MattCleaver.com

Reimagining Youth Ministry

  • Home
  • Youth Ministry has Failed
  • Best Youth Ministry Books
  • Church Websites
  • Contact Me

Want a Free Theological Resource for Ministry?

Last Updated April 14, 2009 by Matt 4 Comments

Free Resource

Suggest an idea in the comments for a free theological ministry resource

My current online course at Luther Seminary is “Overview of Christian Teaching,” an introductory theology class. As part of our final project we can either take an exam, write a 9-12 page paper, or do some project that can be used in ministry (bible study, activity, retreat, powerpoint presentation, website, confirmation lesson or curriculum, etc.)

I would like to try and do the project if possible and would like your input. If you could get yout hands on a robustly theological resource, what would you be looking for? What format? What topic? What age group (I work with junior high and high school but would be interested in doing something for college students or adults as well)? Have you ever bought a theological resource for use in ministry and were disappointed? What would have made it better?

Note that the paper option is in the 9-12 range, so the project itself might not be able to be too in depth, but only provide a snippet of the overall resource (i.e. an outline of a 10-week teaching series with two lessons written out in full). But if I like the topic I might go ahead and finish it out. When I do, I will post it for free for anyone to use.

We are using Roger Olson’s Mosaic of Christian Belief as the basic text, and he uses the following chapters (to help spur your thinking about possible topics–but be creative if you want to go outside the box):

  1. Christian Belief: Unity and Diversity
  2. Sources and Norms of Christian Belief: One and Many
  3. Divine Revelation: Universal and Particular
  4. Christian Scripture: Divine Word and Human Words
  5. God: Great and Good
  6. God: Three and One
  7. Creation:Good and Fallen
  8. Providence: Limited and Detailed
  9. Humanity: Essentially Good and Essentially Estranged
  10. Jesus Christ: God and Man
  11. Salvation: Objective and Subjective
  12. Salvation: Gift and Task
  13. The Church: Visible and Invisible
  14. Life Beyond Death: Continuity and Discontinuity
  15. The Kingdom of God: Already and Not Yet

Leave me a comment of something that might be helpful for you in your ministry.

I would appreciate a tweet about this if you are on Twitter.

Filed Under: Seminary, Theology, Youth Ministry Tagged With: free, resource

About Matt

Matt Cleaver has written since 2004 on youth ministry, theology, and the church. His blog was ranked by Youth Specialties as a Top 20 Youth Ministry Blog. Click here for Matt's list of the Best Youth Ministry Books.

Comments

  1. Westin says

    April 14, 2009 at 10:57 am

    I think a topic that covers the difficulties of faith would be worthwhile. I feel like many times we are made to feel that questioning God is a heretical activity and has no place in a “proper” faith/relationship with him. People have doubts and concerns, and I would think that it’s healthy to actually talk about what those might be, rather than sweeping them aside in favor of high praise.

    To make a truly strong case for anything (or anyone), if you want to get beyond superficiality, I think it’s important to include difficult aspects of accepting that case. I think faith can become that much stronger if it can stand in the face of questions and doubt.

    Practical application is something I’m always looking for when it comes to faith/religion as well. For someone who is lost or needs direction, it can often be very helpful to offer practical advice on how to seek God. This is obviously difficult, since everyone follows his own path and has his own internal methods, but some ideas may be useful. Perhaps a series of interviews in which different people give their own accounts of how they personally see/feel God in everyday life?

    Reply
    • Matt says

      April 15, 2009 at 4:14 pm

      These are good thoughts. I know this would be a valuable resource. I wonder if I could mold this in such a way as to fit the necessary boundaries of this assignment. I’m going to think about this some more.

      Reply
  2. Tom Schwolert says

    April 21, 2009 at 8:05 pm

    How about at “Theology Matters” short course for youth. Even “what is theology and why does it matter?” type of thing. We are teaching theology all the time to youth but they don’t really know it.

    Reply
    • Matt says

      April 21, 2009 at 8:40 pm

      Well, too late. I copped out and went the easy way out. I didn’t get inspired to do anything that I was really excited about, so I chose the exam, since I think it will be the least time-consuming.

      But I do like the idea. I might do it anyways.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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 […]

You can find my new blog on philosophy and teaching at MattCleaver.com

Search

Archives

Categories

  • Best Youth Ministry Books (4)
  • Blogging (42)
  • Blogroll (1)
  • Book Reviews (17)
  • Books (32)
  • Christianity (50)
  • Ecclesiology (52)
  • emerging church (13)
  • Featured (8)
  • Links (27)
  • Ministry (4)
  • Neo-Youth Ministry (8)
  • News (25)
  • Personal (69)
  • Podcast (4)
  • Quotes (14)
  • Random (43)
  • Seminary (16)
  • Theology (48)
  • Uncategorized (50)
  • Websites (15)
  • WordPress (1)
  • Youth Ministry (149)

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in