Email: kayebledsoe@presbycc.org

Teaming Up, Ginny Holderness – A wonderfully comprehensive book on the how-to of Youth Ministry. (1^stChurch, Jacksonville has this book.) Can be ordered from PPC- www.ppcpub.com

The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry, Kenda C. Dean & Ron Foster. This book deals directly with the primary need for God in the lives of the adolescents and those who minister to them. It draws the focus away from the preoccupation with techniques and paradigms and points us to the passionate embrace of Jesus Christ. It addresses practices that shape the soul, practices of witness and practices of teaching, worship and compassion.

Operation Fuzzy Squirrel - A 40-minute video produced by the Lutheran Church for youth leaders. It identifies positive traits in youth ministry. Good for leader development.

Growing Up Generous: Engaging Youth in Giving and Serving, Eugene Roehlkepartain. Book. This is a positive proactive response that values the commandment to teach our children and gives us an important tool for saving our world.

Adolescents in Crisis, G. Wade Rowatt, Jr. Book. This is a guide for parents, teachers, ministers, and counselors. Each chapter provides sound scholarship as well as Biblical insights for guiding young people.

Helping Teenagers Grow Morally, C. Ellis Nelson. He emphasizes what Christians can do in congregations to create a caring community that encourages young people to embody virtues that build a better society.

How To Expand Your Youth Ministry, Len Kageler. Len shares his own time-tested insights, input from nationally-known church growth experts, and the wisdom of hundreds of youth workers he’s surveyed.

-Sowing the Seeds, Rodger Nishioka. Tells how to sow the seeds of faith in our youth. It examines John Westerhoff’s styles of faith and how they relate to youth ministry.

-Growing Leaders, Bob Tuttle. Bob looks at a wide range of topics important to assist and sustain youth ministry leadership.

-Dealing With Crisis, Bob Tuttle. This offers an informed and pastorally sensitive examination of several crisis scenarios. It is designed for learning and teaching. It assists adult leaders in educating youth on appropriate ways to deal with crisis and lesser life stresses.

-Surveying the Land, Lynn Turnage. Lynn yields significant insights into how to build a strong, relevant youth ministry program.

How To Recruit and Train Volunteer Youth Workers, Les Christie. A how-to book on developing a successful volunteer youth ministry. Included are great program ideas designed to help your volunteers learn how to build relationships with the youth and ways to affirm these dedicated workers.

Computers, Kids, and Christian Education, Neil MacQueen. How computers can add to your Christian education program.

Safe Sanctuaries: Reducing the Risk of Child Abuse in the Church, Joy Thornburg Melton. A Guide for committed congregations that outlines a process for developing policies and procedures to reduce the risk of child abuse in the church.

Rooted In Love, Rodger Nishioka. 52 Meditations and stories for Youth Ministry Leaders.

Destination Unknown- 50 Quick mystery Trips for Youth Groups - CE7/HAL/d. Book. This book has creative ideas for taking youth to places in your town and relating the settling to scripture. Some examples are: the cemetery, a courtroom, the garbage dump, a bridge, a crossroads. Good for something different.

Creative Socials & Special Events, Mike Yaconelli & Wayne Rice. Tested and proven ideas from youth ministry workers from all over the country.

Clown Ministry Handbook, Janet Litherland. The basics of clown ministry and skits for service and worship

Clown Skits for Everyone, Jack Feder. 32 skits for one or two clowns, with prop instructions and performing tips.

Holiday Ideas for Youth Groups, Wayne Rice & Mike Yaconelli.

The Complete Youth Group Checkup and Other Great Retreats, Tom Salsgiver. This resource has adaptable schedules and planning guides for retreats, helps for older youth and younger youth, worship that’s integrated with the topic, creative and meaningful activities.

Celebrations That Matter: A Year-round Guide to Making Holidays Meaningful, Harriett Diller. Easy-to-do, helpful suggestions for celebrating major holidays.

