Rebuilding Youth Ministry

Rebuilding Youth Ministry
Author: Christopher Wesley
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2015-03-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594715777

Christopher Wesley is on the front lines of youth ministry. He’s been in the parish trenches, refocusing an unpopular youth program and making it one where teens feel connected, stay involved, and grow in faith. In Rebuilding Youth Ministry, Wesley offers ten indispensable strategies to help you make your youth programs just as successful. Wesley coaches fellow Catholic ministry leaders on how to overcome common hurdles of ministering to young people. Wesley shares how he faced feelings of complacency, underestimated youth, and entertained rather than ministered in his own parish. Wesley built a distinctive program based on small group faith formation and sustained it with the assistance of more than sixty volunteer adult mentors. Wesley lays out ten strategies that helped grow participation in his high school program from nine teens to ninety and the middle school program from forty teens to eighty-five, including: Making your youth program about more than pizza; Pursuing authentic relationships between small groups and mentors; Shaping a dynamic youth ministry team; and Creating a space that’s welcoming to teens.

Rebuilt

Rebuilt
Author: Michael White
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594713871

Drawing on the wisdom gleaned from thriving mega-churches and innovative business leaders while anchoring their vision in the Eucharistic center of Catholic faith, Fr. Michael White and lay associate Tom Corcoran present the compelling and inspiring story to how they brought their parish back to life. Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter is a story of stopping everything and changing focus. When their parish reached a breaking point, White and Corcoran asked themselves how they could make the Church matter to Catholics, and they realized the answer was at the heart of the Gospel. Their faithful response not only tripled their weekend mass attendance, but also yielded increased giving, flourishing ministries, and a vibrant, solidly Catholic spiritual revival. White and Corcoran invite all Catholic leaders to share the vision, borrow their strategies, and rebuild their own parishes. They offer a wealth of guidance for anyone with the courage to hear them.

Rebuilding Confirmation

Rebuilding Confirmation
Author: Christopher Wesley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Church work with teenagers
ISBN: 9781594715853

All too often, the sacrament of Confirmation feels like a graduation from religious obligation, according to Christopher Wesley, former director of student ministry at Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland. In Rebuilding Confirmation, Wesley shares how to reimagine Confirmation preparation in new or existing programs so that teens will become active members of the Church. At Church of the Nativity, Christopher Wesley created a Confirmation program that uses parish-selected mentors and small faith-formation groups to provide teens with an intensely transformative encounter with Christ and the Church. Instead of teens seeing the sacrament as the end of faith formation and weekly Mass attendance, they are becoming engaged in the life of the Church. Wesley's story, vision, and rock-solid advice will strengthen your existing program or help you create a strong framework upon which to build a new one. He will show you how to create a ministry of witness and support to accompany youth as they prepare for Confirmation. Rebuilding Confirmation is perfect for use with existing middle or high school Confirmation programs, including popular curriculum-based programs such as Chosen, Decision Point, and Called to Mercy. You will learn: How to create a Confirmation program that is anchored by small groups and parish-selected mentors; Practical solutions to systemic problems such as having an unclear purpose and treating preparation for the sacrament as just more schooling; How to recruit and train adult volunteers; How to work with parents and win their support; How to screen and select Confirmation candidates who are truly ready to commit; and How to advocate for your program and youth within the wider parish community. Wesley offers fixes for the structures and habits that fail youth in many Catholic parishes, shares his own successes and failures, and provides great ideas and practical tools to help the newly confirmed set a course for their future in the Church.

Building a Youth Ministry that Builds Disciples

Building a Youth Ministry that Builds Disciples
Author: Duffy Robbins
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-01-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 031089073X

While most youth pastors are being regularly evaluated (or even scrutinized) for what they’re doing right now in the youth group, the reality is that the most important thing they are doing won’t actually be evident until much later. That’s because the biggest challenge for any youth ministry is helping teens embrace a whole-hearted devotion to God that lasts far beyond their years in the youth room. Unfortunately, much of youth ministry seems to be designed on the model of setting teenagers up for a “date” with God—a delightful evening that involves music, laughter, food, and light conversation. But what scripture calls us to is not a “one-night stand” with God, but a lifelong love of God that endures.Youth ministry educator and veteran, Duffy Robbins, offers youth workers a blueprint for building that kind of faith in teenagers. In this concise book, ideal for busy youth workers, they’ll be equipped to build a youth ministry that instills that lasting faith in its students.

Youth Ministry in the 21st Century (Youth, Family, and Culture)

Youth Ministry in the 21st Century (Youth, Family, and Culture)
Author: Chap Clark
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441227881

There are many philosophies and strategies that drive today's youth ministry. To most people, they are variations on a single goal: to make faithful disciples of young people. However, digging deeper into various programs, books, and concepts reveals substantive differences among approaches. Bestselling author Chap Clark is one of the leading voices in youth ministry today. In this multiview work, he brings together a diverse group of leaders to present major views on youth ministry. Chapters are written in essay/response fashion by Fernando Arzola, Greg Stier, Ron Hunter, Brian Cosby, and Chap Clark. As the contributors present their views and respond to each of the other views, they discuss their task and calling, giving readers the resources they need to develop their own approach to youth ministry. Offering a model of critical thinking and respectful dialogue, this volume provides a balanced, irenic approach to a topic with which every church wrestles.

