Youth Resources

Please note, as of 2022 this is now an archive as I won't be adding any more Youth Resources for my role at church has changed to go from coordinating the youth ministry to the seniors ministry. I will now start to make a seniors ministry page of resources.

When I started my youth minister job I was at a loss for good resources. Talking to a few school chaplains and other youth ministers it seems like I am not the only one. Below is a list of resources that I have looked at with a few short thoughts, most link to bigger reviews that I have posted (date reviewed is in brackets).

For context, I am in Canberra, where the average income is well above the average income of the nation. While Canberra is a bit more progressive than most of Australia (maybe not Melbourne), our church would be in the conservative evangelical camp.

At our youth, we have perhaps 60% private school kids and 5% homeschoolers. Lots of our teenagers are busy with other extracurricular activities, like sport, dance, theatre etc. Our Friday night meeting average around 60 per night (but we have about 130 on our books). We also run four or so small groups on Sunday that have from 4 to 10 in each group. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons we run small groups which are a little bit like a short inductive Bible study. We go to two camps a year and run an introduction to Christianity course (Back to Basics) and a baptism/confirmation class in different terms.

Youth Ministry Resources

Talks that don't suck: How to write and give bible talks for teenagers (Aug 2021): A simple book stepping through the process of preparing, writing and delivering a talk for teens. The goal is to simply explain the passage, point to Jesus and apply it. Has an annotated talk at the end I found helpful. Better than Speaking to Teenagers below, and also Australian.

Speaking to Teenagers: How to think about, create & deliver effective messages (Apr 2021): A very pragmatic book that will give you lots of frameworks and tips. To me, it seemed like the emphasis was on the stories and analogies you tell and not on explaining the Bible. There seemed to be a lot of pressure on the speaker executing a flawless talk without much trust in the Spirit.

Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry (Sep, 2020): A good foundational book for a Christian youth group. It builds a good foundation and then moves to some more practical ideas. Like Youth Ministry on the Front Foot, only American and covering more of the basics.

The Glue: Relationships as the Connection for effective Youth Ministry (Apr, 2020): A helpful and practical book by an Australian, which says things clearly about your own leading of others, the relationships and asks you have of your leaders and helpful points about thinking through your ministry with relationships in mind.

Youth Ministry on the Front Foot (Mar 2020): Felt a little like a handbook for Sydney Anglican Youth Groups. Covers a broad range of topics and with a very helpful discussion guide after each chapter. Worth going through this book with one or two other key people.

Growing Young (Feb 2020): This comes out of the US and looks at six common attributes churches have who want to attract and retain youth and young adults. Maybe read the summaries in the post and if you like the dot points, then read the whole book.

Your first two years in youth ministry (Mar 2019): This was a practical advice book written by an old hand in youth ministry. It deals with topics of recruiting leaders, dealing with parents and conflict and the senior minister etc... I found it helpful.

Rebooted (Feb 2019): The author had something to say and they were helpful, but the framework of the book and the acronyms used to summarise each chapter were a bit reaching. This was good to help think through your framework for ministry (with pros and cons) and then looked at 8 aspects of ministry, kinda as a checklist or reminder on areas you should be considering.

Changing the World through effective Youth Ministry (Jul 2018): This book stresses a good leadership team and then helps you think through the purpose of each element of your night. I straight up stole his mixer ideas. This is helpful in "seeing" how another (evangelical) youth group is run.

Giving Up Gimmicks (May 2018): I appreciated this book. God can work in any way He wants, but generally, God operates through His word, prayer, the sacraments, service and community. These are the means of grace, and you should really include them if you want your youth group to actually be Christian.

Youth Ministry in a Post-Christian World: A Hopeful Wake-Up Call (Mar 2018): This was not a memorable youth book. It was all about affirming, with no real call to holiness or correction (or even teaching from the Bible). There are good things in here about relationships and love, but I'd skip this one.

Models for Youth Ministry: Learning from the Life of Christ (Mar 2018): A fairly good Christological book on ministering to teenagers, not so much in the program details, but in the conversations and pastoral moments. We are not to "be Christ" to others, but instead, we are to trust in Christ and different aspects of His person and work to do ministry.