Holy Days and Holidays: Prayer Celebrations With Children, Caynell Bordes Cronin.

Ecumenical celebrations for classroom and home.

Jubilee Celebrations, Volumes 1,2,3. Eight spirited celebrations in each volume involve the whole church for two hours of combined worship and education.

• Kids Have A Lot To Give: How Congregations Can Nurture Habits of Giving and Serving for the Common Good, Eugene Roehlkepartain. Book. This resource offers some concrete ways that leaders in congregations can be more intentional and effective in nurturing a generous spirit in youth.

• Youth Discover Your Gifts & Learn How To Use Them, Ruth VanderZee. Book. This is a 6-session course for junior and senior high youth that will help them discover how to use their spiritual gifts.

• Destination Easter: Lenten Programs & Practices for Youth, Kaylea Hutson & Kathy Hershman. This book has two main sections: programs and practices. Each program (except Easter) has a Practice of Faith that goes along with it.

• Destination Christmas: Advent & Christmas Programs and Practices for Youth, The authors have written excellent programs that are supplemented with wonderful practices that help the youth develop their faith.

• Faith Works for Senior High, Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart. The book’s twelve sessions present meaningful faith & belief content from the Scriptures and tradition and help young people integrate that into life experiences.

• Helping Youth Interpret the Bible: A Teaching Resource, A. Roger & Gertrude G. Gobbel and Thomas E. Ridenhour, Sr. The approach this book takes combines the two key part of effective Christian growth and education – theory and method. The authors ask and provide the means for youth to work with teachers, parents, and pastors to answer a basic question vital to their Christian development: can biblical material inform and give clues to young people as they attempt to accomplish developmental tasks?

• Presbyterian Youth Connection:PROGRAM DESIGNS for 6^th-8^th Grade Groups, Vol. 1 &2, PC(USA). This book has 20 programs written by Presbyterian pastors and educators especially for Presbyterian Youth Ministry.

• Presbyterian Youth Connection: PROGRAM DESIGNS for 9^th-12^th Grade Groups, Vol. 1 &2. PC(USA). This book also has 20 programs to use in Youth Ministry.

• Straight Talk on Tough Topics: A discussion guidebook for today’s African-American youth, Chris Jackson. Packed with pointed information, questions to get your young people thinking and talking, and Scripture references that will help them build a solid foundation on God’s Word.

• Listening With New Ears: Program Activities for Unwrapped Presence, Phyllis Ward. The author takes the songs from Jim Morgan’s CD titled "Unwrapped Presence" and writes programs for youth that help them to interpret and understand life and faith. 11 programs.

• Creative Programming for Junior High Ministry, Steve Dickie & Darrell Pearson. Dozens of easy-to-use ideas for youth meetings, Sunday School, camps, and retreats, music and drama, recreation and more.

• Connect:Life & Christian Faith for Young Teen, Abingdon Press. 14 session with reproducible student pages; bonus pages for parents and pastors; sessions address real issues.

• Jr High Builders: Group Bible Studies for Grades 6-9: Christian Relationships, Ed. Ron Durham. Everything you need to teach any size group of kids about Christian relationships: with God, with ourselves, and with others. 13 sessions with reproducible worksheets.

• Which Way to God- Christian study of World Religions -This is a good study written for young people. A video of young people of Islam, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist faiths introduce themselves and tell something about their faith tradition.

• The Electric Campfire: New Storytelling from Scripture. Video. This video is a retelling of narratives from the Hebrew Scriptures. Familiar stories come as a surprise heard as if for the first time. Stories included: Creation, The Flood, The Binding of Isaac, The Red Sea, The Valley of Dry Bones

• Fish Eyes with Ted and Lee - Video series that tells the stories of the gospel from the disciples eyes. Peter and Andrew (dressed in modern clothes) use humor and creativity to tell the stories the young people may already know. There are seven tapes with 2 stories on each tape. Some of the stories included: Fishers of Men, Water to Wine, Miracles, Sermon on the Mount, Parables, Lazarus!, The Last Supper

Holy Motion - video and book with 42 energizers set to songs. This will get young people up and moving. Production of Presbyterian Youth Connection.

