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Youth Ministry Across The Continents: Eleven Youth Pastors From Ten Countries On The Key Building Blocks For Effective Youth Work Leadership In The Local Church
Most youth workers across the world look for ideas, inspiration and practical advice to help them with their ministry, yet many don't look beyond their own country for advice. There is an incredible wealth of practical wisdom available from vastly experienced youth pastors around the world to help answer core issues such as: how to look after your own soul; relate to parents and senior church leaders; get organised; lead in evangelism; communicate effectively with young people; lead a team; care for youth; balance ministry and family life; work with schools; and how you know how you are called (to youth ministry) in the first place!
First Half Leadership publishing has spent over two and a half years painstakingly bringing together the wisdom and stories of eleven experienced youth pastors from ten different countries on each and every one of these core issues. Youth Ministry Across the Continents contains over 160 years' worth of international youth work experience gained over the last three decades! Inspiring, practical and educational this book will provide you with brilliant nuggets of wisdom you'd never thought of and give you a broad range of perspectives while reinforcing principles common to youth work across the globe. Read the editorial reviews from Christian leaders from various nations. You will find yourself comparing and contrasting their stories and reflecting on your own ministry, wherever you live. Many of the contributors are still serving as local youth pastors - men and women serving in different nations, cultures and denominations. Despite significant challenges they have lasted the distance and have seen God do amazing things in the lives of young people.
Youth Ministry Across the Continents is accompanied by the website www.firsthalfleadership.com where you will find videos introducing each contributor from each of the ten countries. This book will open your eyes to see that God reigns over the nations and is clearly at work in the lives of young people and youth workers across the continents!
First Half Leadership publishing has spent over two and a half years painstakingly bringing together the wisdom and stories of eleven experienced youth pastors from ten different countries on each and every one of these core issues. Youth Ministry Across the Continents contains over 160 years' worth of international youth work experience gained over the last three decades! Inspiring, practical and educational this book will provide you with brilliant nuggets of wisdom you'd never thought of and give you a broad range of perspectives while reinforcing principles common to youth work across the globe. Read the editorial reviews from Christian leaders from various nations. You will find yourself comparing and contrasting their stories and reflecting on your own ministry, wherever you live. Many of the contributors are still serving as local youth pastors - men and women serving in different nations, cultures and denominations. Despite significant challenges they have lasted the distance and have seen God do amazing things in the lives of young people.
Youth Ministry Across the Continents is accompanied by the website www.firsthalfleadership.com where you will find videos introducing each contributor from each of the ten countries. This book will open your eyes to see that God reigns over the nations and is clearly at work in the lives of young people and youth workers across the continents!
212 pages, Paperback
Published June 13, 2016
3 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 29, 2025
This book was really helpful to give a global view of youth ministry. I really appreciated the diverse perspectives around the same questions in youth ministry. I think that it’s such a blessing to get to be in ministry while also taking seminary classes that talk about youth ministry. But the main theme that seemed to reoccur across all the youth leaders was this: invest in your own relationship with God. When we get closer to Jesus, it invites the youth to get closer to Jesus. We cannot give them what we have not experienced or bring them to a place with God that we’ve never been or we don’t enjoy.
October 8, 2017
I received a mobi.file copy of this book from its editor/author, Fraser Kaey, through a giveaway he recently had on LibraryThing, and the following is my honest opinion.
These days we hear all too often about teenagers getting involved with the wrong crowd of friends, drugs and the like. So, it’s refreshing to read about young people who’d rather get involved with more of the things which can nurture themselves, their family and others; like the religious component of a wholesome family life.
While having young people being involved in their church, regularly going to services, etc. is wonderful; it’s even more spiritually uplifting when they decide to share their beliefs by ministering to others.
However, when one ministers to their own flock in their own country they’re limited to their effectiveness since these days countries are no longer homogeneous the way they were in the past; these days they’ve been infused with individuals from other countries with a diverse set of cultural values.
The basic impact in reading this collection of articles written by successful, experience young pastors from around the world is the wealth of knowledge [denominational, theological, and cultural] being shared, and thereby improving the way other pastors handle the basic issues facing their churches on a day-to-day basis. This book is not only for the leaders of our churches, or those who are highly supportive of them; this book is for anyone who is committed to their church and desires it to better serve the entire congregation. Readers of this book can reflect on the differences and have a better understanding of their church and its goals when others have been brought into the light of their knowledge. [For it is better to light one candle, than to “curse” the darkness.]
For having brought together 12 youth pastors from 11 countries to share their wisdom regarding the core issues faced by their congregations, I’m giving this book and all those making it possible the 5 STARS it so richly deserves. AMEN.
These days we hear all too often about teenagers getting involved with the wrong crowd of friends, drugs and the like. So, it’s refreshing to read about young people who’d rather get involved with more of the things which can nurture themselves, their family and others; like the religious component of a wholesome family life.
