Customer Reviews

Youth Culture 101 (Youth Specialties)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a youth minister of over 300 high school students and to 250 junior high students. I discovered this book through the Youth Specialties podcast a few months back and was so taken by author Walt Mueller's report of youth culture that I purchased and devoured the book.

This book offers parents and youth workers alike an opportunity to see the major trends and attitudes that are working within youth culture. I think the best treatment in this book is on Media and Marketing. Utilizing this information, I taught a class to parents of teens and then had a Life Night (our weekly gatherings in our Life Teen program) for our senior high students on Media and Marketing.

This book, especially in conjunction with "Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenager", can equip the parent or youth worker to become "cross-cultural missionaries" for the life and love of the young people today.

Mueller's book is certainly fact-filled and informative which shines through as the strength of his book. Mueller, who updates his research for this book every few years, has given youth pastors, workers and volunteers a helpful guide for informing them about the world most American teens live in today. His research is well-documented and the quotes from teens and their peers help reinforce his data.

I believe the book is a helpful aid when looking for current data and research findings on our youth, but the book is certainly not a "how to" guide for youth ministry and Christian life formation. It's meant to be a survey over the various issues faced by current teens and the book definitely succeeds at that time and again with the numerous problems it discusses, from sex and drugs to entertainment mediums and peer relationships.

This book is a good guide for any youth pastor or volunteer wanting an update on current youth culture from a reliable and respected source in evangelical Christian youth ministry. Though the book is more of an informative survey than a helpful methodology relating to current youth ministry, I definitely recommend it for all those wanting a trustworthy source for research and engagement.

Mueller understands culture. Along with his passion to help youth, he delivers this necessary tool for any youth worker.

Very comprehensive and helpful. Lots of good ideas, sort of like a manual to select concepts from -- to address relevant issues the youth worker/parent is dealing with at the time and a hard look at some underlying root causes not just superficial visible symptoms. Includes author's sincere failings/struggles too. I would recommend it.

Title: Youth Ministry 101 by Walt Mueller

Pages: 480

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: I started reading it right away, but I did not finish it until almost 3 years later.

Days spent reading it: About 3 years, but I finished half of it in about a week when I buckled down to finish it.

Why I read it: After seeing Walt Mueller at NYMC, Susan and I knew that we had to pick up his book and read it. He was incredibly knowledgeable about youth culture and specifically about how media shapes their worldview.

Brief review: Walt Mueller's book Youth Culture 101 is sure to be the standard by which all other youth culture books are evaluated. It is well documented, well thought out, and well presented. Mueller starts off with an overview of why culture is so important to understand, and further explains why youth culture is so unique. Mueller is especially impressive when it comes to youth and media. He dedicates a few chapters to the subject. He talks about how media (movies, music, TV, advertisements, etc.) really influences us. His main approach is to talk about how it impacts youth, but one cannot walk away from this book without evaluating your own media consumption. It's crazy actually how much we are exposed to in any given day.

Mueller has a simple message. We need to evaluate the message of media in our lives, not just consume the product it promises. He helps Christians to critically look at these influences, run them through a grid of how they line up with Biblical values, and then encourages us to act on how they compare. He has other resources that go over these same principles. It is called the 3-D approach to media. And you can find it, along with other resources on youth culture, at [...]. His website is a great resource for youth pastors and parents who want to understand the youth they are living life with every day. However, media is just one facet of this book. Mueller covers a wide variety of youth culture topics including: Media, Marketing to teens, Peer Pressure, Sex, Materialism, Substance Abuse, and Depression and Suicide. It is a book full of helpful statistics, facts, interpretations, and ideas for how to counsel students.

The chapter that really scared me in this book was the chapter on teens and sex. It was heart-breaking and challenging. If I could hand it out to every parent I knew, I would. Just a few shocking statistics for you: "70 percent of young women and 62 percent of young men today have had sexual intercourse by age 18." If that makes you cringe, the statistics for oral sex are increasing in an alarming way as well. "By the time they reach the age of 19, three-quarters of all teenagers will have engaged in oral sex." That's 75 percent!! 75 percent!!! Mueller states "Oral sex is now more common than sexual intercourse among teenagers." And most of those teenagers do not consider oral sex to be breaking an abstinence pledge. "One study showed that among students who said they'd made and kept an abstinence pledge, 55 percent had participated in oral sex." One last word on this subject, the craziest part is that many of our middle school students are beginning to engage in these activities. Parents and youth workers, it is NOT too soon to talk about sex with your kids. They are getting a sex education from their friends, music, TV, movies, and school. If you want to give them a Biblical perspective on sex, YOU have to speak up. I know it can be scary, but after reading these chapters I am convinced that parents and youth workers must do a better job of educating our youth about what the Bible says about sex. They are already hearing it, but are they hearing it from the most important people in their lives? I was personally challenged after reading this chapter and plan on having some talks and lessons in the upcoming months about healthy relationships and sexual purity. I hope you will too.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with youth. You need to know about the world these students are living in because it is much different than when you were a student. Youth culture has changed rapidly in the past decade and it continues to accelerate in how rapidly it changes. Mueller's book is helpful because it lays out some of the basics, but also gives us advice for how to address the issues from a Biblical perspective. It challenged my personal walk and my teaching patterns as well. My copy of this book is marked up, with notes in the margins, and thoughts scribbled throughout the whole book. I would highly recommend this books to parents as well, but the size might be daunting. I think Mueller has written some other books that are more approachable, but really this book was not as big as it seems on the outside. With large fonts, ample spacing between lines, and wide-margins make this 480ish page book read like a 250 page book. It is very readable, well documented, and very practical. One of the best books on ministry I have ever read.

Favorite quote: "Today's teenagers desire real relationships that are characterized by depth, vulnerability, openness, listening, and love--connectedness in their disconnected, confusing, alienated world."

Stars: 5 out of 5.

Final Word: Vital.

Muller's heart is in the right place, unfortunately this book contains just as much wrong information, or perhaps even more incorrect information, than good useful information. I am currently studying human development, families, and addiction in college, and I am also a 21 year old youth minister. I can speak with authority when I make this claim. I do not mean to sound arrogant, but much of the research Muller points to is both biased, and 10 or more years out of date. His anecdotal evidence is very extreme in many cases, and is not representative of youth culture as a whole. Also, the book is very long, repetitive, and overwritten. But my biggest problem with the book was his discussion of the effects of media and advertising on adolescents. Yes, it does have an effect, more than I am comfortable with, but Muller gives the uninformed reader the impression that teenagers do not have brains, and they mindlessly soak in and believe everything they see, read, and hear. Though we may jest, this is simply false. However, even with these criticisms, the book does have a few redeeming qualities. First, the information on self-harm (cutting and related behaviors) is very accurate and useful. Also, the discussion on sexuality is mostly accurate and is also very useful. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I believe that this text would be very helpful for anyone who has been disengaged from youth culture for a long period of time. It carries a valuable shock value that would be helpful to many uninformed parents, church members, and even some youth workers. I might recommend the book to this group, but only small parts of the 442 page tome would be helpful to knowledgeable youth workers, or people like me who are young enough to remember what it was like to be an adolescent just a few years ago. Read with discernment, and use the extensive source information and index that is provided to check his facts.