Sunday, January 22, 2012

Top Ten Youth Ministry Books of All Time

I got to do some research today to put together a top ten list for youth ministry books. I sorted through lists from as many places as I could find and came down to the following ten books which seem to be on everyone's list. I find it very interesting that Kenda Creasy-Dean (3 books...she has a fourth that didn't quite make the list too) and Doug Fields (2 books) make up 50% of the list! Definitely says something about their writing and influence in the youth ministry world.

10. Almost Christian
by Kenda Creasy-Dean


9. Youth Ministry 3.0
by Mark Oestreicher


8. Soul Searching
by Christian Smith


7. Your First Two Years of Youth Ministry
by Doug Fields


6. Postmodern Youth Ministry
by Tony Jones



5. Youth Culture 101
by Walt Mueller


4. Starting Right
by Kenda Creasy-Dean, Chap Clark and Dave Rahn


3. The Godbearing Life
by Kenda Creasy-Dean & Ron Foster


And tied in first being listed on pretty much every list I looked at:

Sustainable Youth Ministry
by Mark DeVries


Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
by Doug Fields


Honorable Mentions (listed more than once): Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy-Dean, Jesus Centered Youth Ministry by Rick Lawrence and The Ministry of Nurture by Duffy Robbins.
Posted by at 2:28 PM

3 comments:

  1. Great list and I definitely love Doug Fields' books. I haven't even heard of a few of these but i will check them out. Thanks for compiling and sharing. I would add Sticky Faith to the list by Kara Powell.

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  2. The list above is compiled based on multiple other lists and what books were mentioned the most. Thus, because Sticky Faith is newer it was only mentioned on one list that was done more recently. Definitely a great read though!

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  3. Jake, a couple of things to consider:

    1) Top books "of all time"? I think you suffer from the problem of being too young. :-) All of the books you list have been published since 1998. Youth ministry has been around a lot longer than the last 13 years, and there were many books written prior to 1998 that profoundly influenced several generations of youth workers (including all of the above writers). These would include (by date): "The Ministry of Nurture" by Duffy Robbins (1990), "The Youth Builder" by Jim Burns (1988), "Effective Youth Ministry" by Roland Martinson (1988), "The Complete book of Youth Ministry" by Benson and Senter (1987), "Youth, Gospel, Liberation" by Michael Warren (1987), and the granddaddy of them all, "Youth Ministry" by Larry Richards (1972). These books helped pave the way for youth ministry as we understand it today, and many of their principles are still widely used.

    2) At the Association of Youth Ministry Educators conference in Fall 2011, Dr. Terry Linhart did an analysis of the books profs used in their youth ministry classes. While most of the above books (1-5, 7-8, and 10) appeared, there were several others that were deemed as indispensable to good youth ministry. These include: "This Way to Youth Ministry" by Duffy Robbins, "Hurt 2.0" by Chap Clark, "Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry" by Andrew Root, "When God Shows Up" by Mark Senter, and "The Youth Worker's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis" by VanPelt and Hancock.

    3) What is perhaps most fascinating to me about all these books is they are all focused on an aspect of youth ministry theology and programming. Nowhere in this mix is there a single book related to the youth minister her/himself. There's the occasional chapter in a few of the books that speaks to the importance of one's heart condition, but nothing that is focused on the overall life (spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, relationally, etc.) of the youth worker.

    Thanks for taking the time to collate this information. It will be helpful to many people, I'm sure.

    Grateful,
    Jim Hampton

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