Downtime (review)

This has been a long time coming, but is here at last. YS (through Zondervan) sent me a new book by one of my favorite authors of youth ministry stuff, Mark Yaconelli, son of Mike Yaconelli who used to be the CEO of youthspecialties.

A little caveat, if you do not work with youth (which you really ought to), you might find this post boring.

This book is a description of how to help teens pray. Young Yac wrote an excellent book on contemplative youth ministry, which in my opinion is a must read for youth pastors. His whole bent is not entertaining, but rather helping teens find God in the quiet places. In other words, being still so we can know that He is God. While the first book described youth ministry philosophy, this book is really an intro to prayer. I found it helpful in my own prayer life, as well as full of ideas regarding how to lead teens in prayer.

Note: teens are always seen as peers on a journey to God in this book rather than underlings.

The first part of the book is a philosophy of prayer, and the main portion is a description of many different ways to actually do it. Basicaly, the premise of the book is that prayer should be the foundation of youth ministry, not just regulated to brief popcorn prayers for the last five minutes of the class. Prayer is formative (it changes who we are), rather than our informative (only effecting part of our lives)teachings.

The proof that this is an effective work is in the result. I know a book is worth buying if I actually use it in the ministries I lead. I have used this book in nearly every youth meeting I have led since reading it. Definitely worth the investment. I cannot recommend this book enough to fellow youth workers.