I didn’t really know what to expect when this book showed up in the mail. I truly enjoy staying up to date with youth ministry training resources and I’ve even got a few shelves in my bookcase dedicated to passing on resources to our adult volunteers. So I should have been tipped off when my wife (who is no slouch in the youth ministry or brain power departments by the way and also a small group leader) who knew I was reading and reviewing this book asked me what the title was and her response to my answer was, “Huh?” Trust me, I am all for raising the intellectual bar for youth ministry and it’s practitioners. I have heard too many times youth workers get bashed for not being “real pastors” or not being fully equipped to do real ministry. Youth ministry and its ministers need books that push comfort zone limits and extract from us our best thinking. However, this work put forth from Amy E. Jacober does walk a fine line between academic thesis and practitioner’s user manual.
Jacober starts off strong by quoting Kenda Dean’s strong work in Almost Christian by saying teens subscribe to and practice Moral Therapeutic Deism “not because they have misunderstood what we have taught them in church. They practice this because this is what we have taught them in church.” Jacober indicates that the source of this problem is that youth ministers have been looking for shortcuts and time-savers in their teaching preparation or ministry planning all too frequently, resulting in teens receiving insufficient theological training and a poorer understanding of themselves in the process. Jacober then concludes the solution is youth ministers should become (better) practical theologians in order to “help students navigate the difficult passage from childhood to adulthood.” This can be achieved by adopting, implementing and embracing three not-so-clear-cut practices.
Primarily, Jacober says, youth ministers must be bilingual. This meaning in the sense of being fluent in the languages and practices of social psychology and theology. That being the understanding of adolescent development, behavior and culture. Working from that base youth workers then must understand and teach practical theology.
Second, practical theology unites three strands of existence: the individual, the communal and the eternal. Recognition and synthesis of these three are crucial in the major life task of adolescence.
Lastly, an adolescent in the midst of maturation and spiritual development is “nurtured through the transformative power of Christ and the comingling virtues of love, justice and mercy.” The book’s goal is to breakdown the details of these three insights into practical youth ministry points and to discover how they work together to better nurture an adolescent’s transformation in Christ.
If this sounds a bit more academic than a typical youth ministry resource, it’s because it is. I believe this book is intended to be a beginners’ manual on adolescent development and practical youth ministry. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite read like one. A solid grasp of adolescent development and history of Christian education would benefit the reader greatly before starting this book.
At the onset of each chapter, we get glimpses into Jacober’s life and youth ministry experiences which are refreshing and give us insight into an environment for possible examples of applications of the theory she discusses in great detail. These glimpses, however, are too limited and quickly disappear into a web of jargon-laced, academic-styled writing. This is specifically an issue in the second and third chapters, Practical Theology and Overlapping Spheres in Adolescent Development, respectively. This is where the book gets bogged down in its efforts to explain the necessity of understanding and defining adolescent development (one of the ministry languages we are to be bilingual in).
Though these specific chapters and a several consequent passages can be dry and academic, one can still yield easily applicable fruit. In particular, chapter four, A Clarification of Context is practically worth the price of admission alone. In this chapter Jacober emphasizes the need for the youth minister to understand the cultural context from which their ministry constituents come; to be experts or at least aware of youth culture. This is important because in a sense the youth minister is a cross-cultural missionary, reaching out across cultural and generational lines to administer the gospel. In order to best accompany teens through the journey into adulthood the understanding of a youth minister should not end at psychological and biological developmental issues, but should extend into this critical and elusive territory of youth culture. It is this culture that is all around us and our teens and it is the atmosphere in which we live. Fortunately, Jacober explains this clearly and succinctly and the reader is left with both a better understanding of this point’s importance and her heart for ministry.
The knowledge hidden within these pages is necessary and helpful for any youth worker to have. Although the psychological and biological development passages can be tough to wade through, there is still worthy information to reward your strained efforts at the end of the journey. Its clearly intentional for Jacober to close out the book with a chapter based on a transformative ministry. Clearly, her Ph.D. work and intellect level is on display, but her heart for life transformation in ministry shines through, urging the youth minister to understand their work as preparing teens to be impacted and transformed by Christ.
Overall, Jacober excels in speaking to the professional, but perhaps not so much in speaking to the lay person or volunteer youth worker. This is an academically heavy work that has a great heart to inform, educate, and equip the reader to be a better minister of the gospel in a youth ministry context and can be very beneficial if the reader has enough knowledge going in so that they might deconstruct the oft times dense content. No doubt this text will show up in youth ministry or Christian Education classrooms across the country in the coming fall term, but it might end up staying on my resource bookshelf for quiet a while.
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