Youth Ministry In Modern America

Professor Jon Pahl examines the history of youth ministry through the lens of four twentieth-century movements: the Walther League (Lutheran), the Young Christian Workers (Catholic), Youth for Christ (evangelical), and African American congregations (Methodist, Baptist, and United Church of Christ). By chronicling the emergence and influence of these movements, Pahl enhances our understanding of their effect upon both the American church and society. Pahl also explores how youth ministry has been transformed over the years and suggests ways that youth ministry must redirect its focus in the twenty-first century. The compelling stories and contributions of modern youth ministry remain invisible in the standard histories of Religion in America. Jon Pahl makes young people and their faith commitments visible as primary actors in portraits of four youth ministries. A skillful theologian and historian, Pahl analyzes the tension between purity" keeping young people safe from a hostile culture" and practices" efforts to encourage young people in risks and responsibilities" and allows the past to become present tense. " Ronald C. White, Dean and Professor of Church History, San Francisco Theological Seminary

A veteran youth ministry expert provides a substantial history of American Protestant youth ministry, helping readers understand trends and changes.

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.

Mike Higgs, a youth worker with over two decades of experience, expresses the great need for youth workers to stop focusing on performance and focus instead on following God in his work so that ministry will become less noise and more substance.

You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

We tend to organize our youth ministry from the inside out. We give gathered groups of individual youth tools and teaching to form their souls around a Christian identity. So far, so good. But what if our identity is not merely or even primarily rooted and established somewhere inside ourselves? What if our identity is shaped and cultivated in the relationships we inhabit—each with their own distinctives and demands—and in the overlapping stories we find ourselves in? Prefabricated approaches to ministry that focus on the interior makeup of our youth may make for good youth group members, but these limited approaches don't reach beyond the youth room into other corners of their lives. Rather than centering them on the faith, our inside-out approach may be pushing their faith to the margins of their life. Brandon McKoy mines the insights of social construction theory to help us locate Christ not in our hearts but in our midst. We learn to embrace him as our own and our students as whole people engaging in a life's worth of encounters. Approaching youth ministry from the outside in, we discover our students in a whole new light—and with them, the fullness of our faith.

“Contemplative Youth Ministry is refreshing rain for dry youth workers and barren youth ministries. More than the same old youth ministry tips and tricks, it gives principles and practices to soak in God’s grace, love, and power. I wish I had read it 15 years ago.” - Kara Powell, Ph.D., executive director, Center for Youth Ministry and Family Ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary “Mark invites readers to be encountered by the presence of Jesus who is always near. This book is transparent about the challenges that churches and families face as they desire to be effective in youth ministry. The book is filled with the honest stories of different kinds of youth ministries representing the breadth of Christianity in the United States. I heartily endorse Contemplative Youth Ministry as a rich encounter with the souls of youth and adults whose lives have been transformed by our very present God.” - Bill Kees, director of youth ministries, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) “Mark Yaconelli not only reminds us of some of the long-forgotten pathways of faith, he shares with us how it actually looks when men and women who love God practice it with young people. I especially appreciate Mark’s optimism in his perspective of today’s kids, for his insights are grounded in God’s view of them.” - Chap Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of youth, family, and culture, Fuller Theological Seminary “Mark Yaconelli was experimenting with contemplative youth ministry practices before contemplative youth ministry practices became cool. This book has about it the unique air of authenticity. He shares with us in these pages his own journey as a youth worker who actually believes that God’s still small voice speaks louder than the roaring windstorm of our busy youth ministry calendars. It’s a book about creating for our students places of silence and opening up spaces for God to speak.” - Duffy Robbins, professor of youth ministry, Eastern University; author of Enjoy the Silence and This Way to Youth Ministry “Mark Yaconelli has emerged as one of youth ministry’s most provocative ‘voices in the wilderness,’ calling us back to our theological taproots: The contemplative practices that bind our lives to the life of Christ. If Mark’s research has taught us anything, it’s that these practices do not cause youth ministry to take fl ight into a spiritual never-never land; rather they anchor young people—and their churches—in the fertile soil of Christian tradition, in the nitty-gritty of daily life, and in the explosive transformation that awaits us when we wait upon God.” - Kenda Creasy Dean, parent, pastor, and professor of youth, Princeton Theological Seminary; author of Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church

Think about sin and the cross—the way that salvation changes who we are and how God sees us. It’s a central part of our faith, and yet it’s one of the most confusing and difficult things to teach. Especially to a room full of teenagers. In Taking the Cross to Youth Ministry, Andrew Root invites you along on a journey with Nadia—a fictional youth worker who is wrestling with how to present the cross to her own students in a meaningful way. Using Nadia’s narrative, along with his own insights, Root helps you reimagine how the cross, sin, and salvation can be taught to students in a way that leads them to embrace a lifestyle that chases after Jesus, rather than creating teenagers who just try to “be good.”