Toward a Prophetic Youth Ministry: Theory and Praxis in Urban Context

Youth ministries in an urban context are too often left to their own devices.The resources available to them are overwhelmingly conceived, tested andproduced exclusively in the suburbs, and bring little to bear on the realities ofurban youth culture. As a consequence, youth ministries in large cities havetended to settle onto one of three paths–a traditional paradigm thatjealously guards the spiritual formation of its young people, a liberalparadigm that concentrates exclusively on personal growth, and an activistparadigm that galvanizes youth around the social concerns surroundingthem. While each of these emphases is important, too often they arepursued to the neglect of the others, and the urban church suffers.Fernando Arzola Jr. proposes a fourth way, a prophetic paradigm thatintegrates the three and cultivates young people who are spiritually rooted,emotionally mature and responsive to the needs of their community. In thispace-setting book he draws on various disciplines–from biology tosociology, from psychology to theology–to guide urban youth workers intoan effective and transformational ministry to youth.