Deep Ministry in a Shallow World: Not-So-Secret Findings about Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties

by Chap Clark, Kara Powell

Deep Ministry in a Shallow World will show you a new way to prayerfully reflect on the questions you face in your youth ministry every day so you can find the answers that will take it to deeper places. That’s because authors Chap Clark and Kara Powell have gathered significant research findings that will help shift your ministry paradigm. Did you know that: • the typical strategies we use to build relationships with kids might actually cause them to trust us less because of what this generation has endured? • recent research on communication could help us move past the witty talks and funny stories we work so hard to develop and instead actually connect the Bible to kids’ lives? • studies show that offering students “just Jesus” and not helping them at home, school, and in their neighborhoods might not help them very much at all? The authors’ research also led to their development of the Deep Design problem-solving process—a revolutionary model that will give you better tools than ever before to address every last issue you’ll encounter in youth ministry.

Genres: Young Adult

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Chap Clark (PhD, University of Denver) is professor and chair of the youth, family, and culture department at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he also directs the Student Leadership Project and is coordinator of Fuller Studio. He is on the teaching team at Harbor Christian Center church in Gig Harbor, Washington, is president of ParenTeen, and works closely with Young Life. Clark has authored or coauthored numerous books including Hurt 2.0 and Sticky Faith. Follow him on Twitter @chapclark.

Reviews

[Brian Layman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading. Probably best to get the ebook too to have copy and paste ability for the lists included.

The Audiobook readers are sloooooow. The book should be 4 hours, but it is drawn out to six. After trying and trying to listen to it and failing, I adjusted the speed in the Audible client. 1.75x speed would be best for listening, but was not an available option. 1.5 was still a little slow. So I listened at 2x, which was a little fast, and finished the book in 3 hours.

I got the most from the 3rd to 10th chapters. There were 12 chapters total. So it starts slow, then has great stuff and then fizzles. It is still very worth reading and youth workers will get a lot out of it. It goes well with "Sustainable Youth Ministry: Why Most Youth Ministry Doesn't Last and What Your Church Can Do About It". Between the two of these, I think I have much better plan for how to succeed.

[Chris Prescott · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tile is really interesting and the first two or three chapters are good. When they go through every detail repeating the process it becomes fairly dry and repeative. To me it seemed pretty basic: what's really transforming about our ministry. Then look at history, Scripture, trends and people to make changes. If you don't have a team that is willing to see blind spots in your ministry the process won't be effective. To do the process alone would be very difficult to do.

[Becky Beavers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great title - rather dry content, so far

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good guide for thinking and planning deeper youth ministry, but I did not like this book as much as I liked DEEP JUSTICE IN A BROKEN WORLD by the same authors.