Böcker av David F White

Dreamcare: A Theology of Youth, Spirit, and Vocation helps parents, youth workers, and congregations cultivate purpose and vocation in youth and young adults. Recent findings disclose a pervasive sense of purposelessness that threatens young adults'' health and well-being, and also the common good. The good news is that research shows all young people also have an often hidden sense of purpose that can be noticed, named, and nurtured by parents and communities. This volume supplements research with findings from Emory''s Youth Theological Initiative (YTI), which identifies four pathways--desire, joy, compassion, and responsibility--by which young people discover a sense of purpose. Growing from research at YTI, this volume provides concrete suggestions for how Christian communities might engage young people in practices to cultivate a sense of purpose, including narrative resources by which to make theological sense of their impulses of desire, joy, compassion, and responsibility.""David White brings into conversation the wise insights of Christian theologians with the deep questions of today''s youth, modeling an innovative approach to ministry with young people. In so doing, he reminds us there is indeed a robust gospel the church can communicate, which invites young people--and all of us--into a life of meaning and purpose that participates in God''s redeeming work in the world.""--Elizabeth W. Corrie, Assistant Professor in the Practice of Youth Education and Peacebuilding, Candler School of Theology, Emory University""Books about youth ministry too often dismiss adolescents as inadequate and easily manipulated. White reminds us the Holy Spirit sparks in young people the capacity to respond with purpose to join their lives with God''s work in the world. His playful engagement with both young people and theologians invites us into deeper theological reflection on the purposes of human life and committed engagement with young people in their search for vocation.""--Katherine Turpin, Associate Professor of Religious Education, Iliff School of Theology""American consumerist culture seeks to marshal young people into lockstep conformity with its vision of personal empire through acquisition of material goodies. By contrast, David White here provides Christian communities with means to assist their youth in discerning the counter-rhythms of the Holy Spirit, rhythms that resound with young persons'' innate yearning for lives of joy and purpose.""--Fred P. Edie, Associate Professor for the Practice of Christian Education, Duke Divinity SchoolDavid F. White is the C. Ellis Nelson Professor of Christian Education at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. He is author of Practicing Discernment with Youth, and coauthor of Awakening Youth Discipleship: Christian Resistance in a Consumer Culture. He was the editor of the Pilgrim book series Youth Ministry Alternatives. David is an ordained United Methodist minister who served for over twenty years as minister with youth at congregations in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alaska, and California.

Youth ministry has increasingly lost touch with its origins in the way of Jesus and the social practices intrinsic to Christian discipleship, and has instead substituted layers of ""Jesus talk,"" middle class values, fun and games, and doses of ""warm fellow-feeling."" Awakening Youth Discipleship articulates the history of this domestication of youth and ministry. Mahan, Warren, and White tell a story of the ways in which our society has colluded to shape a domesticated adolescence. The authors believe a Christian response to this challenge must be multilevel, addressing the problem at three levels--society, church, and individual. The authors propose reclaiming practices of discernment that both engage congregations in social awareness and involve individuals in discerning fuller vocational opportunities than those allowed by popular cultural norms.""Awakening Youth Discipleship is a terrific, troublesome, hopeful book, offered with characteristic thoughtfulness by three prophets in our midst. Drawing from decades of teaching and research in youth ministry, Brian Mahan, Michael Warren, and David White make a provocative case for youth ministry that practices, as Daniel Berrigan puts it, ""the upside-down hermeneutics of Jesus Christ."" Awakening Youth Discipleship topples many of youth ministry''s most sacred cows, and offers strategies that help young people (and the rest of us) resist the deformative power of consumerism. These views are seldom voiced in youth ministry--but our ability to reflect Christ to and with young people absolutely depends upon hearing them.""--Kenda Creasy Dean, Associate Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church (Eerdman) and Youth and the Church of ""Benign Whatever-ism"" (Oxford) ""Brian Mahan, Mike Warren, and David White invite us to engage in an increasingly rare and dangerous spiritual practice: thinking. Why do we define teenagers by what they consume? Why does youth ministry feel like a finishing school for the middle class? Who profits from keeping teenagers nice? Where would Jesus shop? Like Jesus, the authors walk us up the steps of the sacred temples, tune our ears to the clink of the money-changers, and then show us how easily the tables are flipped. Awakening Youth Discipleship is a necessary read if youth workers are going to expose the sanctified greed, passionate advertising, and soulful materialism that keeps all of us, young and old, from entering the freedom of Jesus.""--Mark Yaconelli, author of Contemplative Youth Ministry""Brian, David, and Michael have given us a real gift, a pearl of great price. As a father, a teacher and a consultant, I only wish I had this book years earlier. If, as Rahner said, the church of this century would be a church of mystics, these three guides prove that they are the right people to help us navigate the ''culture tricks'' so that we''re mindful of pouring new wine into new wineskins. This book is a significant contribution for all interested in formation, Christian discipleship and everyday life. This book is also a great read! It made me smile often.""--Michael J. Downey, Australian Youth Minister, author of Digging Deep: Fostering the Spirituality of Young Men""For those of us in youth ministry, this book offers a mirror of sorts. And, as with any good mirror, it offers us an opportunity for reflection. To be honest, if you read it carefully and with an open mind, you will probably be forced to see some facets of the current youth ministry identity that aren''t very flattering. They write honestly, thoughtfully and without condescension, but in these straightforward essays I heard the sounds of some sacred cows being butchered, the tough questions of a thorough Cross-examination (yeah, that Cross), and what I believe were the sounds of my chair as I squirmed a bit. The writer of Proverbs reminds us that ''Faithful are the woun