The role of prophet is perhaps the most important of all the roles of the Neo-Youth Minister. Though it is significantly related to his or her role as theologian, it describes the type of theologian the youth minister will be. A prophet is a theologian with feet to the pavement. A prophet is the change-agent […]
Neo-Youth Ministry Part 6: Youth Minister as Spiritual Director
Continuing with my series on Neo-Youth Ministry that began months ago, we now turn to yet another facet of a Neo-Youth Minister: spiritual director. Above all else, a spiritual director is one who listens. In traditional spiritual direction roles, a directee comes and shares with his or her director in a formal, one-on-one setting, similar […]
Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry, Chapter 2
Chapter two in PMYM is titled, “A missional agenda”, which is highly necessary given the current reality of living in a post-Christian world. Essentially, Tony argues for a kind of youth ministry that is missional at its core: As we youth workers begin to see ourselves as misisonaries, we can reconfigure our job descriptions so […]
Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry, Chapter 1
The first chapter in Postmodern Youth Ministry (PMYM) provides the a brief introduction to postmodernism. Tony surveys the development of modernism through the philosopher Rene Descartes and the subsequent philosophical shift the occurred with Frederick Nietzche, which led to what we now call postmodernism. Rather than hurting the church, Nietzche’s declaration that “God is dead” […]
Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry
Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones is the book I would recommend to youth ministers if they could just read one youth ministry book. I first read the book in my Foundations and Practices of Youth Ministry class at John Brown University. After the preface to the book there is a page titled, “The Day […]
Best Youth Ministry Books Series
In the coming days I am going to begin a new series of posts looking at what I consider some of the best youth ministry books. The list at this point includes: Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mike Yaconelli The Godbearing Life by Kenda Creasy Dean The series will include […]
I confess…
So, over at the Faith and Theology blog a meme has been started; it is spreading quickly. Sounded fun. I confess: I watched Kent Hovind videos as a child and argued with my fourth grade science teacher about the age of the earth. I confess: In junior high and high school I thought denominations that […]
Back from our Retreat
Well, VBS finished up last Thursday, and I was on a retreat with our youth this week from Tuesday until today. The theme was “spiritual disciplines” finishing off what was a yearlong look at spiritual disciplines. There wasn’t a whole lot of teaching. Instead, I had them do intentional exercises (via scheduling and a workbook […]
Neo-Youth Ministry Part 5: The Youth Minister as Pastor
While many full-time youth workers carry the title of “Youth Pastor” I wonder how many take the role of “pastor” seriously. If we are going to forge a new, authentic way of doing youth ministry, then the youth minister must take seriously their role in the pastoral care of the congregation. I believe that some […]
Are You Infected?
Below is the article I wrote for this month’s church newsletter. I really struggled writing it; I just couldn’t put the words together like I wanted to. Hopefully, it will be coherent enough that people will mildly understand what I was getting at. As we’re trying to communicate a new way of doing youth ministry to […]