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Toward a Prophetic Youth Ministry
Paperback
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Youth ministries in an urban context are too often left to their own devices.The resources available to them are overwhelmingly conceived, tested andproduced exclusively in the suburbs, and bring little to bear on the realities ofurban youth culture. As a consequence, youth ministries in large cities havetended to settle onto one of three paths--a traditional paradigm thatjealously guards the spiritual formation of its young people, a liberalparadigm that concentrates exclusively on personalgrowth, and an activistparadigm that galvanizes youth around the social concerns surroundingthem. While each of these emphases is important, too often they arepursued to the neglect of the others, and the urban church suffers.Fernando Arzola Jr. proposes a fourth way, a prophetic paradigm thatintegrates the three and cultivates young people who are spiritually rooted,emotionally mature and responsive to the needs of their community. In thispace-setting book he draws on various disciplines--frombiology tosociology, from psychology to theology--to guide urban youth workers intoan effective and transformational ministry to youth.
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE: PROPHETIC MODELS AND PERSPECTIVES
1 Urban Youth Ministry Archetypes: Beginning the Discussion
2 Assumptions of a Prophetic Youth Ministry
3 The Holistic Approach
4 Leading Youth: A Reflection-Action Praxis
5 Urban Perspective Shifts: From the Garden of Eden to the City of God
PART TWO: INTERDISCIPLINARY DIMENSIONS
6 Theory, Theology and Praxis
7 The Psychology of Urban Youth
8 The Biology of Urban Youth
9 The Sociology and Anthropology of Urban Youth
10 Defining Radical: Radical Education as Prophetic Ministry
PART THREE: URBAN YOUTH WORKERS
11 The Subway: Urban Youth Workers as Spiritual and Social Prophets