While having young people being involved in their church, regularly going to services, etc. is wonderful; it’s even more spiritually uplifting when they decide to share their beliefs by ministering to others.
However, when one ministers to their own flock in their own country they’re limited to their effectiveness since these days countries are no longer homogeneous the way they were in the past; these days they’ve been infused with individuals from other countries with a diverse set of cultural values.
The basic impact in reading this collection of articles written by successful, experience young pastors from around the world is the wealth of knowledge [denominational, theological, and cultural] being shared, and thereby improving the way other pastors handle the basic issues facing their churches on a day-to-day basis. This book is not only for the leaders of our churches, or those who are highly supportive of them; this book is for anyone who is committed to their church and desires it to better serve the entire congregation. Readers of this book can reflect on the differences and have a better understanding of their church and its goals when others have been brought into the light of their knowledge. [For it is better to light one candle, than to “curse” the darkness.]
For having brought together 12 youth pastors from 11 countries to share their wisdom regarding the core issues faced by their congregations, I’m giving this book and all those making it possible the 5 STARS it so richly deserves. AMEN.
March 10, 2017
I found this book stimulating. Each chapter is written by a different author, all of whom are experienced youth workers, coming from different church backgrounds, theological backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, different countries and continents. Each author writes under several common sub-headings, including how to relate to parents, senior church leadership, how to keep your evangelistic edge sharp, how to keep your own soul healthy, family life as a youth worker and so on.
The authors also each made a short video self-introduction which can be seen on youtube. (My kindle edition had hyperlinks in the book so I could see them with one tap.)
There were many nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from their different perspectives, but one thing that struck me was how much overlap there was. On one hand, that made certain things feel a little repetitive, but on the other hand it made it clear the things that are really important, whatever your cultural background.
Most of the authors work with teenagers, but even though I work with university students, I found there were still valuable lessons to be learnt for my own ministry situation.
There is a new edition in the pipeline with new authors from different countries, including Japan!
(I feel I ought to say that the editor gave me a copy of the old edition as a gift and asked me to review it, although he didn't tell me what to say!)
The authors also each made a short video self-introduction which can be seen on youtube. (My kindle edition had hyperlinks in the book so I could see them with one tap.)
There were many nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from their different perspectives, but one thing that struck me was how much overlap there was. On one hand, that made certain things feel a little repetitive, but on the other hand it made it clear the things that are really important, whatever your cultural background.
Most of the authors work with teenagers, but even though I work with university students, I found there were still valuable lessons to be learnt for my own ministry situation.
There is a new edition in the pipeline with new authors from different countries, including Japan!
(I feel I ought to say that the editor gave me a copy of the old edition as a gift and asked me to review it, although he didn't tell me what to say!)
October 20, 2016
This book is great! It was fascinating reading about youth experiences across a variety of cultures. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to develop their knowledge on how to be a part of a helpful, successful youth ministry, a ministry that is able to develop positive relationships with the youth, the parents, the church and the community.
A great read that gave the benefit of providing an insight into a variety of cultures along the way.
A great read that gave the benefit of providing an insight into a variety of cultures along the way.
August 19, 2018
Overall, I liked this book. The format felt a little repetitive, but I thought it tied together well with reflection questions at the end. I think this book is helpful for anyone who works in youth ministry, especially if you are wanting to work cross culturally, because many different cultural perspectives are given.
April 11, 2017
I bought Youth Ministry Across the Continents with lots of excitement. I have great interest in how youth ministry is growing and developing around the world. I liked the idea that Keay had given authors specific issues to deal with so the book would have a consistent structure, one of the weaknesses of Global Youth Ministry, Livermore and Linhardt.
I think the difficulty of the book is that it is written prescriptively instead of descriptively. Each author offers advice to the reader about important issues in youth ministry rather than describing his/her own ministry setting. I suppose the positive value of that is the remarkable consistency of the advice. Strange that a youth minister from India would give advice so similar to a youth minister in Wales. But perhaps that speaks to the consistency of the Christian faith. It did, however, make the book a little tedious to read.
While the book does include glimpses into the various ministry settings from which it is written, there is little thoughtful description of God's work within various peoples. I suppose this was not the intent of the book, but it seemed like a missed opportunity. At least, I was disappointed.
I think the difficulty of the book is that it is written prescriptively instead of descriptively. Each author offers advice to the reader about important issues in youth ministry rather than describing his/her own ministry setting. I suppose the positive value of that is the remarkable consistency of the advice. Strange that a youth minister from India would give advice so similar to a youth minister in Wales. But perhaps that speaks to the consistency of the Christian faith. It did, however, make the book a little tedious to read.
While the book does include glimpses into the various ministry settings from which it is written, there is little thoughtful description of God's work within various peoples. I suppose this was not the intent of the book, but it seemed like a missed opportunity. At least, I was disappointed.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews