Christ Church Bromley

Youth and children's ministry in the UK today is a struggle. Volunteer leaders and youth workers strive to reach children and young people with the 2000+ year old Gospel whilst meeting the expectations of relevance placed on them by our society and culture. This tug-of-war between biblical reliance and cultural relevance is often won by the louder and more pressing voice of cultural demands.

Christian Youth Work by Mark Ashton and Phil Moon is like a 22 stone giant pulling for the side of biblical reliance. Not only has it been a strong voice for biblical youth ministry since the 1980s, but it also puts into sharp focus the need to stop giving the voice of our culture centre stage of our attention. For instance, the book has (in my opinion) one of the most succinct and hard hitting quotes to challenge us on how we approach youth ministry: 'The most serious weakness in Christian ministry amongst teenagers today is not a failure to understand our culture. It is a failure to take the Bible sufficently seriously.'

The book begins by tackling our underlying principles for youth ministry, and moves on to consider how this works out in practice in several key areas of working with young people. It is sets forth a radical yet unashamedly biblical strategy for youth ministry:

'Christian youth work must be different from all other forms of youth work. It must be distinct in its aim, because Christians have a unique view of what it is to be a human being... We want to give Christians a renewed vision for young people, a new confidence in what they can do for them, how they can do it and why they should do it.'

Christian Youth Work is an essential book for those who are leaders of church youth groups, or have an interest in working with young people in a Christian ministry setting. However, it's value is not limited to just youth workers and volunteer leaders. The book is helpful for parents too, providing them with a necessary insight into the ministry that aims to support parents in their role of bringing up children to know and love the Lord Jesus (Ephesians 6:4 ).

The book doesn't provide any detailed programme or suggested format for a youth group. Whilst this may seem like a drawback, it is actually a key strength and important aspect of the book. Youth ministry today is focussed on how to do youth work - what programme to have, what activities to do, how we can get kids into our churches. Christian Youth Work tackles the question: why do we do youth ministry? Once we have made sure our youth ministry initiatives are founded on a firm biblical basis, then - and only then - can we address the question of how.

It is this ordering of priorities that has kept Christian Youth Work on the shelves of youth workers for over 30 years and, in God's providence, will stay there for at least another 30 years.

Christian Youth Work is available from Authentic Press, approximately £9.00.

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