Over the last few months, I have had a sense that there was room in our church’s youth ministry to be more creative and more importantly, to be more intentional about our ministry.
Shortly thereafter, I purchased the book “Sticky Faith Innovation” by Steve Argue and Caleb Roose (A resource of Fuller Youth Institute) and I found that it was a good resource for me to consider.
If you know me well, you know that I love the efforts of FYI and Sticky Faith and this resource builds off their previous works. And while there is common ground with those previous resources, this IS a stand-alone work designed to help churches to innovate inside their youth ministries.
Before I give an overview of this book, let me offer the following statements about this book:
- It is based on critical research, and the research behind the book had two significant national grants in support of it.
- The book is part workbook and part textbook.
- A core value of this book is “people over programs”.
This book reminds and points us to listen to people as we plan and innovate for the future.
- And if we start to orient our youth ministries towards “listening” then we are in a good direction.
This book is oriented to speak to youth workers regardless of their scenario and/or their need for innovation.
When you get to the heart of the book, you’ll find six steps towards leading towards innovation.
An overview of those six steps is:
- Listening and learning from the hearts of students.
- Making sense of what you have heard so discover the “gaps”.
- Exploring ideas that match up with the needs of your ministry.
- Narrowing your efforts.
- Test and experiment.
- Launch your innovative approach.
I need to find some innovative ways and I’m going to reread this and implement it and I encourage you to purchase it and consider it as a helpful resource for your ministry.
To buy it from Amazon, go to Sticky Faith Innovation: How Your Compassion, Creativity, and Courage Can Support Teenagers’ Lasting Faith: Argue, Steven, Roose, Caleb: 9780991488087: Amazon.com: Books