Resource Review: You Lost Me Small Group Study

If you have never heard the name of David Kinnaman, then you have truly missed out. David Kinnaman is a co-author of the best-selling book Unchristian and president of the Barna group, a private, nonpartisan research and resource company. His latest book, You Lost Me, discusses why young people who grew up in the church leave the church. If you haven’t had a chance to get the book, I would highly recommend it.

Recently he has come out with a discussion guide and small group lesson plan based on his book. The study is composed of 6 sessions and explores why Christians who are between the ages of 18 to 29 leave the church and rethink their faith. In this study you will discover why the younger generation often sees the church as overprotective, shallow, anti-intellectual, exclusive, repressive, and intolerant of doubt. You’ll discuss tough questions that resist pat answers. And you discover loving, biblical ways to reconnect to young people with kindness, compassion, and humility. If you care about the future of the church, you will want to check this resource out.

You can follow David Kinnaman on Twitter@davidkinnaman 

Great Resources for Students

Here are some great resources to get in the hands of your students.

1-Minute Bible by Doug Fields
You've committed yourself to more Bible reading plans than you care to admit, and you're 187 chapters behind in your latest attempt. If this sounds familiar, then the One Minute Bible for Students is what you need to get back and stay on track. Do the math. There are 1400 minutes in a day. It will take you One Minute to read a passage of Scripture.

Student Leaders Start Here by Leader Treks
Student Leaders Start Here is a practical, interactive workbook, to help students grow in leadership. It focuses on three topics that are crucial for developing as a leader, and gives students a personal leadership profile for their strengths and growth areas in each topic. Give this book to the individual student who is growing in leadership, or use it in your student leadership team and small groups when you follow the bonus pages for small group facilitators. 

Stripped Clean by Jeff Storm
Give your teenagers a guilt-free, up-close look at materialism—one that strips away the overwhelming messages of a consumer society. You'll see authentic changes in readers as they tear out pages to use in Jesus-centered activities 

Case for Christ Student Edition by Lee Strobel
Who Was Jesus? A good man? A lunatic? God? There's little question that he actually lived. But miracles? Rising from the dead? Some of the stories you hear about him sound like just that—stories. A reasonable person would never believe them, let alone the claim that he's the only way to God! But a reasonable person would also make sure that he or she understood the facts before jumping to conclusions. That's why Lee Strobel—an award-winning legal journalist with a knack for asking tough questions—decided to investigate Jesus for himself.

Live Large. Be Different. Shine Bright. By Josh Griffin and Doug Fields
In Live Large. Be Different. Shine Bright., Doug Fields and Joshua Griffin share about some important character qualities that will help teenagers live large, be different, and shine bright. A lot of what Doug and Joshua write about doesn't seem to get much sermon time, but these topics are definitely worthy of consideration and experimentation—topics like competition, laughter, cliques, encouragement and several others will help teenagers in the process of being a more vibrant follower of Jesus. 

More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell
With almost 10 million copies in print, More Than a Carpenter continues to be the most powerful evangelism tool worldwide. Josh McDowell's timeless examination of the true nature of Christ and his impact on our lives is one of the best-selling Christian books ever. Written by a former skeptic of Christianity, it is a hard-hitting book for those who doubt Jesus' deity and his purpose. 

Your Own Jesus by Mark Hall
A true storyteller and a teacher with a heart for ministry, Mark Hall traces the downward spiral caused by spiritual compromise with the world, and then charts the upward road to wholeness and restoration that comes when we claim our very own Jesus. When that happens, believers experience authentic fellowship with the one living God. Through fascinating personal stories, scriptural insights, and discussion questions for practical interactive study, Your Own Jesus: Student Edition will set readers free to live without compromise with the Jesus they come to know intimately and love fully.

Middle School Survival Series by Kurt Johnston, Mark Oestreicher, and Scott Rubin
There are six books in this series: My Faith, My Family, My Friends, My School, My Changes and My Future.  Each book consists of 72 easy-to-read mini chapters written specifically for young teens.

Resource Review: What Did I Sign Up For?

As summer winds down it's a perfect opportunity to do some practical training for your youth mentors and/or volunteers. A great resource that I found to do this is a program called "What Did I Sign Up For?" By Chris Folmsbee. To help you better understand the program I've highlighted the pros and cons that this program has to offer.

Pros

It’s Systematic - What I mean by that is that it deals with training in a very logical step-by-step way. It sets the foundation for learning and gives some practical and programming ideas that can be easily employed by any size youth or young adult program.

It's Interactive - This program is DVD based with the author actually leading the sessions. Each session is not too long and can easily be incorporated into a regular volunteer meeting throughout the year.

It's Makes the Training Relevant to your Situation - a lot of training programs that I have reviewed and used don't take into consideration that every church is different. This one does. And if I might add, does it quite well. It allows you to take the concepts that are thought and helps you process what you're learning and what it will look like in your particular context.

Cons

It's Too Long - if I have one complaint about this program is that it is way too long. Unless you were doing this as a retreat, it will take you nearly half the year to go through this program. You can take bits and pieces of the program but to get the full impact of what it has to teach you really need to do the whole program. However, the 20 sessions that it requires I believe is too long for most volunteers.

Conclusion

I would definitely recommend this program even though it’s long in length. The principles it teaches and the way it helps you relate it back to your specific situation is great. There is another bonus as well, it's not that expensive. So if you're looking for instances way to train your nervous volunteers and/or mentors I would highly recommend this program. If your church is within the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church, you can borrow the program from our resource center Discovery Place (discovery-place.org)

5 Must Read Books Concerning Young People's Ministry

If you are new to Young People's or have been involved in Young People's ministry for a long time these 5 books would hope you understand young people and their culture, as well as, develop a well-rounded plan for ministry with young people.

1.  “Almost Christian” by Kenda Creasy Dean – A statistical look at the development of faith for millenials and those to follow. Interesting points on faith differences between generations.
2.  “Sustainable Youth Ministry” by Mark DeVries – Consistency makes a huge difference for youth, and avoiding burnout by building a sustainable ministry begins with introspection of yourself as a leader.
3.  “Safe Sanctuaries” by Joy Thornurg Melton – Building safe space for ministry to happen means lessons for adult leaders as well as your church as a whole. A must have!
4.  “You Lost Me” by David Kinnaman – An exploration of why young people are leaving mainline denominations in the US and rethinking their faith. This one is perhaps most powerful when thinking about youth after they have left youth ministry (whether via graduation, moving, or choice).
5.  “Sticky Faith” by Kara Powell Brad Griffin – This original concept has grown into a full-blown resource with several different print versions and online offerings, and is associated with the Fuller Youth Institute. Combination of resources for youth workers and parents.