Uniforms

Uniformed youth organisations are on the up. It is well known that Scouts and Guides would grow bigger if only they could find more adult leaders. The Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade have development officers seeking to increase the number of Companies, and the Sea Cadets for whom I am the London Area Chaplain are seeking to expand the number of Units. In recent years the reformed and reinvigorated police cadets have grown to 5000 members in the Metropolitan Police Area from a standing start. Army and Royal Air Force Cadets and the CCF are also popular.

BB Evening making Christmas cards with a local artist 

Younger BB at the Advent Activities making decorations for church

Despite the idea that young people are all laid-back and messy, it seems that tens of thousands of them enjoy what look like thoroughly old-fashioned organisations. Why might this be and what can the church learn from it?

Sea Cadets at the Lord Mayor's Show

Great Activities
Firstly, it seems to me, that the organisations have put on really top notch programs of activities. The opportunities that are now available are extraordinary. Alongside traditional Outward Bound activities and camping, Sea Cadets for example, have the opportunity to go to sea in a sailing training ship, as well as a range of boating and sailing. In Boys and Girls Brigade Companies the quality of activities for young people from craft to games to experience to sport to discussion and reflection to music, is now very high.

Building a CV
Secondly, so much of this is clearly useful. For instance many sea cadets who struggle at school because of the partnership the organisation has with educational providers come out at the end of their teenage years with an NVQ. National Citizen Service works with uniformed youth organisations to prepare young people for the world of work. Those who seek to go to work or university will have much to say impersonal statements about leadership experience and responsibility.

Safety and Security
Thirdly there is a desire within young people for order, hierarchy, and frameworks. It has been noted that as so much of society, including many dysfunctional families have turned away from these things, they are provided sometimes in a bad way by gangs and in a good way by uniformed youth groups.

I have been in pretty much every uniformed youth organisation. As a small child I was in the Leeds company of the Church Lads Brigade. When we moved to Hertfordshire I was a Scout; then in my teens I was a CCF (Naval) Cadet. As a vicar hen my wife and I were no longer able to run the youth club ourselves as our own children got bigger, we were blessed with the arrival of a Boys Brigade Company (with associated Girls Association, so effectively a mixed unit). Visit them on Twitter here. Now I am a Sea Cadet padre.

The Church Lads' Brigade at S Bartholomew Armley w S Mary's New Wortley in July 1974

Partnerships for the Church
The church has wonderful opportunities for partnership here. Care is needed. The Baden Powell organisations re not inherently religious, and indeed in some ways have been moving firmly away from a Christian understanding of the world. That means a relationship agreement needs to be properly drawn up with the local church. Certainly there are too many examples of Scout Troops and Guide Companies which had an historic link to a church, and now simply use the church hall for an inappropriately subsidised rate; but when the relationship is done well it can be enormously fertile. Boys Brigade was my experience when I was a parish priest, and you cannot get your badges or move through the organisation unless you attend church as well as the Company evenings, and every badge, whether it be camping or cooking, has a component of spiritual Christian reflection. The Sea Cadets has an active chaplaincy, and we seek to have a padre in every unit.

A Scout in the late 70s

Uniforms and shiny shoes are not for every young person, but they certainly work for many thousands, and the church should be more involved. Given that we can find it difficult to reach young people in our churches and the fact that so many are keen to be involved; and given that so many of the various corps are keen to be involved in the church, it seems to me astounding that we do not do more to partner with uniformed youth groups.

Father and sons