If we are going to move toward becoming more and more about holistic youth ministry (think: the whole of people, not programs), then youth workers must be reading books (and blogs, journals, magazines, etc.) in a variety of genres.
Before I list what I believe are some very important genres to be reading and interacting with, let me first give a few reasons why I think reading helps youth workers. For many youth workers it isn’t so much a question of which genre to be reading but whether one chooses to read at all. Last week I asked a youth worker if he had read a certain book. His response? “I don’t have time to read.”
5 Very Simple Reasons Why Youth Workers Should Read
Reading can ignite your imagination. We all know the importance and effects of an active imagination. I speak to youth workers who often tell me they are bored with their jobs. While working with people is different all the time, the ways that these youth workers work with people is often ordinary and repetitive. Reading can help lift you out of the mundane and inspire you to new ideas and practices.
Reading can help you become a better communicator. Regularly interacting with the thoughts of others through reading can help you develop a better vocabulary, better understand how to construct sentences, provide examples of ways in which to bring new definition to an old word, etc.
Reading can help you become a better communicator simply because you interact more with language and words. Experiencing the use of words through others can help you build a meaningful array of useful words to use in your own context.
Reading can help you stretch you. We’re all lifelong learners, or at least should be. So reading the thoughts, ideas, etc., of others can often lead you to think about topics you might not normally think about. For me, it is often the ideas of others that lead me to thinking beyond myself. Most of the time I am forced to think about new and challenging things through reading the thoughts of others, not through my own discovery.
Reading can be a stress reliever. Because so many of us take on the stress of others and pile it on our own stressors, we need to have direct outlets of relief. Some fish, hunt, golf, or play Wii. Some read. Reading can stimulate your mind and at the same time be a creative and healthy way to relax. Some of you already know this because this is how you relax. Others of you have never tried it. If you haven’t tried to read for relaxation’s sake, give it a try. You might be surprised how it helps you.
Reading can help you do your job better. A lot of what we read is either directly or indirectly the experiences of others through story. Often the experience of others can help us realize our strengths or weaknesses. You can learn about yourself through reading, and you can learn a lot about how to do your job better through the successes and failures of others. The most recent example of this for me is the book Rework, by Fried and Hansson.
Book Genres Youth Workers Should Read:
• Theology: because youth ministry is a theological endeavor.
• Leadership: because we all need to be better leaders.
• Education: because so much of what we do is teach.
• Sociology: because the world and people change, and we need to know how and why.
• Religious: because other faith traditions have good thoughts on life too.
• Art/Culture: because the creative expressions of others can help you be more creative yourself.
• Politics: because youth workers are citizens too.
• Anything else that makes you smile, laugh, or just plain have fun and relax: because if you don’t, one day the stress will become so overwhelming that you’ll think throwing in the towel is the best solution. It may be the best solution, but let it be because you decided it, not that another factor or set of circumstances decided it for you.
|
Youth workers: Please read books other than books developed for and marketed toward youth workers. Rarely does a specific youth ministry book come out that legitimately deserves the label “must be read by youth workers.”
One of the recent books deserving the must-read label for youth workers is Andy Root’s Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation.
With that out of the way, I will organize my response to the question above into two categories.
First Category: Books that help you become a better youth worker.
I believe there are books that should be read by youth workers who are involved in the Christian formation of young people in the realm of an ecclesial context. Yes, this category includes books written specifically for youth workers directly, but I believe this category should primarily be made up of books not written specifically for youth workers. We should be reading books that help us think more deeply about faith, ecclesiology, anthropology, sociology, adolescent development, culture, history, business, leadership, communication, economics, psychology, and above all, theology.
Books like Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization and Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix helped me to become a systems thinker and shaped me as a leader of a complex youth ministry organization.
Reading books about the developmental theories of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and others help me gain a fuller understanding of the dynamics of adolescent development.
Books like Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and anything by Lesslie Newbigin broaden my horizon concerning the church and the mission of the church in our culture.
The books in this category broaden my understanding of how the world works, how people interact with one another, how I can communicate better, how conflict is resolved, how to organize, how to interpret the changing landscape of culture, how to think about what it means to be a faithful church in the culture in which we live, and on and on.
Second Category: Books that help you become a better human being.
