Middle School Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide to Working with Early Adolescents

It makes you feel understood. It challenges you to improve. It covers so many areas. Just what my ministry needs.

If you work with middle schoolers, this book is a must. I've just finished it and am planning on getting one for every volunteer worker on my staff. You can tell both writers have had tons of experience and have spent lots of time studying to make this as helpful as possible. The book is divided into two sections. The first deals mostly with how middle schoolers develop. How we can view their brain and body development and that shapes how we can minister to them. The second half of the book focuses more on practical ideas related to teenage ministry... ie. lessons, outing, building a staff. I can't begin to tell you how beneficial this book has already proven to be in my ministry. I have already begun implementing some of the strategies laid out in the book. The one down side? What's with all the parentheses? Goodness there seems to be some in every paragraph. But I know that is me being nitpicky. Enjoy the read!

Everything I spent ten years learning about middle school ministry, these authors have managed to boil down into a FANASTIC resource for church leaders, volunteers, and parents. Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin do the youth ministry world a great favor with this handbook on middle school ministry. How refreshing it is to see a text on youth ministry that covers all the bases, but has richness, theoretical depth and new, interesting topics and approaches. Such as change from the homogenized style of the usual youth ministry texts! The book is interesting enough to read from cover-to-cover and has enough coverage and depth to be suitable as a text for undergraduate studies. It includes things like early adolescents' cognitive abilities and ability to understand abstract concepts at various ages, how they grow spiritually, the role and effect of the family, the importance of them being involved in church activities, not just babysat. If you want to read just one book about ministry to middle schoolers, this is it!