So you’re fired up, you want to make a difference, you want to change the world…but how? Signing up for your church’s mission trip or service project is a great first step, and you are definitely going to make a difference in someone’s life. But are you ready for the different cultures you may encounter? How are you going to really connect with the people you serve? And what about when you come home—how do you make sense of all the things you’ve experienced? It’s easy to forget your experiences in the mission field—especially when the people around you haven’t had those same experiences. And it is easy to go back to living your life the way you were before—but if you really want to change the world, you have to change, too. The only way that is going to happen is if you spend some time before, during, and after your service preparing for and processing your justice work. As you use this journal you will start to think about— • the people you are serving • your relationship with your teammates • how God factors in to your service project • the impact your experience has had on you • how you can continue to make a difference in the world around you If you think you’re fired-up for service now, just wait! As you complete the creative and fun exercises included in this journal, you will be energized for justice work, you’ll learn how to apply this to your own life, and nothing will be able to stop you.

For far too long we’ve neglected the urban mission field. Many churches have moved to the outskirts of the city for various reasons, and the urban landscape appears to be forgotten. Dr. René Rochester presents a vision for how communities can change this pattern and plant redemptive and sustainable urban ministries. Models, Mentors, and Messages takes a close look at the developmental stages of Jesus’ life, focusing on how family, his heavenly Father, the Jewish community, and neighboring nations were used to shape his holy destiny. Through the example of Jesus’ life, you will learn how to draw on your own formative years to show urban teens how to live out God’s call in their communities. The most authentic models are individuals who have wrestled through life’s challenges and learned to trust God in difficult situations, and so by empowering urban students today and showing them how to nurture one another in faith, you can help create sustainable ministries in which each generation will model for the next how to follow Jesus. The first of its kind, this book doesn’t try to force old models on the urban context, but rather teaches new ways to draw on Jesus’ teachings to help an urban, hip-hop generation live for Jesus and for one another.

As the world becomes more globalized, student populations in university settings will continue to grow in diversity. To ensure students develop the cultural competence to adapt to new environments, universities and colleges must develop policies and programs to aid in the progression of cultural acceptance and understanding. Cultural Awareness and Competency Development in Higher Education is an essential reference book on the latest literature regarding multiculturalism in colleges and universities, focusing on administration and faculty implementation of culturally-aware curriculum to support the development of students' global competence. Featuring extensive coverage on a range of topics including social constructivism, co-curricular learning, and inclusive pedagogy, this publication is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the inclusion of culturally diverse curriculums in higher education.

This book weaves together critical components of student development and community building for social justice to prepare students to engage effectively in community-campus partnerships for social change. The author combines diverse theoretical models such as critical pedagogy, asset-based community development, and healing justice with lessons from programs promoting indigenous knowledge, decolonization, and mindfulness. Most importantly, this book links theory to practice, offering service-learning classroom activities, course and community partnership criteria, learning outcomes, and assessment rubrics. It speaks to students, faculty, administrators, and community members who are interested in utilizing community engagement as a vehicle for the development of students and communities towards wellbeing and social justice.

Both national leaders with broad spheres of influence as well as local, grassroots practitioners are waking up to the reality that 50% of their graduating seniors struggle deeply with their faith in college. Offering a few special “Senior Seminars” or giving seniors a “graduation Bible” and hoping for the best are both too little and too late. FYI’s research confirms that it’s never too early to start developing faith that continues to grow and lasts. Sticky Faith gives youth workers both a theological/philosophical framework and a host of practical programming ideas that develop long-term faith in teenagers.

Qualitative Journeys: Student and Mentor Experiences with Research takes a fresh approach to teaching qualitative research. Authors Victor Minichiello and Jeffrey Kottler share stories of student qualitative research experiences that reveal the struggles, the joys, the discoveries, and the surprises that take place during the qualitative research journey. By studying examples of student research (including obstacles and how they were overcome), readers learn through the real-life experiences of other students. Throughout the textbook, the authors offer pragmatic guidance for what works and what does not work, along with suggested solutions. Features and Benefits Provides the nuts and bolts of qualitative research in Part I Includes a dozen "qualitative journeys," narratives that tell the story of research studies, how they evolved, what was involved, and how they were conceived and conducted Focuses on research from the perspective of student experiences and demonstrates the partnership between students and their mentors Includes domestic and international examples of qualitative studies and real-life stories that convey the excitement and meaning of research Considers the lessons learned and the main themes derived from all the qualitative journeys Qualitative Journeys: Student and Mentor Experiences with Research is appropriate for use as a supplement or core text for courses in Qualitative Research, Counseling Research Methods, or Social Work Research Methods.

Anyone who serves teenagers today knows that more and more young people are eager to make a difference in the world. When students participate in short-term missions, service, and justice causes, parents and youth leaders hope these experiences will lead to real transformation. But research shows that our efforts don’t always stick. If we truly want short-term work to translate into long-term change, leaders and students must spend more time before, during, and after service projects preparing for and processing their experiences. The sessions in this leader’s guide will help you create experiences that stick—both for the students you take and the communities you serve. This guidebook offers a host of practical and field-tested exercises for each phase of your experience, whether it’s a half-day local service project or a two-week trip overseas. Participants will engage in hands-on experiences to gain new insights about themselves, their relationship with God, their teammates, and the world we’re called to love and serve. Each of these steps is a catalyst in helping students apply what they have learned in the field to their own lives back at home. Also included are ideas to help get parents and the whole church engaged in service together. A companion student journal is also available to boost the potential for personal application throughout the journey.

Since the 1990s, the community of scholar-activists who have had contact with the criminal legal system has grown rapidly, solidifying into an international movement. Drawing on in-depth conversations with system-affected academics as well as his own experience with incarceration, Grant Tietjen traces the history, positive impacts, and future promise of this movement. By offering networks of support to system-affected people seeking higher education and using the perspectives afforded them by their lived experiences to push their disciplines forward, Tietjen shows, the movement effects reciprocal changes between the individual and the entire institution of higher education, which ripple outwards and stand to contribute to the wider movement against carceral responses to harm.

Offering a lively, international, and interdisciplinary introduction to research on arts programmes in prisons, Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections is the first volume to bring together leading figures from the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Belgium to explore key methodological approaches and issues through the lens of the researchers themselves. Beginning with the original pioneers of research into the arts in corrections in the USA in the 1980s, this book highlights the role of researchers in evidencing impact and influencing policy. Contributors include those who were themselves once incarcerated and those who have transitioned from practitioner to criminologist. Chapters lay the groundwork for discussion on how an important avenue for rehabilitation and re-entry can be developed, providing a call to action for more research into a field which holds promise for building a more just, equitable, and inclusive society. This book is essential reading for criminologists engaged in prisons, corrections, and desistance research, as well as researchers and practitioners in the arts and rehabilitation.