Self-Care

• What To Do When You Feel Degraded as a Youth Pastor by Cameron Cole
• Confessions of a Tired Youth Minister by Rebecca Heck
• Ask Rooted: How Do You Care for Your Soul As A Youth Minister? by Rooted
• Caring For Your Soul As a Youth Minister by Mark Upton
• Honoring Jesus Through Caring for Our Bodies by Liz Edrington
• Youth Pastors Should be the Weakest People on Staff by Seth Stewart
• New to Youth Ministry: Self Care & Boundaries by Liz Edrington
• Fellow Youth Minister, We Need the Church! by Kendal Conner
• A Tale of Rejection and Perfection in Youth Ministry… by Liz Edrington

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson. A great foundational book on discipleship and walking with Jesus that will be especially encouraging to those who lead.

Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome by Kent and Barbara Hughes. This is a book the redefines ministry success as faithfulness rather than finding success in numbers and performance.

Wholeheartedness: Busyness, Exhaustion, and Healing the Divided Self by Chuck DeGroat. The title says it all; written by a longtime counselor.

Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships by Curt Thompson. How neuroscience figures into our spiritual lives.

The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth by Gerald May. May examines what the “dark night of the soul’ really is, with reference to Christian mystics St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, and shows we grow in times of transition and suffering.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature While Remaining Emotionally Immature by Peter Scazzero. Unless you slow and quiet your life down for a first-hand relationship with Jesus Christ, little change is possible. Topics include how to identify emotionally unhealthy spirituality, how to grow your soul through grief and loss, and how to develop into an emotionally mature adult.

Refresh: Embracing a Grace-Paced Life in a World of Endless Demands by Shona Murray and David Murray. Many women don’t realize they’re running at an unsustainable pace until it hurts them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Drawing on many years of counseling and their own experiences of burnout, wife and husband team Shona and David Murray want to help you slow down to a more grace-paced life―enabling you to avoid the pitfall of burnout, cultivate sustainable habits for the future, and experience the rest of body and soul that God intends for you.

Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning – Most of us believe in God’s grace — in theory. But somehow we can’t seem to apply it in our daily lives. We continue to see Him as a small-minded bookkeeper, tallying our failures and successes on a score sheet. Yet God gives us His grace, willingly, no matter what we’ve done. We come to Him as ragamuffins — dirty, bedraggled, and beat-up. And when we sit at His feet, He smiles upon us, the chosen objects of His “furious love.”

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. If you’ve ever wondered: Can I set limits and still be a loving person? Unpacking the 10 laws of boundaries, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend give you biblically based answers to these and other tough questions, and show you how to set healthy boundaries with your spouse, children, friends, coworkers, and even with yourself.

Reset; Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture by David Murray. Drawing on personal experiences―and time spent counseling other men in the midst of burnout―David Murray offers weary men hope for the future, helping them identify the warning signs of burnout and offering practical strategies for developing patterns that are necessary for living a grace-paced life and reaching the finish line with their joy intact.

It’s All Worth It by Jeramie Rinne.

Hope for the Weary Youth Minister by Christian Edmondson.