I have now finished reading Youth Ministry 3.0 by former blogger Mark Ostreicher and thought it might be an idea to pen a few lines in relation to the UK context of youth ministry.
Ostreicher charts youth ministry over the last 65 years and describes two distinct phases (which he tags Youth Ministry 1.0 and 2.0) and helpfully explores this alongside the key cultural influencers of that time, the primary focus of youth culture and the resultant drivers and themes emerging from Church and/or para-church sponsors at that time.
The book then describes the 'crossroads' that Youth Ministry is at and attempts to articulate in a similiar matrix, what Youth Ministry 3.0 needs to be. The latter part of the book playing with the questions of what this might actually look like.
This gives:
Youth Ministry 1.0 (1945-1960's) as seeing young people primarily concerned with Identity and the Church focussing on 'Evangelism and Correction' driven by Proclamation.
Youth Ministry 2.0 (1960's - new millenium) as seeing young people chiefly investigating 'Autonomy' with the Church focusing on 'Discipleship and positive peer groups' with Programmes as the driver.
leading to:
Youth Ministry 3.0 (now) as young people's primary concern as affinity with the need to focus on "Communion and Mission" driven by, in fact .... not been driven, but concerned with being present.
I think this is a useful book to chart the journey of youth ministry (although some is a more U.S context, although we experienced some of the influence in the UK) and to contextualise an authentic approach to youth ministry in our current paradigm.
This fits very well within the canon of authentic-relational-contemplative ministry being experimented with and written about by Root, Creasy Dean and Yaconelli. It's practice that I see happening in the UK although is a long way still from filtering into the majority of small traditional church groups.
The strengths of the book though is that it makes the case for it's espoused model in the context of a journey of learning and cultural change, using personal experience and blog-conversation to both earth and explain it.
I also really liked the diagram on page 110 looking at phases of deconstruction and reconstruction and I'll be using this in training I think.
Well worth a read
I have the pdf version but not read it yet. Could send you diagram in pdf form if you like!!