Till Christ Be Formed in Every Heart

Book Reviews

Here you will find books in ministry and evangelization that I think are relevant to the New Evangelization in the Catholic Church.

Posts tagged Contemplation
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."

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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.

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