Customer Reviews

101 Ideas for Making Disciples in Your Youth Group

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For any person working with students, this book should be next to your Bible. The truths and the easy "how to" concepts can help you breath new life into the ministry God has given you. Kent, once again, has written a book that he, himself, has lived out and put into practice. Thanks Kent!!

There are tons of youth leaders out there who know how to do the nuts and bolts of youth ministry (the how to), but very few youth ministries know why they're doing what they're doing. This book is rare in that it provides both the why and the how. In 101 Ideas for Making Disciples, Kent Julian gives us something we desperately need in youth ministry, a vision for how to lead a balanced ministry. Then, after helping us think through the why, he gives us practical and proven ideas to help make it happen.

If you're looking to make your ministry more intentional and focused on making disciples instead of just going from event to event, this is a must read.

A great plus too is the book's solid focus on Jesus' ministry as the example for how we can still make disciples in today's modern context.

Julian doesn't "give you a one-size-fits-all strategy, but rather a picture of what a missional, contextual, environmental..." (facilitating a conducive environment) "...process-oriented, practical youth ministry might look like." A few of the 101 well-explained ideas are recycled or "old school." But far more new ones (or at least with a new spin) encompass Julian's big idea of "ACTS to create a disciple-making ministry" involving four key elements: Adoration - an environment fostering a lifestyle fleshed out in expressions of prayerful adoration to Christ; Community - "an atmosphere of genuine caring, authentic relationships, and unity; Truth-and-Grace - "a setting in which God's Word is central to belief and behavior;" and Serving-and-Sharing - not only projects, but a lifestyle that "involves helping the whole person...contextually ministering to both believers and nonbelievers."

Julian provides loads of scriptural examples to inspire and help us remember the point. He reminds youth leaders that, "transformation is totally in God's court; we're just responsible for serving up the environment."

--Danette Matty, Tools Reviewer/www.youthworker.com
(This review originally appeared in Youthworker Journal, used with permission.)