Toward a Prophetic Youth Ministry

Youth ministries in an urban context are too often left to their own devices.

The resources available to them are overwhelmingly conceived, tested and

produced exclusively in the suburbs, and bring little to bear on the realities of

urban youth culture. As a consequence, youth ministries in large cities have

tended to settle onto one of three paths--a traditional paradigm that

jealously guards the spiritual formation of its young people, a liberal

paradigm that concentrates exclusively on personal growth, and an activist

paradigm that galvanizes youth around the social concerns surrounding

them. While each of these emphases is important, too often they are

pursued to the neglect of the others, and the urban church suffers.

Fernando Arzola Jr. proposes a fourth way, a prophetic paradigm that

integrates the three and cultivates young people who are spiritually rooted,

emotionally mature and responsive to the needs of their community. In this

pace-setting book he draws on various disciplines--from biology to

sociology, from psychology to theology--to guide urban youth workers into

an effective and transformational ministry to youth.