Fruit that will last (Feb 2018): This was most helpful for me in building a foundation on the purpose, mission and strategy for youth ministry. It also had some helpful nitty-gritty bit about what happens in an evening and planning for camp. Worth a read.

Youth Ministry in the 21st Century: Five Views (Feb 2018): I appreciated this book to give some ideas on what foundational basis do I have for my youth group. The three standout ideas were by Stier who put forward an evangelistic/sending out model, Cosby had a more balanced and reformed view and Clark put forward an adoption model.

Youth Ministry 3.0 (Jan 2018): The only good part of this was its analysis of what a teenager is going through with their quest for identity, autonomy and affinity. When it comes to actual ministry models, it was more on belonging to a community than believing or behaving like a church, and probably bought too much into postmodernity.

Books for Youth

A Dozen Disappointing Disciples (Oct 2021): A good book about Jesus' disciples, but more importantly about Jesus. It looks at 17 snippets from the Gospels where at least one of the disciples is screwing up. Each chapter also points to Jesus showing that Jesus isn't disappointed in His followers, rather He loves, cares and equips them.

A.S.K: Real world questions/Real word answers (May 2021): There are 52 real-world questions from teens all over the world covering a very wide range of issues. Each answer is about two and a half pages long and some could have gone much deeper. Overall the model of seeking what the scriptures said and applying it to the issue was done well.

Love Riot (Sep 2020): Another good book written by a teen for teens. It calls teenagers to really live for Jesus, putting aside low expectations and the pull of the world and working on their Christian life, setting up routines and going out and telling others about Jesus.

Transformed by Truth (Dec 2019): This is a good book for teenagers to help give them tools to dig deeper into the Bible. I love the inductive Bible study method and this sets up why studying the Bible for yourself is worth doing and then steps through three phases of observation, interpretation and application as a method to reading and understanding the Bible for yourself.

This Changes Everything (Jun 2019): This is a great book for teenagers. This is Do Hard Things but actually Christian. It shows how the Gospel affects all areas of your life, from relationships, use of time and media. Worth giving to every teenager you know.

Do Hard Things (May 2019): I wasn't impressed with this book. I like what it said about pushing back against the low expectations we have for teenagers but it really was pseudo-Christian and more about working hard and seeing how much teenagers can really do if they set their minds to things.

Big Truths for Young Hearts (Nov 2018): This is pretty much a Systematic Theology for kids. Would be good for parents to read with younger teenagers (the parents may learn something too).

Lost, Hero, Fearless, Faker (Turn Upside Down series): These are short engaging books that we hand out to our Youth. Good for junior years. Lost is the story of the prodigal son, Hero is about Gideon and Fearless is going through the book of Daniel. I haven't read Faker.

Pre-package studies/resources

Multiply (Oct 2013): Discipleship is important in any youth ministry. This is a good resource for meeting up one-on-one (or in groups of 3) with seniors. It stresses the Great Commission, gives a good Biblical overview and has good heart-searching questions.

Cru School Resources: While the context is for school lunchtimes, it works fine as a small group study. We used their On Solid Rock resource (1 Peter studies) for our years 7-8 small group and it worked well (2019). We will probably use another Cru resource again in 2020.

Youth Alpha: A good free, easy to use and adjustable resource for teens. Comes with videos and discussion papers. We will probably use this every second year for our year 7-8 small groups.

Back to Basics: We used these books after KYCK, to help strengthen those who committed to take the Christian life seriously. It takes you through some good and basic Christian habits. You have to remember six memory verses, of which I failed pretty hard.

Count Me In: A Confirmation Workbook for Young People: I used this as a basis for our confirmation class. This book is a bit overkill with 15 chapters/sessions. I reduced this down to 7. Each week there is an activity or something different to just an information dump. I tweaked some sessions a bit (especially the chapter on Church and prayer), but it was a helpful base to get started.

Introduction to the Bible from Moore College PTC course: This is not aimed at teenagers but I tweaked this resource to be an 8 week Bible overview with each week only making two points about the Bible storyline.

True: Being true to yourself, your God, your relationship: We used four chapters of this book on friendships, parents, dating and non-Christians as the basis of a min-series on relationships.

Taking God at His Word (Dec 2016): We used four chapters of this book as a basis for a short series on the Bible. We looked at SCAN - how the Bible is Sufficient, Clear, Authoritative and Necessary.