by David Hanson | Jan 8, 2015 | On the Job, The Youth Ministry Blog
As we open the doors to 2015, it’s time to think about how we will grow and expand our understanding of youth ministry. Each year, I like to make a list of books that I plan to read. This list includes books I already own, books I still need to buy, books that haven’t come out yet, and books that have been out for years.
This list isn’t exhaustive. I pray I get the opportunity to read more than five books in 2015, but these are simply five youth ministry books in my reading queue. My youth ministry launch pad for 2015. But to be fair, they aren’t all necessarily directed at youth ministry…what?! Yes, that’s right, youth pastors can learn about youth ministry from books not about youth ministry!
If you have read these, I would love to hear your thoughts. If you haven’t, take a look and see if they deserve your time as well!
Here are 5 Youth Ministry Books for 2015:
1. Youth Ministry in Post-Christian World by Brock Morgan
Per Amazon: “Youth Ministry in a Post-Christian World is the collection of humble, story-driven, pragmatic and Jesus-focused reflections of a fellow youth worker forced to reconsider everything he knew about youth ministry: everything except the gospel, that is.”
2. Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence by Laurence Steinberg
Per Amazon: “In Age of Opportunity, Steinberg leads readers through a host of new findings — including groundbreaking original research — that reveal what the new timetable of adolescence means for parenting 13-year-olds (who may look more mature than they really are) versus 20-somethings (who may not be floundering even when it looks like they are). He also explains how the plasticity of the adolescent brain, rivaling that of years 0 through 3, suggests new strategies for instilling self-control during the teenage years. Packed with useful knowledge, Age of Opportunity is a sweeping book in the tradition of Reviving Ophelia, and an essential guide for parents and educators of teenagers.“
3. Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker: A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together by Andrew Root
Per Amazon: “The youth ministry focus of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life is often forgotten or overlooked, even though he did much work with young people and wrote a number of papers, sermons, and addresses about or for the youth of the church. However, youth ministry expert Andrew Root explains that this focus is central to Bonhoeffer’s story and thought. Root presents Bonhoeffer as the forefather and model of the growing theological turn in youth ministry. By linking contemporary youth workers with this epic theologian, the author shows the depth of youth ministry work and underscores its importance in the church. He also shows how Bonhoeffer’s life and thought impact present-day youth ministry practice.“
4. Hopecasting: Finding, Keeping, and Sharing the Things Unseen by Mark Oestreicher
Per Amazon: “Why are some people full of hope, while many of us struggle to get past the snooze alarm? Hope often seems elusive—both to explain and to experience. So we find ourselves instead clinging to lesser substitutes. From self-medication to lazy clichés, we apply these balms to our pain and experience little to no comfort. But we know, in our guts, that these replacements aren’t the hope-filled lives we long for, the lives we were made for. Mark Oestreicher gets it. Through hard-wrought experience and robust-bordering-on-desperate theological reflection, he offers here a fresh perspective on Hope, that virtue that God carries to us even as God carries us. Read Hopecasting and discover a good God casting hope your way.“
5. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City by Timothy Keller
Per Amazon: “In Center Church, Timothy Keller offers challenging insights and provocative questions based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City. This book outlines a theological vision for ministry – applying classic doctrines to our time and place – organized around three core commitments: • Gospel-centered: The gospel of grace in Jesus Christ changes everything, from our hearts to our community to the world. It completely reshapes the content, tone and strategy of all that we do. • City-centered: With a positive approach toward our culture, we learn to affirm that cities are wonderful, strategic and underserved places for gospel ministry. • Movement-centered: Instead of building our own tribe, we seek the prosperity and peace of our community as we are led by the Holy Spirit.“
What’s on your youth ministry reading list for 2015? Comment Below!
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at LifePoint Church in Plano, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
[/guestpost]
by David Hanson | Jan 6, 2015 | On the Job, The Youth Ministry Blog
It’s that time of year again! It’s time to dream, plan, and schedule what the coming year will look like in your youth ministry. Every year, I progress through the same routine to ensure that I’m operating at the top of my game for the glory of God.
This routine involves creating 3 different calendars. Watch this video I made last year that explains how you can crush 2015 and make it your most productive year yet:
Get My Ideal Work Week (Excel File)
Thanks Michael Hyatt for the new template!
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at LifePoint Church in Plano, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
[/guestpost]
by David Hanson | Dec 22, 2014 | The Youth Ministry Blog, Youth Ministry Videos
We don’t talk about suffering very much in Youth Ministry. More specifically, we don’t talk about suffering as Youth Pastors.
Sure we make silly jokes about not being taken seriously, or getting paid less than everyone else, but rarely do we talk about suffering IN THE MINISTRY.
So for this edition of Video Monday, I wanted to share this video I recently came across about suffering as a leader by Matt Chandler in his talk at Catalyst 2014. He has a few really good one-liners in there that we in youth ministry can take to heart:
“God’s at work in the mess.”
“Following Jesus can end badly.”
“The man goes in the ground, the message moves on.”
Take a watch:
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at LifePoint Church in Plano, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
[/guestpost]
by David Hanson | Dec 20, 2014 | On the Job, The Youth Ministry Blog
Unless you have been on Sabbatical, like me, then you have undoubtedly heard your students talking about the #1 App in both the Free and Paid Categories on iOS and Android.
Meet Trivia Crack. In Trivia Crack you spin a wheel and try to answer three trivia questions so that you can answer a fourth question and earn one of the six needed characters to win. Sound confusing? It’s actually simple and addicting…check it out.
