Here are five books written by YTN partners sharing their years of experience working with discerning high school students.
Liberating Youth from Adolescence by Jeremy Myers, Augsburg College
Jeremy Paul Myers, a seasoned expert in youth and family ministry, calls the church to challenge the dominant societal view of adolescents as “underdeveloped consumers” who can only contribute creatively when they mature into adulthood. Myers argues that young people are innately creative creatures called by God to love and serve right now. We need to see young people as the called cocreators (with God) that they are.
Find Your Place in God’s Mission by Jeremiah Gibbs, University of Indianapolis
Find clarity about how God has uniquely gifted you to participate in God’s ongoing mission for the sake of the world. This book provides a structure and step-by-step guide for discerning God’s calling and corrects misconceptions. Gibbs provides guidance and helps organize discernment into three intersecting categories: needs of the world, passions, and tools.
Youth Ministry as Peace Education by Beth Corrie, Candler School of Theology
Young people can be peacebuilders—citizens who address the root causes of hatred and abuse of power to build more just and peaceful communities. Indeed, young people are already leading movements to change policy and culture—most prominently, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Climate Strikers, and the originators of the Standing Rock protests and Black Lives Matter movement. Yet churches are notably absent among those who support and mentor such leaders.
Drawing on the deep wisdom of Christian tradition and practice and the latest insights in educating for peace and civic engagement, Youth Ministry as Peace Education offers clergy, students, and practitioners a new approach to youth ministry—a way to equip young people to transform violence and oppression as part of their Christian vocation.
Raising Hope: Four Paths to Courageous Living for Black Youth by Anne E. Streaty Wimberly, Interdenominational Theological Center, and Sarah Farmer, Indiana Wesleyan University
Move from courage to hope to courageous hope in action. This book gives tried-and-true methods to effectively reach out to Black youth and motivate them to make healthier choices that promise positive outcomes. Written especially for pastors, teachers, leaders, and counselors, Wimberly and Farmer give new and powerful ways to become agents of hope who truly hear Black youth.
Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry by Fred Edie, Duke University Divinity School
This book gives youth, youth ministers, congregational leaders, and seminary students ideas for and suggestions on how to practice the liturgical holy things of the ordo - the ancient church’s life “ordered” around its liturgical “holy things” - bath (Baptism); book (Scriptures); table (Eucharist); calendar (the prayerful patterning of time) - in order to provide the church with a faithful ecology of life that is capable of forming Christian youth who experience God’s presence, identify God rightly, and take up their baptismal vocations before God and for the world.