim). Rather worryingly, the prevailing view casts me as Walker, the cockney spiv. We have a Corporal Jones in the congregation as well. One of our older and longer standing members, a godly man, consistently finishes prayers and liturgy just after everyone else. With longer prayers, he has been known to lag a whole line behind on occasions.

Let me take you back to the far off, glorious days of the Euro 96 Football Championships.

Throughout the tournament teams had played safe in extra time, and every period of extra time had been goal-less, with sides preferring caution rather than risk instant defeat. But then came the England vs. Germany semi-final. Both sides threw caution to the wind in search of the 'Golden Goal' and gave their all in a pulsating end to end half hour that had goalposts hit and open goals missed. We all know how it ended.

As Martha and the Vandella's once (almost) sang, 'Calling out around the world / are you ready for a brand new beat? / Summer's here and the time is right / for a column full of fantastic game ideas for summer which sadly don't fit the rhyme or scansion of this song'.

I'm not suggesting any teaching points to come out of any of these games (although I'm sure that creative leaders could find ways of referring to them helpfully). Simply play them with your group to have a good time and build relationships.

Last month I introduced the concept of spiritual permafrost. Sometimes we can let our relationship with God get so frozen over that thawing it out takes radical action.

It's easy to feel guilty about stepping back from youth work, but running yourself into the ground doesn't help either you or your young people, and it neither honours God nor provides a healthy role model of the Christian life. But wouldn't it be far better to catch the problem early? Here are some suggestions to keep your own relationship with God on track.

I once had a job which came with a house which came with a garden, a big garden.

I hate gardening with a passion, so I didn't bother with it. To give you an idea of the scale of neglect I perpetuated, the grass would grow to several feet in height and once a year - literally once a year - I would beg, steal, borrow or hire an industrial strimmer to attack my suburban Bristol jungle. One of the artier members of my youth group threatened to make a papier-mache giraffe head, to give the impression of the grass being even deeper. I wish she had got around to it, it would have looked fantastic.

Add a fresh dimension to your meetings with these optional extras. Simple ideas to pep up your meetings.

A pub near to where I live has a sign outside it bearing the legend 'Win big in 98'. At some point last year someone has obviously tried to rub out the 8 and alter the sign to 99, but gave up. The sign is now a staggering two years out of date (or an even more staggering millennium out of date, unless you're one of those pedants who won't celebrate until 2001. By that logic I guess you have to tell your kids that their life didn't properly start until their first birthday.)

In spite of this no attempt has been made to take it down and replace it with something accurate and up to date.

At last! After years of waiting, we finally have the technology to offer to you the first ever Evangelicals Now Interactive Youth Column. Simply start at number one, and then go to whichever paragraph your choices take you to. Have as many goes as you like, but no cheating!

1. Your minister asks if you would consider taking over the running of the youth group. Do you agree enthusiastically (go to 5), say that you need to pray about it (go to 10) or say that you are too busy and you don't think that youth work is where you are gifted (go to 8).

It was a terrible situation. I hadn't seen it coming and now it was too late. I could feel my pulse quicken and the adrenaline start flooding my system. I had been caught off guard and hadn't seen the situation developing, but here I was sat in front of the telly with my family and forced to make an earth-shattering confession. 'Is there anything else on? I don't really like Songs of Praise.'

Let me put in a disclaimer at this point. The following does not amount to a rant against Songs of Praise, fine piece of television as I am sure that it is. I have nothing against Thora Hird, or any of the band of young upstarts attempting to fill her shoes (I'd even go so far as to say - tentatively - that Diane Louise Jordan seems to be quite good, even if she has selfishly hogged an extra name thereby condemning an innocent street urchin to the heartbreak of a mononomular existence).

You are sick of it, and your group probably are as well. The Millennium: it's been hyped at us until our ears have started to ring. Yes it's more than just an excuse to engage in a party, it's even more than a Robbie Williams song. But how do we get that across to our young people? I don't think we can blame them for disenchantment and apathy on this subject, but that doesn't mean that we simply shrug our shoulders and give up. Here's an idea for a Millennium meditation that might just help to refocus their thinking on the God who made it

all possible.