Jason Lief 
Poetic Youth Ministry [EPUB ebook] 
Learning to Love Young People by Letting Them Go

Current research shows what many in the Christian community already know: young people are leaving the church. This raises important questions: Why are young people leaving? How can the church respond? Some have responded to this issue out of a posture of fear and anxiety, trying to find new ways to strengthen doctrinal beliefs or practices of faith formation and discipleship. What if the best response isn’t to strengthen our theology or tighten our hold on the lives of young people? What if the best response is a posture of love that lets young people go? Using the insights of philosopher Charles Taylor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Poetic Youth Ministry argues that the church must take seriously the formative power of social and cultural patterns that shape the social imaginaries of young people. Rather than seeing the problem as young people abandoning faith, the Christian community should see the issue as young people exchanging one form of faith for another. This allows the church to approach the issue from a posture of love, calling young people to embrace their identity in the new humanity revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Andrew Root (Ph D, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary. He is most recently the author of Exploding Dinosaurs, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies: Youth Ministry in the Age of Science (2018), Faith Formation in a Secular Age (2017), and The Grace of Dogs: A Boy a Black Lab and Father’s Search for the Canine Soul (2017). He has also authored Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross (2014) and Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker (2014). Root puts together theology and storytelling to explore how ministry leads us into encounter with divine action. His book The Relational Pastor (2013) as well as a four book series with Zondervan called A Theological Journey Through Youth Ministry (titles include Taking Theology to Youth Ministry, Taking the Cross to Youth Ministry, Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry, and Unlocking Mission and Eschatology in Youth Ministry) break new ground in this direction. In 2012 his book The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry (with Kenda Creasy Dean, 2011) was Christianity Today Book of Merit. He has written a number of other books on ministry and theology such as The Children of Divorce: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being (2010), The Promise of Despair (2010), Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (2007) and Relationships Unfiltered (2009). Andy has worked in congregations, parachurch ministries, and social service programs. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen and Maisy, and their dog. When not reading, writing, or teaching, Andy spends far too much time watching TV and movies.