Practicing Discernment with Youth: A Transformative Youth Ministry Approach

"Over the last half-century," says David White, "congregational youth ministry has undergone a separation from its own sense of place. The expectations, imaginations and practices of youth ministry are more likely to originate in Southern California, Colorado or denominational headquarters than they are within the unique and particular setting of a congregation." So, in this resource David White instead calls for congregations to engage their own young people in practices of discernment that involve the gifts and problems of their unique context, bringing their lives more fully into partnership with God's work in their particular place. He models how to do this through historic discernment practices of Christian communities; such as Ignatian contemplative practices, Quaker clearness counsels, consensus decision making and silence. In light of the cultural exploitation of adolescence who have become special targets of marketers, and in light of the growing hostility of consumer culture to the gospel, and in light of recent findings about the failure of churches to support commitments of youth into adulthood, discernment seems an important practice for sustaining a lifelong Christian commitment that is more than an identity stapled onto an unreflective middle class life. This book offers a youth ministry approach that empowers youth as agents of faith, partners with God in healing a broken world