The church is struggling with the gap between the church and adolescents. Over the last decades, the problem of ‘bridging the gap’ was often outsourced to youth ministry in different forms, such as special youth workers, faith-learning programs, local activities, national events, holidays, and education of youth leaders. However, the overall conclusion is that over the last ten years, traditional youth ministry forms cannot function as the bridge they should be; the gap is too deep and too wide, or perhaps the metaphor of the gap is no longer appropriate to describe the current situation regarding the church and adolescents. This book aims to provide a creative and innovative contribution to the search for new paradigms in youth ministry. This book shows that small groups are very important for adolescents. The natural social environment greatly influences adolescents in their process of transformation from childhood to adulthood, including faith socialization. The emphasis on the natural social environment can be defined as follows: “Being goes before organizing, and the individual cannot ‘be’ without others.” Briefly, “being together as a basic given.” The conclusion of this book is that youth ministry needs a twofold turn: a turn from the individual to the communal, and a turn from an organized environment to a natural environment.

Research in youth ministry has excelled and developed rapidly over the last four decades. Youth ministry is not just a church practice, but has become an emerging academic discipline, with a variety of methodological, theoretical, and contextual approaches. This academic handbook offers an assessment of contemporary youth ministry research to assist students doing bachelor, master, and doctoral research, and youth ministry scholars, in their studies of youth ministry. By examining youth ministry research through the lens of the following five fundamental questions, the reader is challenged to engage with state-of-the-art theory, methods, and findings from current youth ministry research: • Who are the youth in youth ministry? • Where is God in youth ministry? • What is the purpose of youth ministry? • Who is the youth minister in youth ministry? • How to research practices in youth ministry? The academic handbook is a must-read for everyone who is interested in systematic reflection on youth ministry and youth ministry research.

This teaching activities manual works with both the first and second edition of The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth. The Teaching Activities Manual for "The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth" is designed not as a curriculum but as a collection of activities to help teachers make their current curriculum more meaningful and effective. Each chapter coincides with a chapter in The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth and includes several activities that address the chapter's themes. Themes include: The Creed, Liturgy and Sacraments, Christian Morality, Christian Prayer. Two appendices help teachers use the The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth with their class. "Additional Resources" lists books, movies, and songs to use in class. "Prayer Experiences" is a collection of ten prayer services on themes present in the The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth. The prayer services require minimal supplies and are designed to take 10 to 20 minutes.

The TEEN ACTS Retreats Manual intends to provide all priests, deacons, and lay ACTS Retreat Team leaders and members with the necessary information to facilitate the TEEN ACTS Retreat process in a way that grounds the experience in the invitation to encounter Jesus Christ and be His disciple.

Throughout history youth have been at the center of their communities' energy and creativity, including their efforts to seek faith and justice. However, today's adolescents have been relegated as passive learners and consumers, lacking full adult power for longer than any age cohort in history. This book traces the modern domestication of adolescence from its ancient roots through several key moments of its descent into passivity. Empowering youth as agents of Christian faith in the world is not only a social need, but is theologically warranted. The church and the broken world need the gifts of youth. This book elaborates four pedagogical movements--listening, understanding, remembering/dreaming, and acting--as key for noticing and nurturing the faith commitments of youth. Too much of contemporary youth ministry represents an attempt to pump energy into our youth--to get them excited about what we have to offer. This approach attends to energies already present in the lived experiences and hidden commitments of youth and connects them to God's mission in the world.

Christopher Wesley is on the front lines of youth ministry. He’s been in the parish trenches, refocusing an unpopular youth program and making it one where teens feel connected, stay involved, and grow in faith. In Rebuilding Youth Ministry, Wesley offers ten indispensable strategies to help you make your youth programs just as successful. Wesley coaches fellow Catholic ministry leaders on how to overcome common hurdles of ministering to young people. Wesley shares how he faced feelings of complacency, underestimated youth, and entertained rather than ministered in his own parish. Wesley built a distinctive program based on small group faith formation and sustained it with the assistance of more than sixty volunteer adult mentors. Wesley lays out ten strategies that helped grow participation in his high school program from nine teens to ninety and the middle school program from forty teens to eighty-five, including: Making your youth program about more than pizza; Pursuing authentic relationships between small groups and mentors; Shaping a dynamic youth ministry team; and Creating a space that’s welcoming to teens.

Catechetical / Youth Ministry

If you're tired of the Christianese answers you're getting from the teens in your youth group, challenge them to discuss issues of faith and discover what they believe. With these one-page, reproducible handouts that are easy to use and can facilitate meaningful discussions in your youth group, Sunday school, small group, or confirmation class, teens will explore God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, salvation, discipleship, and more.

The spiritual formation of young people can often focus on encouraging their personal spiritual practices, and perhaps linking them to a local youth group. While both are important, Networks for Faith Formation argues that a far wider set of relationships are needed to help faith grow. The aim of Networks for Faith Formation is to describe and commend eight key networks, relational bonds that nurture and nourish faith. The eight networks are "bedroom practices" (personal faith), church, family, friends, mentors, small groups, events and gatherings, and mission and service. The description of each network draws on biblical studies, practical theology, and the social sciences, and practical ideas for helping young people engage with such networks are included throughout the book. In a context where some overlook the complexity of spiritual formation, Networks for Faith Formation is an important resource for church leaders, youth ministers, and parents seeking to help young people grow in faith. Since relational bonds are key for people of any age, it can also help all within the church understand the need for relationships in spiritual growth.

Chap Clark's groundbreaking Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers revealed the hard truth about contemporary adolescence: societal changes and systemic abandonment have left teenagers struggling to navigate the ever lengthening and ever more difficult transition to adulthood without caring adults. When Kids Hurt offers these challenging insights to youth workers and parents in a more accessible form, with greater focus on how adults should respond. Practical sidebars and application sections, contributed by other youth experts, provide additional insights into youth culture and how adults can better guide adolescents into adulthood. This book will be an important resource for youth workers, parents, counselors, and others who work with youth.