201 Group Games, Linda Magee. New games ideas – many are action games, but several less strenuous and even pencil-and-paper games are included. Minimum of equipment needed.

The Playbook, Roger Maness. This book has lots of activities and games for youth groups. It is divided into Starters, Mixers, Active Games, Sit-Down Games, Cooperative Games, & Special Fun for Special Settings.

Play It Again! More Great Games for Groups, ed. By Wayne Rice & Mike Yaconelli.

Over 200 games to play indoors, outdoors, with big groups or small groups.

Great Group Games for Youth Ministry, GROUP. 94 new ways to have fun and build community. Games for small place, games for great halls, games on the go, games for the great outdoors and games for all kinds of weather.

Junior High Game Nights, Dan McCollam & Keith Betts. Each game night comes complete with six wild and messy games you can do with inexpensive, easy-to-find supplies. Each has an outline for an evangelistic message, related to the theme.

Good Clean Fun, Vol. 1 &2, Tom Finley. Fifty Bible word games guaranteed to make any junior higher scratch his head, and dig into the Word.

Small Group Body Builders, Michael D. Warden. Practical activities to do with small groups of teenagers to help develop faith and build stronger friendships.

Snoredom Busters: 106 Quick Activities, Cindy Hansen. Activities that will wake your kids and focus them back on the lesson, build friendships and create fun.

Got A License, But Where Do I Go? Dale & Sandy Larsen. Devotions for teen on the move that challenge them to make choices with the wisdom of God’s handbook for life – the Bible.

• Awesome Youth Sundays, Martha Johnson. This resource shows how to turn youth-led services into inspiring and dynamic worship events. It includes sample scripts, sample bulletins and list of props. It also offer many substantive ideas for creating compelling intergenerational worship experiences.

• All That We Are: An Arts and Worship Workbook, T.E.A.M. Aimee & Bill Buchanan & Jodi B. Martin. This workbook is for those who seek to use the language of the arts in worship and ministry. Whether you are looking for a new method of Bible study, a fresh approach to proclaiming God’s Word, ways to write drama, methods for creating liturgical movement, or alternate forms of personal worship time; this book provides many inspiring ways to reach out to the Divine with all that we are.

• Making Worship Real, Aimee & Bill Buchanan & Jodi B. Martin. Book.

Many youth attend church regularly without fully understanding what worship is and why it is the central action of our faith. In Making Worship Real, Aimee and Bill Buchanan along with Jodi Martin provide effective new ways for pastors, Christian educators, youth leaders, and youth themselves to help young people learn about the various elements of worship. This accessible book explains the significance of each part of worship in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Reformed congregations and includes activities that have been designed to help youth think creatively about worship. These engaging activities can be used to plan worship services for Sunday mornings, weekend retreats, youth Sundays, and nontraditional worship times.

• Chips and Salsa, Carolyn Bohler. Children and Youth in plays: Short and lively sacred action. 5 biblically based plays that avoid gender stereotypes, are adaptable for a varying number of players, require little or no musical ability and need only minimal staging.

• Worship Ideas for Youth Ministry, GROUP. Faith-building, active worship experiences based on the Gospels. Can be used at the beginning of a meeting, during a meeting with a biblical theme, a special youth worship and prayer meeting or while leading the congregation in worship.

• Super Plays: for Worship & Special Occasions, GROUP. Capture the attention of your church with these fun and creative plays. 12 plays can be performed in about 20 to 30 minutes. Plays for Easter, Lent, Advent, Christmas, Thanksgiving and other themes

• Dramatic Pauses, Jim Hancock. 20 sketches for youth ministry that tackle issues kids care about.

• Hilarious Skits for Youth Ministry, Chris Chapman. Easy-to-act and fun to watch, these 8 skits are guaranteed to get your kids laughing and listening.