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Book Review: The Promise of Despair by Andrew Root

Last Updated July 28, 2010 by Matt Leave a Comment

Quite the title, isn’t it? Yes, The Promise of Despair: The Way of the Cross as the Way of the Church by Andrew Root has quite the suggestive title, but that is part of the point. This is a book about death, in both a literal and symbolic sense. Death is not limited to people […]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Theology Tagged With: theology of the cross, Andrew Root, death, despair, Luther

Health Care and a Theology of Death

Last Updated September 4, 2009 by Matt 1 Comment

Perhaps it is healthier to be prepared for death and die younger than it is to be afraid of death and constantly try to delay the inevitable. I’ve been trying to keep up with the health care debate since it is a pretty big issue, and there’s been one tactic that has me a bit […]

Filed Under: News, Theology Tagged With: death panels, democrats, healthcare, obama, republicans, death

A Maundy Thursday Meditation: Praying with Jesus in the Garden

Last Updated April 11, 2009 by Matt Leave a Comment

One of the last pieces of our youth Maundy Thursday worship service. Prayer seems like an appropriate thing to do on this Holy Saturday. After washing the disciples feet, after eating the Last Supper, Jesus finds himself in the Garden of Gethsemane, doing what he often does: praying. He prays for us, his disciples, knowing […]

Filed Under: Christianity, Youth Ministry Tagged With: death, gethsemane, maundy thursday, prayer

A Maundy Thursday Meditation: The Last Supper

Last Updated April 10, 2009 by Matt 2 Comments

This is another part of our worship service from last night regarding the Last Supper. It seems fitting on this Good Friday. On this night we remember the meal that Jesus gave us, the meal that we celebrate every week. A piece of bread, a sip of wine. This is the body and blood of […]

Filed Under: Christianity, Youth Ministry Tagged With: maundy thursday, death, last supper

A Maundy Thursday Meditation: Washing One Another’s Feet

Last Updated April 9, 2009 by Matt Leave a Comment

I wrote the following for a portion of our youth’s Maundy Thursday worship service. We based the service off of Bonhoeffers famous quote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We tried as best we could to make the worship service feel like a funeral and tried to tie in the […]

Filed Under: Christianity, Youth Ministry Tagged With: bonhoeffer, death, foot washing, maundy thursday

Best Youth Ministry Books

These are the books that will completely change the way you think about youth ministry, for the better. Links are to my reviews of each book.

Teen 2.0 by Robert Epstein

A psychologist makes you question every assumption you have about adolescence.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry by Andrew Root

Why build relationships? Root’s answer will surprise you.

Best Youth Ministry Books: Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher

Yesterday I finally read Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher, and since I’m one of the latecomers to the conversation I won’t summarize the book too much. Marko has linked to tons of reviews on his blog if you are interested in more in-depth summaries. If you are fairly in-tune with a lot of the […]

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 […]

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