Sustainable Youth Ministry

In 2009 I took our team of youth leaders through Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries, founder and director of Youth Ministry Architects.  The book is for any "stakeholder" in youth ministry, whether paid staff, unpaid volunteer, senior pastor/priest, or elder/Vestry/council member.  Anyone who is concerned about youth ministry and young people should read this book.

We went through a chapter a week, splitting a couple of the meatier chapters into two parts.  Sustainable Youth Ministry deals especially with how to put long-term structures and systems into place so that a church's youth ministry will be effective and long-lasting.  Think ensuring healthy structures and systems is just the job of the paid youth worker?  DeVries will convince you otherwise.  I took our whole volunteer team through this, and I am so grateful for the conceptual tools they now have to work together with me to build the youth ministry here.