A companion guide to This Way to Youth Ministry that offers practical applications, theological foundations, and valuable information for the student beginning a youth ministry.

A FIELD GUIDE TO THE WILD LIFE OF YOUTH MINISTRY Youth Ministry. It’s quite an idea so much bigger than two words. One part odyssey, one part call, one part mission, and one part quest, youth ministry calls us into places of breathless exhilaration, stunning beauty, genuine peril, and unknown discovery. This is not terrain for the faint of heart. But it is a landscape of grace and wonder. This Way to Youth Ministry is the most complete academic text for those who might be called to such a journey. Thirty-year youth ministry veteran Duffy Robbins explores the theology, theory, and practice of youth ministry and helps you discover how to: Identify your calling to ministry Cultivate the traits and training that make a good youth pastor Set boundaries and maintain priorities Understand the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical development on adolescents Navigate youth culture and postmodernism Understand youth ministry in relation to the rest of the Church Develop a team of volunteers who will walk the journey with you Develop and apply a personalized ministry philosophy With just the right mix of theory and application, this extensive academic text shows you both the big picture and the close-up details of making ministry work. Whether your journey is just beginning or well under way, This Way to Youth Ministry is the book that will help with everything that lies ahead.

Kids desperately need healthy, committed adults who can help them thrive in their faith and become active participants in the life of the church. This requires the efforts of the whole faith community. Chap Clark, one of the leading voices in youth ministry today, brings together twenty-four experts from a variety of denominations and traditions to offer a comprehensive introduction to adoptive youth ministry, a theologically driven, academically grounded, and practical youth ministry model. The book shows readers how to integrate emerging generations into the family of faith, helping young adults become active participants in God's redemptive community.

If we are going to have a victorious church tomorrow, we must focus on the youth today. In this book, Comiskey lays out the biblical base for youth ministry, highlights the felt needs of today’s youth, and then shows why small groups are the most effective way to make youth disciples today. Comiskey explains the difference between inter-generational cells and student-led groups, the equipping process for youth leaders, how to coach leaders, and how to get started in youth cell ministry. Comiskey also describes common errors in youth ministry and how to avoid them. This book is a must-read for all those wanting to make youth disciples through cell ministry.

This volume argues that the notion of “affections” discussed by Jonathan Edwards (and Christian theologians before him) means something very different from what contemporary English speakers now call “emotions.” and that Edwards's notions of affections came almost entirely from traditional Christian theology in general and the Reformed tradition in particular. Ryan J. Martin demonstrates that Christian theologians for centuries emphasized affection for God, associated affections with the will, and distinguished affections from passions; generally explaining affections and passions to be inclinations and aversions of the soul. This was Edwards's own view, and he held it throughout his entire ministry. Martin further argues that Edwards's view came not as a result of his reading of John Locke, or the pressures of the Great Awakening (as many Edwardsean scholars argue), but from his own biblical interpretation and theological education. By analysing patristic, medieval and post-medieval thought and the journey of Edwards's psychology, Martin shows how, on their own terms, pre-modern Christians historically defined and described human psychology.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Black Church stood as the stronghold of the Black Community, fighting for equality and economic self-sufficiency and challenging its body to be self-determined and self-aware. Hip Hop Culture grew from disenfranchised urban youth who felt that they had no support system or resources. Impassioned with the same urgent desires for survival and hope that their parents and grandparents had carried, these youth forged their way from the bottom of America’s belly one rhyme at a time. For many young people, Hip Hop Culture is a supplement, or even an alternative, to the weekly dose of Sunday-morning faith. In this collection of provocative essays, leading thinkers, preachers, and scholars from around the country confront both the Black Church and the Hip Hop Generation to realize their shared responsibilities to one another and the greater society. Arranged into three sections, this volume addresses key issues in the debate between two of the most significant institutions of Black Culture. The first part, “From Civil Rights to Hip Hop,” explores the transition from one generation to another through the transmission—or lack thereof—of legacy and heritage. Part II, “Hip Hop Culture and the Black Church in Dialogue,” explores the numerous ways in which the conversation is already occurring—from sermons to theoretical examinations and spiritual ponderings. Part III, “Gospel Rap, Holy Hip Hop, and the Hip Hop Matrix,” clarifies the perspectives and insights of practitioners, scholars, and activists who explore various expressions of faith and the diversity of locations where these expressions take place. In The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture, pastors, ministers, theologians, educators, and laypersons wrestle with the duties of providing timely commentary, critical analysis, and in some cases practical strategies toward forgiveness, healing, restoration, and reconciliation. With inspiring reflections and empowering discourse, this collection demonstrates why and how the Black Church must re-engage in the lives of those who comprise the Hip Hop Generation.

The book starts with the development of Salesian youth ministry in the post-Vatican II period. The change from a faithful and repetitive education towards a critical and future-centered approach brought multiple risks. Focusing on organizational aspects, we analyze the underlying theories and their anthropological paradigms, especially Management by Objectives. Then we turn back to the original and permanent criterion for any renewal - the experience of Don Bosco in the Valdocco Oratory. His leadership and management qualities, recent leadership concepts, solid bases of the Salesian Youth Ministry and creative experiments are sewn creatively together in an innovative proposal: 1. Creation of an integral anthropological framework; 2. Development of a set of virtues-qualities at the level of action mentality, shared leadership and operative management; 3. Proposal of a transformational project cycle that merges planning, community building and discernment.

Since 1993, forty-nine theological seminaries have created opportunities for high school students to participate in on-campus High School Theology Programs (HSTPs) that invite them to engage in serious biblical and theological study. Many of the young people who take part in these programs go on to become pastoral or lay leaders in their churches. What has made these programs so successful -- especially given the well-documented "crisis of faith" among young people today? In this book thirteen contributors -- many of whom have created or led one of these innovative theology programs -- investigate answers to this question. They examine the pedagogical practices the HSTPs have in common and explore how they are contributing to the leadership of the church. They then show how the lessons gleaned from these successful programs can help churches, denominations, and seminaries reimagine both theological education and youth ministry.

Publisher's description: Presence-Centered Youth Ministry shows how classic disciplines, symbols and practices that have sustained the church over the centuries can shape the worldviews, virtues and habits of young people today. Come explore the deeper terrain of an ancient faith; your students are sure to follow.

In this made-for-use guidebook, Bill Hybels provides the exact steps needed for ministry leaders to translate the principles described in his book Holy Discontent into practical and effective action. What is the one aspect of this broken world that, when you see it, touch it, or get near it, you just can’t stand? What reality is so troubling that it thrusts you off the couch and into action? This is what Bill Hybels refers to as a holy discontent: a personal “firestorm of frustration” that, although sparked by that which is terribly wrong, can catalyze fierce determination to set things right. It is often during these eye-opening, heart-hungering moments of engagement when you will hear God whisper, “I feel the exact same way about this situation. Now, let’s go solve it together!” Here are the steps and the guidance you need to make that happen. This companion to Holy Discontent includes: • Interactive processing exercises that encourage you to ask the tough questions of your ministry strategy, your supporting organizational structure, and the key people with whom you collaborate • Sidebar stories of ministry leaders who are living and leading from their holy discontent in a variety of contexts • Insightful prompts to help you act on what you learn • Space for personal reflection