The Youth Cartel

Teaching Teenagers in a Post-Christian World: Cultivating Exploration and Ownership will help youth workers shift from being content dispensers to conversation cultivators. Instead of treating teenagers like consumers—even when we really believe in what we're selling—let's create learning environments that lead to faith exploration and ownership.

When you think about the state of youth ministry today, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you cheer or fear? Is the glass half full or half empty? Mark Oestreicher offers a fresh take on what’s right in youth ministry—and discovers that perhaps things aren’t as broken as some of us might have thought.

Jesus’s intent is to bring all people into the community of faith—and to give each person a significant role to play. What does this mean for you as a student leader? Through real-life anecdotes, practical tips, and key passages of Scripture, Becoming a Student Leader will help you discover more about who you are and the purpose you serve.

Few areas of Christian ministry are as intense, unpredictable, and chaotic as junior high ministry. Read Controlled Chaos: Making Sense of Junior High Ministry to gain a little bit of hope and help so you can effectively serve the middle school students in your church.

Veteran youth worker Kurt Johnston writes, "Getting better at youth ministry is worth the effort because teenagers are worth the effort." With that in mind, he put together this compact, practical, and approachable book for youth ministry volunteers, brimming with insights and wisdom from his decades in youth ministry—including some memorable and hilarious stories of the mistakes that taught him along the way.

In this edition of our “multi-views” series, the chapters are authored by a group of youth ministry thought leaders. We asked them two key questions: What are the problems youth ministry currently faces? And what is the pathway forward? Each chapter represents a thoughtful, practical, and challenging viewpoint. At the end of each chapter, there is a sidebar from an in-the-trenches youth worker whose ministry is currently living out the future the chapter’s writer foresees.

Three years into Kendall’s job as the youth pastor of Grace church, many things are going really well: Kids are connecting and growing. She’s built a solid team of adult leaders. She and her husband love their home, city, and friends. But when Kendall is blindsided by her unsupportive senior pastor, who once again takes the side of a wealthy parent over Kendall’s, it’s the impetus she needs to start reconsidering her future. Is it time for Kendall to move on? And if she does look for a role at a new church, how can she be sure it will be a better fit than this one? 

With this fiction debut, veteran youth worker Jen Bradbury’s novel explores the process of living in to your calling, listening to the voice of God, and continually asking the question, What does the right fit look like, and how do you know when you’ve found it?

What do I do when a teenager comes out to me? How do I respond in a way that’s helpful rather than creating additional problems? 

Engaging and deeply relevant, 4 Views on Pastoring LGBTQ Teenagers is a frank and compassionate conversation with four in-the-trenches youth workers who have wrestled with these questions and strengthened their ministries as a result. In fact, it’s out of real-life experience with gay, bisexual, cisgender, transgender, queer, or questioning teens in their own youth groups that these youth workers are able to offer up their approaches—approaches which are then not theoretical at all, but practical and born of relational, everyday ministry. 

Will you find all the answers in this book? No. Look elsewhere for theological debate; look elsewhere for pat, one-size-fits-all methodologies. Youth ministry is often messy and complex, but it’s a divine calling to connect every youth with Jesus: straight, gay, bi, cisgender, trans, queer, or questioning.

Teenage girls area lot—in the best way. Complex, dramatic, thoughtful, generous, smart, frustrating, energetic, and ever-changing. This is because the teen years are marked by major shifts and growth, making them an ideal time to mentor girls toward a sustained, enduring faith.This is no small task, but it’s familiar territory for Katie Edwards, a long time youth worker, parent, and a former teen girl herself. She’s written Disciplemaking with Girls as a resource for the dedicated, caring adults ready to come alongside girls, build meaningful relationships, and pass down the ways of Jesus to the next generation.

Youth live in the in-between: They’re no longer children but not exactly adults, growing through a God-designed season of life that is tumultuous, exciting, and essential. How can we best love, encourage, and challenge the young people in our lives, helping them live into their gifts and grow toward spiritual maturity? And where should we look for these answers?

Beautiful Rebellion, a book that cuts past unhelpful stereotypes and shows today’s teens that they are uniquely primed to use their whole selves—faith, skepticism, intellectualism, humor, big questions, and all—to bring about a world-changing movement empowered and driven by God’s love.

4 Views on Talking to Teenagers About Sex reflects the thoughts, experiences, and practical advice of four in-the-trenches youth workers, who have spent years having these conversations with the teenagers in their ministries. Representing an array of viewpoints, these writers don’t agree on everything—but they all know that our conversations with teens about sex must speak to God’s design, avoid shame, and go far beyond any one instance of “the talk.

Hierarchical, coercive leadership should have no place in the church. But if we move away from those unbiblical (and ineffective) forms of power-based leadership, we still need to lead. In Leading Without Power, Mark Oestreicher explores—in very pragmatic ways—what it might look like for us to replace power-based leadership modalities with other approaches.