Book Review: Deep Ministry in a Shallow World – Not-so-secret findings about Youth Ministry by Chap Clark & Kara E. Powell
Described as ‘the best of careful theological reflection, serious academic research, and practical youth ministry know-how’ by Duffy Robbins and ‘both thought provoking and practical’ by Megan Hutchinson, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World talks about the issues surrounding how to make youth ministry in the 21st century deeper than it’s 20th century predecessor. Chap Clark & Kara E. Powell wrote their book from a deep conviction that much of what passes as youth ministry in the 21st century is ‘splashing around in the shallow end.’ In the book they have come up with a well defined 4 step approach to taking youth ministry deeper.
Step 1: Now – Discern God’s current transformation action.
Step 2: New – Reflect upon new idea’s and insights that speak to the issues that arose as you discerned God’s activity in your youth ministry.
Step 3: Who – Observe others who are already going deeper in ministry.
Step 4: How – Apply what you have learned from steps 1-3.
(IF POSSIBLE insert ‘infinity’ diagram for deep design here)
Throughout the book Clark and Powell reflect on their many years experience in youth ministry and draw upon that experience to illustrate how to apply these steps to youth ministry today. They talk about the 3 ‘solutions’ that many youth pastors try, and fail with, to go deeper and explain how these were destined to fail from the beginning. These first of these three common solutions are to do ‘more of the same’, the idea being if one activity isn’t enough, the solution is to provide two instead. The second common solution they suggest people avoid is to just copy what worked somewhere else and the final common solution they suggest avoidance of is to just copy without thought what the latest and greatest books say. A pretty well balanced list in my opinion.
One of the key filters that they suggest in this whole process is a reworking of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, being the idea that there are four sources of God’s revelation to the world. These four sources, in Clark & Powell’s words, are ‘Scripture’, ‘History’(as opposed to tradition), ‘Research’ (as opposed to reason) and ‘Experience’. By utilising the best principles from these four sources of God’s revelation, Clark & Powell suggest the every day 21st century youth worker can take their youth ministry into the deeper end of the pool.
Reading this book left me feeling quite encouraged. Admittedly most of the principles they suggested to try in terms of deepening youth ministry have been evident in the various youth ministries that I have been involved in. In fact I’d go so far as to suggest that over the past four to five years, many youth ministries have heeded the words of warning that were resounding in youth ministry circles towards the beginning of the 21st century and are looking towards taking youth ministry past the flash bang ‘games’ program it has been for so long. Reading about Clark & Powell’s experiences in taking the deeper approach leaves me with a great sense of hope for the future of youth ministry. I’d recommend the book to any youth pastor who isn’t sure if they are doing all they can to go deeper or any youth pastor that wants to be encouraged by seeing how the deep approach can pay off in the long run.
Overall rating – 6.5/10
