Customer Reviews

Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry (Youth Ministry Alternatives)

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I hope this reviewer will exercise much greater care in his youth ministry than in the writing of this review. First of all, the author's name is Fred Edie. Further, while not replete with stories of congregations the ideas in the book are immanently transferable to anyone with half an imagination. This is one of the top two or three best resources on youth ministry on the vast market today. Youth ministry that hopes to retain any kind of distance from consumerism and consumerist models of youth ministry needs a liturgical center. Fred Edie's book elegantly and creatively reveals the possibilities for establishing such a center in a residential community at Duke. While it is not a recipe book for youth ministry, it plows the important ground of middle theory between high theology and low strategy. Further, there is a lot here to spark the imagination. We need more books like this and fewer books on tips, tricks and techniques.

This is one of the finest youth ministry books I have read. It encourages churches and youth leaders to utilize the vast resources of the Christian tradition in order to bring young people into Christian practice and belief. I love the focus on vocation in this book, and I recommend it to all of my youth ministry colleagues.

Simply put, this should be required reading for any youth minister. Edie articulates the weakness of "mountain dew and doritos" ministry and helps us to imagine ministries that are centered around practices and sacraments that form youth and direct them toward the living God. If you sense that conventional revivalist approaches to youth ministry are a joke this book may inspire and affirm an alternative for you. Read also Canonical Theism (william abraham) and Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry (Yaconnelli)

Charles Edie's contribution to the Youth Ministry Alternatives series is provocative and interesting. For analysis and critique of North America's relationship to language, food, and time, you won't find much better.

But this is not a book for youth ministers looking for stories of practical application of that analysis. Edie is deeply involved in the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, and all of his examples are drawn from that two-week annual event. Needless to say, for a youth minister hungry for stories of colleagues fashioning liturgically-driven youth ministry week-in-and-week-out in a local congregation, there's not much here.