As I was playing Trivia Crack, and really when I’m doing anything, I asked myself: “what can I learn from this?” After running out of hearts and having to wait 30 minutes to play again…I came up with 4 things Youth Ministry can learn from Trivia Crack:
-
Students like competition. In competition…people lose.
One of my biggest pet peeves in youth ministry is “everyone’s a winner.” I hate when youth ministry games end with “everyone wins!” And if I’m being honest, I’ve done it a few times myself as not to break the heart of a puppy-eyed 6th grader. But it’s my firm belief that we are doing students a disservice by letting them always win.
Why? Because they will experience this nowhere in life after high school and it distorts their understanding of pain and suffering. If students believe they are suppose to “win” at everything, what happens the first time they experience failure in their pursuit of Christ? Or, what happens when God uses struggle to grow them, but they completely miss the lesson of the journey because the end result doesn’t look they way thought it would?
By allowing our students to lose, and encouraging them in their pursuit, we can teach them the beauty of failure, and force them to reflect on the One who has overcome.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33
-
Students like validation…even if it’s in the form of a cartoon character.
There is this sense of validation whenever you answer four correct trivia questions and receive a small cartoon character. Why? Because we all like recognition and praise for our successes. While it might sound like I’m talking out both sides of my mouth after that last point about letting students lose, I think youth workers need to up their game when it comes to random encouragement.
When is the last time you intentionally reached out to a student just to validate their pursuit of Christ. I’m not talking about congratulating them after a game, performance or at graduation; I’m talking about in the middle of a week where nothing spectacular has happened. You would be surprised at the confidence capital that is built through a simple, “I truly see Christ working in you, and I just wanted to say I’m proud of you.”
If Trivia Crack is building confidence in teenagers, how much more should the church?
“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:11
-
Students are capable of learning…so challenge them.
While some of the questions on Trivia Crack are incredibly easy, others are quite difficult. So just when we thought students didn’t like extra homework, they seem to be blindly consuming tests and quizzes because it’s in the form of a trivia game!
This should remind us that students are far more capable than we give them credit for. Yes they can be extremely apathetic, but they are capable nonetheless. So let’s set the bar high. Let’s ask hard questions. Let’s expect students to retain what we are teaching them.
Which leads me to a follow up question: How are you helping students retain the lessons you teach each week? There is nothing more depressing than asking a room full of students what you talked about last week and having no response! Find a system that reminds the students what you learned and then be prepared to push retention with follow-up questions the following week.
-
If you’re not patient, you’ll pay for it.
If you’ve played the free version of Trivia Crack, then you know that after your hearts (sessions played) runs out, you have to wait 30 minutes before you can play again. This has become common in free competition apps and is possibly one of the most brilliant and frustrating tactics invented!
But they will not break me! I refuse to give in and pay for the “paid” version or buy any “in-app purchases” that give extra tries! If you are not patient, you’ll pay for it.
This holds true in youth ministry as well:
If you’re not patient with a student through their rebellion…you’ll pay.
If you’re not patient with parents…you’ll pay.
If you’re not patient with volunteers…you’ll pay.
If you’re not patient with other ministries in the church…you’ll pay.
If you’re not patient in your youth ministry tenure…you’ll pay.
And yes…somehow all of this came out of playing Trivia Crack…
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at LifePoint Church in Plano, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
[/guestpost]
by David Hanson | Dec 19, 2014 | The Youth Ministry Blog, Theology
In the spirit of Christmas, I thought I would share some quotes from men far more theologically advanced than myself. Each of these quotes reflect some element of Christmas, Advent, or the Incarnation.
Reading these will help ground us in the meaning and purpose of Christmas. Enjoy!
Barth On the Incarnation:
Of the incarnation of the Word of God we may truly say both that in the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit and His birth of the Virgin Mary it was a completed and perfect fact, yet also that it was continually worked out in His whole existence and is not therefore exhausted in any sense in the special event of Christmas with which it began. The truth conveyed by the first conception is that the formation and ordering of the flesh in the flesh is represented in the New Testament as a procedure which unfolded itself as it did with a necessity originally imposed upon Jesus. “I have meat to eat that ye know not of .… My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (Jn. 4:32f.). “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Lk. 2:49). He must work the works of Him that sent Him, while it is day (Jn. 9:4). He must be lifted up from the earth (Jn. 3:14; 12:34). He must go to Jerusalem, to suffer many things, and be killed, and rise again, as the Synoptic predictions of the passion repeatedly say. This is the necessity of His action given at the beginning in the person of Jesus—the incarnation as an already completed fact.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2, 337
Athanasius on the Incarnation:
“The body of the Word, then, being a real human body, in spite of its having been uniquely formed from a virgin, was of itself mortal and, like other bodies, liable to death. But the indwelling of the Word loosed it from this natural liability, so that corruption could not touch it. Thus is happened that two opposite marvels took place at once: the death of all was consummated in the Lord’s body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished.”
Athanasius of Alexandria, The Incarnation of the Word of God
Luther On Christmas:
The right and gracious faith which God demands is, that you firmly believe that Christ is born for you, and that this birth took place for your welfare. The Gospel teaches that Christ was born, and that he died and suffered everything in our behalf, as is here declared by the angel: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” In these words you clearly see that he is born for us.
Martin Luther, The Sermons of Martin Luther, volume I:134-160
Augustine on Christmas:
Awake, mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake, God became man.
You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost if he had not hastened ‘to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come.
Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time.
Saint Augustine of Hippo, (Sermo 185: PL 38, 997-999)
Bonhoeffer On Advent:
“…And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas
Click Share or Tweet below to pass on the Christmas Cheer!
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at LifePoint Church in Plano, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
[/guestpost]
