Book Review - "Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry"

How do we "unpack" scripture with young people? At jGYM, our younger youth programme, the bible is central to all that we do together. Each week we read a section, discuss it, animate it and pray through it. But I've never really taken a step back to consider why we should unpack scripture with young people. "Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry" by Andrew Root has made me address why and how I should approach scripture in youth ministry.

Here are some key points I took from the third instalment of Andrew's inspiring series:

• The success of a bible study is not what young people know at the end, we don't need to teach them the bible any more because we live in a information filled world. The success is in how they have read it, how they have made meaning in their reading.
• Our goal in youth ministry is to help young people to read the bible in context, understanding the context of the original writers and more importantly the context of the present readers.
• Youth ministry should invite young people to seek for God in their lives, where and how God is moving and help them read and interpret the bible in a way that shows them how God is acting in their lives and so participate in His action and be witnesses to it.

It all comes down to Revelation. For those of us attending the Jubilee Course this term, we'll be looking at scripture and Revelation. This book has not only addressed the purpose of unpacking scripture with young people in our youth ministry programmes.

I think this book was very challenging for me. Do we need to do more than "Lectio Divina"? When we open the bible do we need to be prepared to find out who the young people are first (in my opinion can only be done through relational youth ministry) and them help them to read the bible and see how God is revealing himself to them in their lives. It's a process I think...