"Bill Myers has offered a much needed picture of black and white styles of youth ministry. His own style of writing is stunning. The book is so rich in historical reflection and descriptive detail that one cannot avoid being confronted by the urgent issues of race, culture, and social history--all vitally important in shaping ministry." Mary Elizabeth Moore, School of Theology at Claremont
Faith and failure, triumph and travails, hope and hard questions--this is the complex mix facing youth ministry leaders in the black church today. Using Scripture, case Illustrations, anecdotes, best practices, and reflection points, this practical book invites youth leaders, pastors, and parents to participate in exploring hope-filled strategies in three key areas: Youth Ministry Leadership, Youth Ministry Programs and Youth Ministry Support.
The Total Faith(tm) Initiative Coordinator's Manual draws on the experience of many parish communities to give leaders what they need to plan and implement dynamic and effective youth ministry, including intentional catechesis. The manual includes two chapters describing a vision for youth ministry and adolescent catechesis four chapters providing planning tools for using the many resources within the Total Faith(tm) Initiative four more chapters suggesting numerous ways for parishes to connect with youth and their families a final chapter providing practical guidance in finding and supporting youth ministry leaders The accompanying coordinator's CD includes additional tools for using the Total Faith(tm) resources. You will find a searchable index of all activities and strategies, additional handouts, and PowerPoint presentations for training leaders, a printable list of short descriptions for every session, and more. It has never been easier to create dynamic and customized ministries for your parish.
Increasingly, adolescents and young adults in the United States are racially and socioeconomically diverse, while the teaching population remains predominantly white and middle class. Many youth ministry programs that utilize volunteer mentors recruit adults who are ill-equipped to bridge cultural differences and effectively build sustainable relationships with adolescents who come from different backgrounds than their own. College and university campus ministries that are historically white struggle to provide adequate support and mentoring for students who have traditionally not been represented in the college population. Often, mentoring relationships break down over cultural misunderstandings. As educators who come from backgrounds marked by privilege, Katherine Turpin and Anne Carter Walker draw from their experiences in an intentionally culturally diverse youth ministry program to name the challenges and inadequacies of ministry with young people from marginalized communities. Through engaging case studies and vignettes, the authors re-examine the assumptions about youth agency, vocational development, educational practice, and mentoring. Offering concrete guidelines and practices for working effectively across lines of difference, Nurturing Different Dreams invites readers to consider their own cultural assumptions and practices for mentoring adolescents, and assists readers in analyzing and transforming their practices of mentoring young people who come from different communities than their own.
This book is like no other book because it is the only known book to provide the ABC's for organizing or reorganizing the Sunday school or church school. The book is also loaded with suggestive forms to help any leader to construct his or her own forms for Sunday school or church school administration. This book reminds the prospective teacher, the current teacher, the VBS coordinator, training administrators, and the support leader and workers of their responsibilities. Any church pastor, superintendent, church leader, professor of Christian education, or director of Christian education will find this book as a valuable tool in Christian education.
“Racism will never end.” “Drug dealing and gang banging will never stop.” “I hope for God to come and take us away from all this because if things go on the way they are, there’s not much hope for humankind.” These are some of the comments from twenty African American teenagers coming of age in Chicago at the close of the 20th century. These comments raise challenging questions: - What expectations do African American youth hold concerning racial injustice? - What expectations do black youth hold about other issues that are important to them, such as violence? - How relevant is the black church to the issues that circumscribe the lives of urban black youth? - How is the black church instrumental in confronting racial injustice that black youth experience? - What signs of hope do black youth identify as being offered by the black church? - Can the church fashion black adolescent spirituality rooted in Christian hope and action? Parker seeks to answer these questions, critically examining African American adolescent spirituality and offering congregations a new theological framework for ministry with African American adolescents in the face of injustice and hopelessness. What results is the formation of a wholesome spirituality.
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.
The Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project was formed in 1997 to participate in the renewal of youth ministry in the Christian church. Its mission is to foster Christian communities that are attentive to God’s presence, discerning of the Spirit and who accompany young people into the way of Jesus. Our mission is founded on the biblical vision of the human person who is created in the image and likeness of God and whose deepest longing is for communion with God and others in love. In response to Christ’s invitation to abide in him (John 15:4), we believe that the central purpose of youth ministry is to open the minds and hearts of young persons to an intimate relationship with God in Christ through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. We seek to fulfill our mission through retreats, workshops, training events, written materials, and relationships that promote a contemplative approach to youth discipleship. The contemplative approach to youth ministry is based on a Christian community’s commitment to cultivate attentiveness to God’s Presence in the lives of young people and is supported in the following seven ways: SABBATH, PRAYER, COVENANT COMMUNITY, ACCOMPANIMENT, DISCERNMENT, HOSPITALITY, AUTHENTIC ACTION.
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.
