Welcome to Rooted’s Top Ten, a curated reading list for youth ministers. Each month, we find ten articles, and sometimes videos or podcasts, from various sources that we believe will encourage you in your ministry to teenagers and their families. Some give explicit instructions on gospel-centered ministry, while others are included because there is a message of common grace that is helpful to youth workers. (The opinions presented in these articles do not necessarily reflect the position of Rooted.) For more articles to share with the parents in your ministry, make sure to check out our Parent Top Ten, which runs every other month.
If you find an article that could educate, equip, or encourage the Rooted community, please email the editors at submissions@rootedministry.com.
Gospel-Centered
The Unexpected Legacy of a Youth Ministry “Failure” by Walt Mueller (The Center for Parent Youth Understanding)
Youth workers…you never know! You never know! Preach the Word…and trust God to bring the harvest!
Ministering to Those in Doubt: Lessons from the Book of Jude by Enoch Liao (SOLA Network)
It’s hard enough for someone to tell their Christian parents they may be experiencing doubts about Christianity. But many Asian Americans also feel the pressure of living up to the expectations of immigrant parents. Many Asian parents immigrated through many struggles to give their kids a better life. The last thing many of these Christian parents expected was for their child to not continue in their cherished Christian faith.
Partnering with Parents
It’s Never Too Early to Teach Theology to Kids by Lauren Groves (Lifeway Research)
Clear, durable theology doesn’t happen by accident. Of course, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit often uses faithful, ordinary means to form a lifelong faith.
How Do I Teach My Children The Christian Faith? The Russell Moore Show
Formation precedes choice. Choice is important, but formation precedes choice. It doesn’t replace it.
‘Not a Child-Safe Technology’: Proactive Parenting in the Age of AI by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (The Gospel Coalition)
If we’ve learned anything from our last two technological waves—smartphones and social media—then we know one thing: Those who are probably going to be most harmed by AI are our kids.
Youth Culture
Seeing the World Through Gen Alpha’s Eyes by Dave Boden (New Growth Press)
Judging the next generation is easy. Understanding them takes more work. So perhaps there is a better lens we, as Christians, can choose: curiosity. If we are serious about becoming more like Jesus in our response to the next generation, the desire to understand must come before the urge to criticize.
The Revival That Wasn’t—and the One That May Be by Josh Packard and Raymond Chang (Christianity Today)
This is profoundly good news for the local church. The congregation is not obsolete. It remains the essential vessel for Christian formation and discipleship. What has changed from decades past are the entry point and the assumptions pastors and other Christians sometimes make about how others see our institutions.
Ministry Skills
What Is Sin? Is Your Definition Missing the Mark? by Steve Wedgeworth (Logos)
Sin is a fundamental concept in Christianity. In English-language Bibles, words for sin appear over a thousand times. Salvation is frequently explained as the forgiveness of sins…Understanding sin is, therefore, a necessary part of understanding Christianity itself.
The Power of Scripture Memory in Discipleship by Bethany Hearne (Youth Pastor Theologian)
We may never know how God might use a verse our students have memorized to change the course of their lives, but we can do our very best to continually put it before them, that they may gaze at the beauty of the Lord through His Word, and that it would change them forever.
How Do Older Adults Invest in Young Adult Ministry? by PJ Dunn (Lifeway Research)
Yet while churches often focus on how to reach young adults, they tend to give far less attention to investing in the leaders who are called to serve them. The answer is not launching another program. It’s investing in people. Here are five ways senior adults can invest in young adult ministry in your church.
Bonus Resource:
AI Is Coming For Your Systematic Theology by Tim Challies (Challies)
If you were to visit Amazon today and search for “systematic theology,” it would not take you long to find a host of similar works. Many of them have scads of enthusiastic reviews and feature realistic-sounding author(s) that…in reality, do not exist at all, and the books under his name have been generated through nothing more than clever prompting of a Large Language Model.
Rooted’s Two Most-Read of April
Four Things Teenagers Need to Know about Science and God by Katy Morgan
Christian students can pursue science with a sense of security because the Bible tells us that God is the sovereign Creator. They can indulge their curiosity because the Bible reminds us that the natural world is an endlessly multifaceted evocation of God’s greatness.
Teaching Teenagers About Grace by Steve Eatmon
The teenagers we serve may see the world as a stage on which they have to perform… But as spiritual leaders, we can help them see that this is not how the gospel works. The grace of God is the reason he hears us in prayer. It’s the reason we can live a life pleasing to him.
In Case You Missed It (Rooted’s April Honorable Mention)
Ask Rooted: How Do I Get My Small Group to Talk?
We asked our Rooted writers a simple question: How do you get your students to talk in a small group setting? What do you do to earn their trust and respect so that engagement with you in front of other students feels less scary?