These types of books should inspire you to be a better person, to be more fully human and more fascinated with life, love, and faith. What are the subjects and interests that make you feel alive? What fires your imagination and fills you with passion? Read books that inspire you. Maybe it’s science fiction, a compelling biography, the beauty of poetry, or the classics that stir your soul. Keep reading. Be a lifelong learner.
Often the two categories I’m using to classify what youth workers should read overlap for me. I find few things more deeply moving and spiritually energizing than reading theology. Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God, and N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God challenge my faith and move me deeper into love and life with God.
I find that often when I feel closest to God, I’m drawn to poetry. English Poet William Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."
It is really sweet when I find treasure in a book that combines several of my interests into a feast of literary delight. My favorite novel accomplished this for me. I was in my early twenties when I first read The Source, by prolific American novelist James Michener. The Source is an epic novel tracing the history of the Middle East, beginning in the Stone Age and going up to the modern state of Israel. The story unfolds through fictional characters who are creatively linked to archaeological artifacts that are uncovered at various levels of a modern-day excavation of an ancient tell by a group of archaeologists. This book is absolutely fascinating, exploring such themes as the development of monotheism, culture, religion, politics, etc., over millennia of history.
The Source fired my interest in history, archaeology, the geography of the land of the Bible, world religions, Scripture, and much more. In my office I proudly display my collection of archeological antiquities I’ve gathered over the years. I’m passionate about the history, politics, and cultures of the Middle East. In 21 trips to the Middle East, I’ve taken hundreds of young people and youth workers with me in hopes that they would become as fascinated with this part of the world and its connection to our heritage as I am. Pretty powerful ramifications emerged for my life and ministry from “just a novel.”
Read, read, read…
I saved the best for last—Scripture, the Bible, Sacred Text, the Word of the Lord—whatever you want to call it is okay with me. Just read it, love it, live it, study it, meditate on it, embrace it, embody it, rediscover the beauty and power of the story of God at work in the world. God’s story is not for yesterday. It is the continuous unfolding of the Spirit’s transforming narrative in our current reality.
|
Based on my conversations with youth workers, our lives are too full of über-urgent activities to read. Too bad. I’m my best version of myself when I’m regularly reading.
It’s still important for me to read something from God’s Word every day. I don’t beat myself up when I miss, like I once did. But this is the intake that trumps all other reading as nourishment for my soul, which is, by the way, my chief reason for reading. I don’t want my innermost Dave to shrivel up for lack of sustenance.
There is another category of books I recommend for constant nibbling. Some books are rooted in Scripture and aspire to teach, coach, and encourage me. Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God and Counterfeit Gods are both new titles that accomplish this end. Whatever John Stott writes also gets me there, as do the works of Watchman Nee. I come away from this sort of reading having been taken on a deep-dive tour guide through some portions of the Bible, satisfied because of the unique power of God’s Word and more prepared to live faithfully.
I think God also enriches our vision when we read books that are theologically upstream from our current assignments. Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger messed me up at a time when I thought all I was supposed to do with kids was attract them to meetings where I could challenge them to begin a personalized relationship with Christ. Howard Snyder wrote a few books, including The Problem of Wineskins, that both anchor and stretch how I understand a local church’s form and function. Though these books are not directly written for youth workers, they can help us move into the mature depths we need to lead well.
I happen to be a student of leadership formation, the process of change, and organizational culture. Books in this category are often not explicitly Christian, but they have sure been relevant to my world. A while ago it was Peter Drucker and Chris Argyris; now Patrick Lencioni, Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Peter Senge, Jim Collins, and Seth Godin crank out books I value. I’m not sure everyone should share these particular interests of mine, but I do think it is wise to cultivate diverse reading interests that have professional application.
When the rare research-based book is published with youth ministry relevance, I am eager to pore over it. Christian Smith has made fabulous contributions lately. (By the way, I don’t tend to put Barna in this category—he does solid research but overreaches too often for my taste when it comes to implications.)
I also love reading a few books each year that are pure fun. These need to be page turners, books I have trouble putting down, wonderful stories of escape. There was a day when fantasy novels did the trick. More recently, John Grisham mysteries are my taste.
I don’t know about you, but the creative part of my soul enjoys the chance to soar over varied landscapes now and again.
|
Comments