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 […]
My Wishlist is Shrinking
In my last post I linked to my Amazon.com wishlist and thought it might be a good idea to go back through it and make sure it was still current. Well, it wasn’t. I removed about 40 books from the list. The encouraging thing was that I think over half of them I have actually […]
Birthday Books
My birthday was last week. And, as birthdays go, I got some pretty decent birthday money. So, what did I do with it? Buy an iPod? Surround sound? A bluetooth earpiece? Heck no. I bought some books. And they are: The Mediation of Christ by Thomas Forsyth Torrance Principles of Lutheran Theology by Carl E. […]
Book Review: Choosing Church
In Choosing Church Carol Lytch, a Presbyterian minister, sociologist, and theological educator, seeks to discover what factors keep students attending church through their senior year of high school. In a time when other research shows the steep decline in church attendance among teens as they age such a project is all the more appropriate. Lytch […]
All Books Read in 2007
I started doing this last year, and thought it would be a good idea to continue this year. Maybe this year, I can keep up with the list as I go and not forget books. Anyways, this post is mostly for my own personal record-keeping. As I read books and put them in my sidebar, […]
Spontaneous Blog-Fast Now Over
I decided to take a one month blog-fast beginning December 9. After I wrote my post that day, I thought it would be good to just forget about the blog for a little while. Ok, yeah, I’m just kidding. In reality I’ve just been really lazy and busy and haven’t posted anything. But “blog-fast” sounds […]
Finished
I finally finished N.T. Wright’s New Testament and the People of God today. I started it about two months ago with the goal of finishing it by the end of the year so that I could ask for the next book in the series for Christmas. Well, the goal has been accomplished, although it feels […]
I… can’t… talk…
So, maybe I need to lay off the books for a little while (yeah, right). Last night at church, during “Cross-Examination” (a nifty title I came up with for a discussion group where we examine cultural phenomena in light of the gospel), I simply could not talk. Well, it’s not that I couldn’t talk, but […]