Book Review: Hurt, by Chap Clark
"The foreign and seemingly hostile world of adolescents."Chap Clark, associate professor of youth, family and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, saw what few adults are ever privileged to see: the real subterranean world that teenagers today inhabit. In his book Hurt, which has challenged and changed youth workers all over the country, Chap Clark presents his case for understanding middle adolescents today. This is the best book for the intersection of sociology and ministry, and thought it's an academic book, it's written in a very accessible style.
This book is divided up into three parts, with appendices: Part I, The Changing Adolescent World; Part II, The Landscape of the World Beneath; and Part III, Where Do We Go from Here?. Appendix A directly applies the content of the book to the work of youth ministry and Appendix B explains the scholarly apparatus that framed his sociological research of midadolescence.
Chap Clark spent months working at a public high school as a substitute teacher and researcher. The students, faculty and administration all knew that he was gathering information and most cooperated. Through interviews, interactions and even surveys, Clark began to see what forms the foundation of current youth culture: systemic abandonment.
Abortion, Aggression and Libertarianism
Libertarians would seem like natural allies of the preborn. The fundamental principle from which libertarianism is deduced is non-aggression axiom. This axiom is simple: it is never right to commit aggression (violence) against another person, except in the case of self-defense. Common sense would seem to dictate, then, that abortion, the most grievous kind of aggression, would be opposed, but that is not the case for the majority of libertarians.
The Libertarian Party platform itself is pro-choice, saying the government has no place intervening between the woman and her womb's occupant. It's a private matter, they say, and a woman has the right to her own body, ignoring the claims of the preborn person to life, liberty and his/her own bodily integrity.
Book Review: Growing Souls, by Mark Yaconelli
This book is the professional follow-up to Mark Yaconelli's Contemplative Youth Ministry, detailing the development of contemplative youth ministries throughout the U.S. This book is a collection of stories, insights, 
A collection of stories, experiences, conversations, and insights from experiments in contemplative youth ministryfailures and successes from actual churches and communities that have experimented in contemplative prayer and action.
Why this book is important. Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and author, once remarked: "Contemplation cannot be taught. It cannot even be clearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized."
Mark Yaconelli structures this book by finally realizing this fact, for he often tried "to explain, teach, measure, and systematize... but that's not how Christianity works."
Book Review: Contemplative Youth Ministry, by Mark Yaconelli
"Jesus makes us uncomfortable, causes us to question our daily practices... When kids learn to live in the Spirit of Jesus, they may...become outcasts."If the angel Gabriel said to me, "Mike, you can only have one youth ministry book for the rest of your life", then this book would be the one I'd choose. Never has a ministry book done more for me personally and in ministry then this one. It's an eye-opening, soul-searching, peace-seeking summons that strikes at the root of what is going in our ministries and what's going on in our ministers.
Contemplative Youth Ministry is all about reestablishing intimate communion with Jesus and to minister from there.
Too many of us have bought into the gimmicky, flashy side of youth ministry (BIGNESS!), and have forgotten its connection to theological living, to contemplative action. For many people, contemplation and teenagers don't really seem to mesh well, but this is simply because we have not been daring enough to create a culture of silence, solitude and stillness in our youth groups, at our weekly sessions or in our big events.
passing thoughts: reculturing parishes
I recently had lunch with a friend of mine, Ennie Hickman of the Hickman Family and Adore Ministries here in Houston. Besides playing catch up in each other's lives, we spent a lot of the time asking questions and thinking crazy thoughts about what would make ministry- especially youth and young adult ministry- better, more effective, more lasting. This was primarily a conversation about dreaming and, to steal the cliche, "thinking outside of the box."
The "box" in this case was parish-based ministries.
Why the Box may not be enough. As the priest crisis continues in the U.S. we are seeing nervous bishops doing some extreme things to keep their churches in order, sometimes making very unpopular decisions, like closing and consolidating churches. With fewer priests to go around, the Church is tasking deacons to take over more priestly functions. Rising also in this environment is lay ministry, people from the pews getting theology degrees and pastoral training in order fill in the gaps. There are an explosion of national organizations that are there to assist weary pastors in their work of evangelization and catechesis.