Jeff Pratt & Scott Stevens
Lifeway Press, 2010, 128 pp., $14.95
It can be difficult to sort through the piles of books written about rethinking your student ministry in order to find something truly worth your time. If you are a person who works in professional student ministry, this is that rare great read. Jeff Pratt and Scott Stevens have released an excellent and concise resource to help youth pastors reconsider the way they serve the teenagers in their ministry.
The authors use research from the National Study of Youth and Religion (2005) as a foundation for their theories on what youth pastors should be focusing on with their students. The information is interesting, compelling and carries profound advantages and disadvantages for the methods and messages used in student ministry.
They offer a clear strategy for addressing the quandaries facing youth ministries, families and churches. The strategy is sound, but the book may be of more value as an evaluative tool than a prescriptive one. Reading this book will assist the professional youth worker in gauging the effectiveness of his or her ministry to teenagers and help a youth pastor recognize areas of focus that may desperately need attention.
