"Contemplative Youth Ministry"

by Mark Yaconelli

Reviewed by Murray Brown

“Contemplative youth ministry? That’s using silence, meditation, candles and incense isn’t it?”

If that was your first thoughts on seeing the title of this book, you are not alone. But that is NOT what this book is primarily about. Yes it may lead to programmes that includes these elements but as the book itself shows in the final case studies, it may also lead to baking, skateboarding and bowling! You see this book is not about programmes but about philosophy.

Throughout its pages the author outlines a whole philosophical approach to youth ministry - a philosophy that is not primarily about leaders or young people determining what should happen within a youth ministry. Instead it emphasises a contemplative approach among leadership that seeks to discover where the Spirit of God is already at work in the lives of young people and then to follow His Spirit in the process of discipling them.

Yaconelli begins by arguing that the lack of effective youth ministry can be put down to three things:
- We don’t know how to be with kids
- We don’t know how to be with ourselves
- We don’t know how to be with God.

What follows is both a call and a method to accomplishing all three. It covers practical issues such as, how to start a ministry from scratch, how to recruit a leadership team, how to develop community among leaders and how to discern evidence of God at work in the lives of teens.

This is not a book for those looking for programming ideas – contemplative or otherwise. It is for those leaders caught in a programming trap who sense there is a missing “God” dimension in what they do. It is for leaders looking for signposts that will lead them into a deeper walk with God and a closer walk with their young people. It is for leaders willing to go back to basics and re-evaluate their whole approach to youth ministry.

As such it is an outstanding book and one I highly recommend.