The End of Youth Ministry?: Why Parents Don't Really Care about Youth Groups and What Youth Workers Should Do about It

by Andrew Root

Overview

What is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root, a leading scholar in youth ministry and practical theology, went on a one-year journey to answer these questions. In this book, Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century.

Informed by interviews that Root conducted with parents, this book explores how parents' perspectives of what constitutes a good life are affecting youth ministry. In today's culture, youth ministry can't compete with sports, test prep, and the myriad other activities in which young people participate. Through a unique parable-style story, Root offers a new way to think about the purpose of youth ministry: not happiness, but joy. Joy is a sense of experiencing the good. For youth ministry to be about joy, it must move beyond the youth group model and rework the assumptions of how identity and happiness are imagined by parents in American society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781540961396
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/17/2020
Series:	Theology for the Life of the World
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	647,193
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has written extensively about youth ministry. He is the author of numerous books, including Faith Formation in a Secular Age, The Pastor in a Secular Age, Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker, The Children of Divorce, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, and Relationships Unfiltered, and the coauthor (with Kenda Creasy Dean) of The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry.

Table of Contents

Contents
Warning for the Reader! (Read before Using)
1. Toward a Journey to Joy
Late March
2. Don't Waste Your Life: Youth Ministry and the Good Life
September
3. Are the Kids OK? Goods and Youth Ministry
September
4. Three Sets of Parents: Things and Happiness Emerge
Late October
5. Identity, Part 1: A Dance Party, Demi Lovato, and the Internal Quest
Late October
6. Transformation in Youth Ministry
Late March
7. Identity, Part 2: Romance, Recognition, and Resentment
Late October
8. Happiness, Part 1: Powerball, Endgames, and Sheryl Crow versus Taylor Swift
From Winter to Spring Break
9. When Goods Become the Good
Late March
10. Happiness, Part 2: Holiness, Virtue, and Luther's Freak-Out
The End of Spring Break
11. Joy and the Custodian: What Youth Ministry Is For
Late March
12. Borne Burdens: Youth Ministry and Stories of Joy
Late March
13. Open Takes and Closed Spins: Youth Ministry and Transcendence
Late March
14. An Identity Event: How Youth Ministry Affects Identity
Mid-April
15. Holding Vigil: Youth Ministry and Cruciform Practices
May
Conclusion: Friendship and DQ
May