Tools for Rebuilding

Tools for Rebuilding
Author: Michael White
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2013-11-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1594714452

Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran know that the fundamental work of the Church is to evangelize—to introduce people to Christ and make them disciples. Still, they’re the first to admit: “the difficulty comes when we reach down into the details and get to work.” In their barn-burning first book, Rebuilt, White and Corcoran shared their story and vision of building better Catholic parishes. Now, in their eagerly anticipated second book, Tools for Rebuilding, they lay out seventy-five proven tactics for getting the job done. In Tools for Rebuilding: 75 Really, Really Practical Ways to Make Your Parish Better, White and Corcoran share seventy-five foundational tactics that helped to rejuvenate their parish. Their candid, hands-on advice gives a clear way forward—one that will make church matter to the people in the pews and that anyone working in parish ministry can implement. Principles/tactics include: Get the Right People on the Bus Christmas Is Over, So Throw Out the Dead Poinsettias Stop Advertising (Other People’s Stuff) in Your Bulletin Don’t Let the Insiders Take All the Good Seats Just Because It’s Slow Doesn’t Mean It’s Holy When It Comes to First Communion, Just Surrender Funerals Are Scud Missiles Preach the Announcements Start Getting Rid of Fundraisers Everything Takes Longer (Than You Think) Pastor, It’s Not All About You Stop Trying to Make People Go to Church and Make Church Matter

Family-Based Youth Ministry

Family-Based Youth Ministry
Author: Mark DeVries
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004-04-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780830832439

Mark DeVries offers an approach that brings teens into one-to-one relationship with older Christians; involves the whole church family from singles to seniors; and frees pastors and leaders from worrying about attendance, budget and competition with other programs.

Building Youth Ministry

Building Youth Ministry
Author: Alva Barry Gane
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1997
Genre: Church work with youth
ISBN: 9780944450314

Targets local congregations, church youth leaders, directors of youth education, religion teachers, and youth professionals, and gives them an abundance of information that will help rebuild ministry from the bottom up.

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry
Author: Doug Fields
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310569974

Since forever altering the course of the youth ministry world with his best-selling, groundbreaking book, Purpose-Driven® Youth Ministry, Doug Fields’ mind—but especially his heart—has been focused on the many unique needs of new youth workers.Doug translated his passion, insight, and vision for his beloved “rookies” into what you’re now reading, Your Fist Two Years in Youth Ministry—hands-down the most comprehensive companion to not only surviving, but also thriving, during the most crucial phase of youth ministry. Employing his renowned wisdom and humor—as if you and Doug were chatting over a long, relaxing meal—the author disarmingly relates stories and principles from his own successes and failures over 20-plus years in youth ministry. In the end, he offers treasure troves of practical advice, all in the hope that new youth workers can travel a smoother path and achieve real longevity in a church culture that all too often chews them and spits them out.Doug covers all-important issues such as:· Dealing with discouragement· Establishing a solid spiritual foundation· Building effective relationships with students· Resolving conflict· Ministering to parents and families· Trailblazing change· Working with volunteers· Defining a realistic job description· And many others!In addition, a chorus of insightful sidebar voices joins your conversation with Doug, among them ministry veterans Jim Burns, Steve Gerali, Mike Yaconelli, Helen Musick, Chap Clark, Marv Penner, Rick Warren, Jana L. Sundene, Bo Boshers, Duffy Robbins, Tony Campolo, and Richard Ross, all who’ve composed extensive, topical essays for each of the dozen chapters.Your First Two Years of Youth Ministry is a must-have tool for new youth workers, volunteers, seminary professors and students, senior pastors, elders, church boards—even veteran youth workers who’ve been ministering in unstructured environments and are now asking, “What did I miss? What can I still learn?”The first two years of youth ministry are never easy. But never fear. Doug fervently assures us: “Hang on. Hope’s coming!”

This Way to Youth Ministry

This Way to Youth Ministry
Author: Duffy Robbins
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2009-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310835607

A FIELD GUIDE TO THE WILD LIFE OF YOUTH MINISTRY Youth Ministry. It’s quite an idea so much bigger than two words. One part odyssey, one part call, one part mission, and one part quest, youth ministry calls us into places of breathless exhilaration, stunning beauty, genuine peril, and unknown discovery. This is not terrain for the faint of heart. But it is a landscape of grace and wonder. This Way to Youth Ministry is the most complete academic text for those who might be called to such a journey. Thirty-year youth ministry veteran Duffy Robbins explores the theology, theory, and practice of youth ministry and helps you discover how to: Identify your calling to ministry Cultivate the traits and training that make a good youth pastor Set boundaries and maintain priorities Understand the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical development on adolescents Navigate youth culture and postmodernism Understand youth ministry in relation to the rest of the Church Develop a team of volunteers who will walk the journey with you Develop and apply a personalized ministry philosophy With just the right mix of theory and application, this extensive academic text shows you both the big picture and the close-up details of making ministry work. Whether your journey is just beginning or well under way, This Way to Youth Ministry is the book that will help with everything that lies ahead.