Middle School Ministry

Many people run scared from the middle school youth room. But (thankfully!) there are people out there who are actually drawn to those young teens. Although often times they’re not equipped to deal with the unique challenges that middle school ministry presents, or they’re just not sure what to do when a room full of young teens (who are “part child, but not quite adult”) are running around the youth room. Finally, there’s a comprehensive guide to middle school ministry, from two veterans of this unchartered territory. Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin help youth workers understand the importance of middle school ministry, the development process for young teens and their implications for ministry, and how to best minister to these sometimes misunderstood students. They share their experiences (as middle school pastors and parents of middle schoolers), giving youth workers he encouragement, hope, and training they need to succeed in middle school ministry.

The pressure of being a teenager can be overwhelming. School, sports, jobs, and relationships all press in at the same time. But the hardest thing can be feeling alone, that you have no one to share your most difficult problems with. In The Jesus I Wish I Knew in High School, thirty authors such as Scott Sauls, Sandra McCracken, Michelle ...

This updated and expanded version of an industry classic by one of America's best-known youth pastors unlocks the keys to a healthy, impactful middle school ministry.

What is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root, a leading scholar in youth ministry and practical theology, went on a one-year journey to answer these questions. In this book, Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century. Informed by interviews that Root conducted with parents, this book explores how parents' perspectives of what constitutes a good life are affecting youth ministry. In today's culture, youth ministry can't compete with sports, test prep, and the myriad other activities in which young people participate. Through a unique parable-style story, Root offers a new way to think about the purpose of youth ministry: not happiness, but joy. Joy is a sense of experiencing the good. For youth ministry to be about joy, it must move beyond the youth group model and rework the assumptions of how identity and happiness are imagined by parents in American society.

Have you tried all the new youth programs? Have you planned one too many wacky activities? Are you frustrated about the size of the youth group? Here's an approach to ministry that takes youth work seriously. Family-based youth ministry is about adults discipling teens one-on-one and in groups. It is about involving not just the nuclear family but the whole church family--from singles to older adults. More important, it's about incorporating youth into the life of your church. So stop worrying about the size of your youth group or your budget. Mark DeVries's refreshing approach to youth ministry will show you how your church can reach today's teens and how you can keep them involved in the life of the church. Whether you are a parent, a youth pastor or a church member who cares about teens, you will find in this book an entirely different approach to youth ministry that will build mature Christian believers.

The mainline church in the past few decades has witnessed a ghettoization of youth within the church, segregating them off to a particular room, perhaps in the basement, where they engage in ministry in isolation from the rest of the congregation. They are assigned a “youth minister” or “youth director,” often the staff person with the least experience, freeing up the “real” ministers to serve the adults in the church. They seldom serve on church boards or governing bodies in anything other than a cursory manner. Their leadership in worship is limited to one special Sunday a year; their activities seen more as programming than ministry, and their place often described as “the church of the future” rather than the body of Christ in the here-and-now. For decades, youth ministry in mainline churches has been program-driven, assuming that the primary function of youth ministry was to use activities and events to attract young people to church and keep them occupied until they were ready to be adult members in the faith. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that this paradigm has failed to develop youth as life-long participants in the Christian church and in the Christian faith. The result of such a model of ministry is that youth come to see church only as those segregated activities reserved for teenagers, most of which bear little resemblance to the practices of the rest of church life. Consequently, when youth graduate from high school and youth group, they perceive that their most meaningful church experiences are ended. Mainline congregations are now seeing the evidence of the real lack of impact of their youth ministries as the population of young adults in churches continues to shrink – even those young adults who were once regular participants in church youth group programs. In short, the program-driven model of youth ministry has failed to help youth find their place within the mission of the Church. Rethinking Youth Ministry critiques this older paradigm and invites the reader into a dialogue to help rethink many of the deepest assumptions of youth ministry in the mainline church. We challenge the consumerist goal of judging a youth ministry’s success by the number of its participants. We push back against the notion that a youth ministry is the sum total of the events on the calendar. We rethink the place of volunteers and parents, calling for a greater role of adults as spiritual mentors in the lives of church youth. We send out a call for greater understanding of modern methods of teaching and the impact of brain research on the intellectual and spiritual development of youth and we re-imagine a new role for mission within youth ministry which calls youth to see mission not as isolated activities but as the very heart of their faith journey. Rethinking Youth Ministry serves as a theological companion and practical guide for all those “working in the trenches” of youth ministry who are seeking to offer students a deeper, more consequential, and active life-long relationship with God through the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Join the conversation as experts propose, defend, and explore Four Views of Youth Ministry and the Church.In a dialog that often gets downright feisty, four youth ministry academicians delineate their distinct philosophical and ecclesiological views regarding how youth ministry relates to the church at large--and leave a taste of what’s profound and what’s not in these four typologies:Inclusive congregational (Malan Nel). What happens when a church thoroughly integrates its adolescents, making them full partners in every aspect of congregational life?Preparatory (Wesley Black). Why and how should a church consider its teenagers as disciples-in-training and its youth ministry a school of preparation for future participation in church life?Missional (Chap Clark). What does a church look like, whose youth ministry does not necessarily nurture "church kids" but is essentially evangelistic? Whose youths and youth workers are considered missionaries?Strategic (Mark Senter). How feasible is it for a youth ministry to become a new church on its own--the youth pastor becoming the pastor, and the new church planted with the blessing of the mother church?In Four View of Your Ministry and the Church, solid academic writing and an inviting tone and design create a compelling text for both in-the-field, practicing youth workers and undergraduates and graduate students.

In the first textbook of its kind, "Global Youth Ministry" brings together some of the foremost voices in international youth leadership to focus on the theological, theoretical, sociocultural, and historical issues that shape ministry to youth in contexts around the world.