This is my current read. (well, one of them...)
It's a Mark Yaconelli book. His books were introduced to me by David Runcorn, and I'm loving them.
The general gist of his work tends to be helping teenagers to grow in Christ, and he doesn't have a lot of time for youth programmes that are aimed solely or primarily at exciting and entertaining young people. He draws heavily on 'spirituality' themes and encourages teaching some very well-established (but currently largely ignored, at least in youthwork) practices. He's a great author to read as I'm currently working on my chapter on silence and solitude :). He says this: "In my experience, young people crave the peace of Christ that waits beneath the frantic hamster wheel of modern society." Great way of putting it, and probably right, to boot! How often do we worry more about keeping the kids 'interested' than teaching them more of God?
Anyways, he also said this, which kinda hit me: "Youth learn through observation and experience [i.e. by watching and living with us lot!] that the real work of becoming an adult is to construct a hard, but attractive, shell - a barricade that keeps the soft and wild interior of a person hidden and protected. The culture teaches our young people to create hearts of stone rather than hearts of flesh." Made me wonder how much I contribute to this sort of teaching. How often is my life and my faith not just failing to teach young people the right stuff, but actually teaching them complete rubbish? Bit of a challenge :)
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