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Best Youth Ministry Books

[This page is a work in progress… please leave a comment below and let me know what books you also think are worthy of consideration, and why.]

This is my list of what I consider the best books out there for youth ministry, and especially for rethinking the current state of things.

Game-Changers

These are the books that will shape the way you think about youth ministry for years to come. I consider these books non-negotiable for those who are seriously involved in youth ministry leadership.

Soul SearchingSouls in TransitionAlmost Christian

    • Soul Searching by Christian Smith & Melina Lundquist Denton
    • Souls in Transition by Christian Smith & Patricia Snell
    • Almost Christian by Kenda Creasy Dean

These three books belong together because they all come from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), which is a groundbreaking research study on the religiosity of teenagers. The most interesting part of the study is that they follow the teenagers from high school through college and into young adulthood to try and quantify the effects of religion. Since Christianity is the dominant religion in their study, it is really a study on youth ministry, and the only of its kind. The first two books by Christian Smith contain the hard data reporting from the first six years of the study, and the books are long, dense, and have lots of numbers, statistics, and charts. The NSYR is a sociological study, so you will have to interpret the data with your own youth ministry/theology lens. Or, you could read Almost Christian by Kenda Creasy Dean, who takes the data from the NSYR and puts a theological youth ministry spin on them in a condensed and more readable fashion. She is a professor of youth ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary. If you are cut out for it, read the first two books. If you just want the implications of the study for youth ministry, then read Dean’s.

Revisiting Relational Youth MinistryRevisiting Relational Youth Ministry by Andrew Root. Quite simply, this book says that relationships aren’t a youth ministry tool we use to get people to come to Jesus or to behave in a way we like. In fact, to do that is heresy. Instead, relationships are youth ministry, not a tool for youth ministry. This book is also dense, but worth the effort. If you just can’t force yourself to read such a theologically-heavy book, read his condensed version, Relationships Unfiltered, in the other section below. Read my fullreview here.

Teen 2.0Teen 2.0 by Robert Epstein. This book totally changed the way I thought about teenagers. Simply put, Epstein says that we are hurting our teenagers by treating them like children, rather than adults. The implications are momentous. You must read this book. Read my full review here.

Foundational Texts

These are book that, while not groundbreaking in their implications, lay a foundation for a new way to think about and practice youth ministry.

Contemplative Youth MinistryContemplative Youth Ministry, by Mark Yaconelli. Yaconelli’s book reminds us that the main goal of youth ministry is the spiritual formation of young people. If that is the case, perhaps the way we do youth ministry should look a little bit more… spiritual. Yaconelli lays the groundwork for why this is so important and then gives examples of how some churches and ministries have embraced the idea of contemplative youth ministry.

Postmodern Youth Ministry

Practicing Passion

Youth Ministry 3.0

Youth Ministry Nuts and Bolts

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

Sustainable Youth Ministry

Short & Sweet – Great for Youth Ministry Teams

Relationships Unfiltered

The Perfect Program

Theology, Spirituality, & Discipleship

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Cost of Discipleship

Comments

  1. First Mount Zion Baptist Church says

    September 28, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    These books seem the greatest way to think about the youth ministry. It’s a groundbreaking research study on the religiosity for teenagers

    Reply

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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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