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thESource Book Club |
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Each month DCE Alaina Kleinbeck will guide a discussion on a youth ministry related book. Please read along and join the discussion!
We're currently preparing to read and discuss The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. Get your copy today and join the discussion!
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December Book Club Selection: The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
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posted 12/09/09
Alan Hirsch sends a captivating message to the reader: the people of God carry the same potency of the gospel as early Christians but we have forgotten how to access it. This seemingly simple concept is brilliantly examined, unpacked, and supported in his book The Forgotten Ways (Brazos Press, 2006).
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posted 01/06/10
Alan Hirsch explains his ministry background and worldview on which his ministry sets in two parts. The first part is a highly personal exploration of his ministry at an inner city church in Melbourne, Australia. The second is a sociological perspective of the changes in Western culture that have been ignored or poorly addressed by the Church.
Part Three: Jesus is the Core
posted 01/13/10
Hirsch places Jesus at the center of his missional DNA. You can't get anywhere without the grace and mercy of Jesus. You can't get anywhere without Jesus as your Lord.
October/November Book Club Selection: When Kids Hurt by Chap Clark
posted 11/24/09
As people concerned and knowledgeable about youth struggles, we are compelled to get involved. Not because we are paid. Or because we have a child in the youth group. Or because it will look good on the resume. But because we have been called to care, to speak the truth of Christ into the lives of hurting teenagers.
posted 11/18/09
Youth are lonely and stressed. I don't know about you, but when I feel lonely and stressed, I make bad decisions, am a terrible driver, and usually try to compensate for these feelings with chocolate and treadmill abuse (on a rotating basis). Youth have underdeveloped coping skills.
When Kids Hurt, pt. 2
posted 11/11/09
I asked a group of third and fourth graders yesterday if they ever wanted to just go home and hang out with their parents. A third grade boy looked me in the eye and said, "I just want to play with my dad." A girl piped up, "We are too busy to relax. It stinks." On Friday, a mom looked me in the eye and said, "I just want to cook dinner and eat it at as family."
The abandonment of today's teens is Chap Clark's foremost platform. When he wrote Hurt, he spoke plainly about his intentional research experience as a long-term substitute in a public high school. He peeled off the layers of the hubris between teens and the adults in their lives. He opened many adult eyes to the institutional and societal abandonment of adolescents. He voiced a contrarian opinion to popular voices on the success of today's teens. He raised a great number of questions that he didn't answer.
September Book Club Selection: Sustainabile Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries
How do you develop longevity among youth workers? Discussions from Chapter Ten
We spend a lot of time talking about caring for the professional youth worker, but volunteer youth leaders are the meat and potatoes of every youth ministry. And yet somehow, this important piece of the puzzle is overlooked in many youth ministry resources. Devries really gives the reader practical, useful, reasonable insight without overbearing on the reader as he had in previous sections. His theory of adult to youth interaction is summed up on page 144, "that young person is at the center of a web, a convergent community, connected not only to him or her but also to each other."
Sustainable Youth Ministry, pt. 4
posted 09/30/2009
How does a youth worker cultivate a sustainable lifestyle? Discussions from Chapters Eight and Nine.
The health of the youth worker is a critical piece of a sustainable youth ministry. Devries lays out a strong rationale for healthy youth workers, but fails to bring hope into the equation. Failure is certainly inevitable in life, in ministry. Yet Devries encouragement in failure through systems struck me a touch cold. Maybe that’s the point.
posted 09/23/09
How does a youth worker change the culture of the youth ministry? The church? Discussions from Chapters Five and Six
The days are rushed. Parents are desperate. Youth are bored. You need to make sure that the cookies are going to be there and that someone reserved the space. Oh, and write your devotion. Hurry! It's on in an hour. Familiar? Is it all followed by a disheartening board meeting or a parent gathering where someone backhandedly tells you that you are doing it all wrong? DeVries takes a square look at the common plague of youth ministry and pegs the problem.
posted 09/16/09
What is the role of systems thinking in youth ministry? How do we overuse content thinking? Discussions from Chapter Four
Sustainable Youth Ministry is written almost exclusively from a systems perspective. Mark DeVries tackles the intricacies of administrating a youth program and gives the youth worker little leeway in the process. At many paragraphs' end, it seems that a father is giving his child a talking-to. And that may be just what the youth worker needs: someone telling them that they are doing it all wrong and exactly how they can make it right.
Sustainable Youth Ministry, pt. 1
posted 09/09/09
How do you know if you are stuck? Discussions from Chapter One.
Being comfortable in the way you do ministry as a professional or as a volunteer is quite common. We quickly wrap ourselves up in the daily grind of preparing lessons, creating publicity and meeting with students. When things seem less than ideal, we cover the eyesore with the philosophical bandages of "numbers don't matter" or "families have changed" or "we can only do so much." Mark Devries doesn't allow the leaders in youth ministry any such bandages. In the first chapter of Sustainable Youth Ministry, he unpacks the code, the language, a youth ministry that is stuck in a rut uses.
