Book Report-- Youth Builder

Youth Builder (now Uncommon Youth Ministry) M

by Jim Burns and Mike DeVries

Non-fiction

As required reading for class, it's always a struggle to pay attention to all the words instead of speed reading. Though, because of my interest in Youth Ministry (at least by default), I paid attention more so than normal. Unfortunately, I was not rewarded.

This book seems to presuppose that all youth ministries are a major focus of their church, or at least require many youth leaders, a large budget, and a paid youth pastor. That presupposition ignores many questions of philosophy of youth ministry. How do I integrate it into the churhc proper without creating a church within a church? How do I balance what teens need to hear with what they want to hear? I didn't get any of my questions answered. Beyond that, there was a sever lack of biblical perspective throughout. The information was mostly practical advice (mostly good, to be fair), including that in reference to major issues that merit counseling in a yout ministry. Nothing was said of the hope we have in Scripture for issues such as suicide, substance abuse, divorce, etc. Hopefully I can glean more and better info from the next books.