Raising the Bar: Ministry to Youth in the New Millennium

Front Cover
Kregel Academic, 2002 - Religion - 208 pages

"We know how to be teenagers. We want [the church] to show us how to be adults." --Kristin, aged 17

Two-thirds of today's teens are interested in having a meaningful relationship with God, yet less than one-third of them are active in a local church. Alvin Reid--an experienced pastor, professor, evangelist, and youth ministry speaker--suggests these statistics are more an indictment of the way the church does youth ministry than of the teens they try to reach.

Today's generation of teens, the Millennial generation, is marked by teamwork, authenticity, and a "can-do" attitude. They are much more than kids finishing childhood--a perspective many in the church have and that drives what often happens in youth group--they are young adults with incredible potential who need to learn how to be Christian adults. This compelling book provides an impassioned plea for the church to set a higher standard; to reinvent the fundamental ways we have ministered to teens and their families. Author is a recognized authority and sought-after speaker on youth ministryViews teens positively, but not naivelyEncourages and shows youth ministers and workers how to have a biblically successful ministryWritten with passion and expert knowledge

From inside the book

Contents

Foreword
11
Test Time Does Youth Ministry PASS?
19
A Doubleedged Sword
73
REINVENTING YOUTH MINISTRY
85
Authentic Worship
133
Its Time to Grow Up
153
Meanwhile Back at the Church
171
A Radical Challenge
193
Copyright

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Page 101 - GIVE ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
Page 144 - In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the Temple.
Page 87 - For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
Page 119 - But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
Page 183 - For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Page 87 - The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Page 23 - But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank : therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Page 133 - I beseech* you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your breasonabl.e service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Page 146 - And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
Page 101 - For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments...

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