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So important – please share this message!
Jonathan Carswell
This is a wonderful, wonderful book. It’s challenging but its message is so important it must be shared.
I’m going to encourage everyone bothered about evangelism and discipleship to read this, and to buy multiple copies to pass onto others who share the same passion.
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A challenging read
Hannah Peace
This is a really easy book to read and accessible to everyone. It took me 15 minutes to read and yet I will go back to again and again to challenge my lifestyle, my priorities and how I go about reaching the next generation. This book would be a good discussion starter for a team to help them focus the why and how of what they do. I have a list of people I am going to give this too, to encourage them to keep going and to have high standards!
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Valuable
Jonathan Gemmell
Back in the day when young people got their Polio vaccine it was disguised on a sugar cube. The thinking being, take something that is not that pleasant and palatable (the vaccine) and hide it in something tasty (the sugar cube). Lots of contemporary youth work, youth engagement and youth activity seems to treat the gospel like the Polio vaccine. If we take something that is hard to swallow, i.e. the gospel and hide it in a small god slot amidst fun things like Playstation, table tennis and oodles of sweets the young people will learn to tolerate it but may never think about it or ne engaged with the gospel.
Into this poorly thought out strategy and lack of confidence in the gospel comes this slim line book of dynamite from Kevin DeYoung. It is a clear, articulate and bare strategy for youth engagement. It takes the Bible seriously, doesn’t patronise the young people and has at its base level the truth that the gospel shared amongst, lived out before and sown consistently and outrageously into young people’s lives has the greatest chance of success of winning the next generation to Christ. It is God that will amaze them, satisfy them and attract them to Himself. Moving away from that will only entertain but never win young people.
Under the five simple titles, Grab them with Passion, Win them with Love, Hold them with Holiness, Challenge them with truth and Amaze them with God, Kevin paints a vivid and compelling picture of the necessity, simplicity and sacrifice needed if the next generation are not going to wander away.
Having read this book I think it is a valuable contribution and a handy resource for anyone engaged in any form of youth work, although I think there are transferable lessons into any sphere of ministry.
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Must read, must share, must practice!
Susan Boothby
Just read this book. Spot on as to what young people need as well as older people. SO many good things that it is hard to pick out one in particular. We have tried to put some of these things in to practice in our own interactions with young people. Both in our western culture and in a culture very different to our own. People need truth, reality and something that works and is alive. The church, (we believers) has to get excited about what we believe. We who are “the pillar and foundation of the truth” 1 Tim 3:15
