Tag-Team Youth Ministry

50 Ways to Involve Parents and Other Caring Adults

By Ron Habermas and David Olshine
Standard Publishing Company, $8.99

ISBN 0-7847-0407

Review by Jane Stovall

Everyone's Ministry

If my church asks me to lead our youth group, I'll get a copy of Tag Team Youth Ministry for myself and for parents and for everyone working with the kids. These authors have got the the right idea: youth ministry is not just for youth ministers. It's for parents and the whole church to share. It's a tag team.

Clearly organized, Tag Team Youth Ministry is a super combination of purposes, strategy, and practical program ideas. All is built on the obvious but overlooked principle that families of teens must be active partners in the ministry. And you know where the authors got this ideaÑthe Bible!

In Bible times, human beings moved directly from the child's status to the adult status. Children were not usually separated from the home so they were continually surrounded by family and tribe. Their activities were regulated by times of worship and by working alongside the adults.

Granted, we live in a different culture and can't maintain the strict closeknit lifestyle that was prevalent in Bible times. But we can set our eyes on insuring that the future belongs to God by working and worshiping with our youth.

Ron Habermas and David Olshine make this point well as they trace the emphases in youth ministry from the 1960s to the present. Moving to the practical, they also provide 50 one-page suggestions for involving parents and other adults in the church. My favorite is the directions for taking a video camera to a teen's house and with the tape rolling ask questions like "What's for dinner?", "Can we see Scott's room without anybody picking up first?", or "Has Shannon done her homework yet?" Then show these film clips at the next meeting.

Habermas, Professor of Biblical Studies at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, has seven years of full-time church staff experience. David Olshine is chairman of the Youth ministry Department at Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina. He has been actively involved in youth ministry for 17 years. Both authors have teenage children.

I wish this book were bigger and designed a little differently. It has a lot to say to everybody on the team.