Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry: A personal and practical guide to starting right

I just finished reading the whole book page to page. I felt I should have read this book 2 years ago. Last two years have been my most challenging years both in my youth ministry and life so far! But God’s timing is perfect. He has provided me with necessary wisdoms in doing my current youth ministry when I desperately need them. God’s provision is always on time.

Mean parents?Not everybody will like me?Kids won't remember all of my message points?The elder board might not think turning the baptismal into a hot tub is a good idea!? OH MAN!Maybe you're like me (a new youth leader) and you have a crazy list of "must read" books and you have no idea where to start. I know the feeling folks (I'm there right now). But one book that everyone agreed that I start with was this book.I was stepping into a ministry where the demographic difference (education, church background, age) was so different I had no idea where to start.Do I host a huge event? Tell stories? Go through 1 Chronicles!? AHHH!Doug Fields put together a very helpful,practical and honest book. The entire book is put together in a readable way.With writings from both Doug Fields and other ministers from around the country who are in the battlefield right now. The contributing writers do more than validate, but they relate the topics to their real world experience. Finally a book with more than just concepts and theories!First you'll probably read it straight through, but afterwards it will turn into a quick reference book. If anything just to re-affirm how you're going to handle a difficult situation.As a single new minister, I felt absolutely clueless about parents. What do they really want from me? A couseler? A listener? A babysitter?Doug very clearly lays out what parents need from you and how you can pour your life into their's without telling them how to raise your kids. I loved it when he talked about parents being experts on their children, so don't treat them like an idiot when you don't agree with how they want to raise their own children.It is because of this book that I have already learned ways of forming relationships with distant parents, learned how to find the needs of my attending kids, and build a foundation for a relationship based ministry.I would have paid 10 times the price for this book. The wisdom of these pages are truly beyond value for me a new minister to kids.

I have been a full-time youth and young adult pastor for over four years now and I found much of what Doug had to say to be very accurate and insightful.It may not be very deep theologically, the jokes may be a little silly, and the grammar may be occasionally poor, but those are just minor complaints in comparison to an overall very enjoyable read.I recommend this book to any person planning on becoming a youthworker and definitely to any youth pastor who feels a bit discouraged or burned out.The purpose of the book is not to give you a step by step guideline as to how to run a youth ministry (that is found in Doug's other well-known book "The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry"), but instead its focus is on the spiritual health of the youthworker. The demands of serving in youth ministry are many and Doug does a tremendous job at giving practical advice to help any youth worker thrive.I am teaching a "Youth Ministry" class at CCBC this semester and I plan on using this book as our required textbook.

This book is a very relatable and helpful resource. There were many times that I was reading about issues that come up in youth ministry and I felt so much relief knowing I wasn’t going crazy thinking those very thoughts! For that and many practical helps, this book was an encouraging and entertaining read. The book is a bit broad and operates from more of a large church context, but it is an essential resource that will help any youth leader have a healthier ministry and confidence in their role during there first few years of youth ministry. With so few voices able to speak into our lives as youth pastors, leaders, directors, volunteers, about the ministry, why not let a “voice from the trenches” speak to you.

I was given this as a gift several years ago. I might have been a little prideful at the time and was offended by the title (I had already been in the ministry for several years). I hit a small bump in the road and decided to give the book a read. THe information is this book is simple, yet key fro anyone involved in youth ministry. I ended up buying several copies for all my leaders and went through it with them as a team. God did amazing things through our youth ministry team. ALot of it was because of key lessons learned through Doug Fields experience given throughout the book. Now in a new church I've begun to read through again refreshing myself in all of the books contents. Ignore the title, no matter how long you've been in the youth ministry, this book is key to guiding our ministries the way God wants.

If you get the Kindle version, read this.First, content-wise, this was a great book. From start to finish. Fields does a good job of putting youth ministry back into the category of Christian ministry. While he deals very specifically with the facets of youth ministry, his broader-picture perspective is much needed.But if you get the Kindle version, be warned:- this was probably scanned and never kindle-edited. There are a lot of missing spaces between comma and word. And occasionally there are entire words missing.- there are no page numbers. Not a big deal, but when I read a Kindle, I like it to feel like a book.- no X-Ray. I don't use this feature, but if you do (fyi).It's still readable on Kindle, but if I knew this, I'd have gone with the paperback.

Brilliant and practical - best youth leader book by a mile. Bought them for all our youth leader team. The author is experienced and puts some really key concepts front and centre-like how important it is to work with families and parents and getting expectations clear from your church leadership.

Naturally, the title says it all. Doug Fields is one of the modern day gurus of youth ministry, and this introductory book covers all the important areas of youth ministry that a new youth pastor or youth leader would want to know about.

Was assigned this in college years ago, and now i make all my co-op students read it. THANKS DOUG, DYM FOR LIFE

Great book

dealing with youth is such an awesome blessing this book sure helped with that another one for my kids was "raising kids of increase" by Carmen Lynne and "Rich dad poor dad" by robert kiyosaki