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.

Using an innovative first-person fictional narrative, an expert in youth ministry diagnoses the challenges facing the church today and offers a new way to think about what youth ministry can be for: not happiness, but joy.

Science is not a danger to the faith of Christian youth. In fact, Sara Sybesma Tolsma, an award-winning scientist, and Jason Lief, a leading practical theologian, argue that youth ministry needs science to help young people explore their relationship to God and engage their world faithfully. Jesus Loves You and Evolution Is True invites the church and its leaders to open their minds and hearts to what science can tell us about our human lives and our connections to, and role in, our natural world. But it does not stop there: evolutionary science is theological, argues Lief and Tolsma, and so it must have a central place in the day-to-day work of youth ministry. If the church wants to help youth develop robust spiritual lives and prepare them for the challenges that life will bring them, pastors, faith leaders, and youth workers must not only engage science but embrace its lessons for the life and practice of Christian faith today.

The questions our youth have are often the same ones that perplexed the great theologians. Andrew Root and Kenda Creasy Dean invite you to envision youth ministries full of practical theologians. Follow them into reflection on your own practice of theology, and learn how to share that theology through rich conversation and purposeful experience.

This book is a theology of youth ministry, or theological reflections on the youth culture, for those who love God and young people--those who want to know what in the world God is doing with young people these days.

Starting Right: Thinking Theologically About Youth Ministry is the first academic textbook that introduces youth ministry students (whether undergraduate or graduate level) to a marriage of solid research, real life, and accessible design. Whereas most college-level texts may reflect a thorough (though impenetrable) mastery of the field, they tend to expect readers to plow through unnecessarily thick prose and bland design because “it’s good for them.” Youth Specialties doesn’t agree. In this debut title to a continuing academic book line, college and seminary students will be introduced to real-life research, real-life youth ministry dilemmas, and real-life solutions.Contributing writers represent a spectrum of Christian Education thought and practice, as well as widespread recognition in their field...transdenominational, yet the perfect background to ministry in any denomination or ministry organizationThis text includes thorough indexes, design, and graphics that compel readers from page to page (now that’s a first for a college text!); organization that permits professors to use any part of the text, in any order, rather than plod through the entire book from beginning to end; a perfect primary text that gives students a rich, academic, and readable (though not “popular”) grasp of every aspect of youth ministry a typical Intro course touches, while also serving as an ideal secondary text.

Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry focuses on how to teach and present the Bible in the lives of teenagers. Andrew Root argues that teens are constant interpreters – always asking the questions, who am I? and what do others think of me? – and so youth ministers must teach them to interpret the actions of God as revealed in the Bible. This view is different than teaching biblical knowledge – memory verses and Bible facts – and it’s different than teaching them to interpret the Bible themselves. Rather, they are to view the Bible as a tool for interpreting God’s actions and then respond with their own actions.

Michael McGarry explores the foundation of youth ministry in the Old and New Testaments and brings that together with Church history in a compelling way. McGarry presents a thorough biblical framework to think about youth ministry as the church's expression of partnership with the family for co-evangelizing and co-discipling the next generation.

Dean Borgman, a nationally known youth ministry expert, offers a new edition of his influential classic. Reaching a broadly ecumenical audience, this book challenges readers to think about the theological nature of youth ministry. Questions for discussion and reflection are included. This thoroughly updated edition was previously published as When Kumbaya Is Not Enough. Praise for the first edition "Writing with the lens of a theologian, the heart of a pastor, and welcome doctrinal breadth, Borgman has provided a 'field book' of pastoral theologies that takes seriously the social systems shaping the lives of adolescents. This book is a significant step toward the long-awaited conversation about theology and youth ministry in postmodern culture."--Kenda Creasy Dean, Princeton Theological Seminary; author of Almost Christian "In this excellent work Borgman brings theological integrity, depth, and years of wisdom like nothing else I have seen in our field."--Jim Burns, author of Teenology: The Art of Raising Great Teenagers

Current research shows what many in the Christian community already know: young people are leaving the church. This raises important questions: Why are young people leaving? How can the church respond? Some have responded to this issue out of a posture of fear and anxiety, trying to find new ways to strengthen doctrinal beliefs or practices of faith formation and discipleship. What if the best response isn't to strengthen our theology or tighten our hold on the lives of young people? What if the best response is a posture of love that lets young people go? Using the insights of philosopher Charles Taylor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Poetic Youth Ministry argues that the church must take seriously the formative power of social and cultural patterns that shape the social imaginaries of young people. Rather than seeing the problem as young people abandoning faith, the Christian community should see the issue as young people exchanging one form of faith for another. This allows the church to approach the issue from a posture of love, calling young people to embrace their identity in the new humanity revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.