Rethink: Decide for Yourself, Is Student Ministry Working?

by Steve Wright

Is student ministry accomplishing what we think it is? Roughly two-thirds of students leave the church after graduation. Baptisms are down, and student pastors are walking away from ministry at startling rates. It's time to rethink student ministry. This book pairs the most up-to-date research available with an overview of a biblical framework for ministry. It will arm you with facts, Scripture, and real ideas that will help you find new ways to invite...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931548692
• ISBN13: 9781931548694
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Inquest Publishing
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Book For Parents, Not Just Pastors

Because of our moving around over the years, our children have been involved in a variety of youth ministries. While most of the time our children have found them fun, my husband and I have questioned where the focus was in some of the groups. It seemed to be more on games, social outings and improving outreach attendance than on sharing the gospel and discipling teens. At the same time, it's been easy to pick out the children whose parents have emphasized the importance of God and discipleship in His truths at home. Their conduct is often in stark contrast to those whose parents have dropped theirs off, looking for wholesome religious activities and perhaps a babysitting service for their potentially wayward son or daughter. So when someone recommended I read the book reThink by Steve Wright, I wondered what light this youth pastor could shed on the observations my husband and I had already made. After all, the book is addressed to other youth pastors, encouraging them to reevaluate the model their ministry is based on. Turns out, reThink is a darn good read for parents of students of all ages. It does a great job of laying a biblical foundation that parents are the ones with the primary responsibility of teaching their children about God, His salvation message, and living the life of a devoted Christ follower. The church, with its youth pastors, student ministries and culturally relevant activities, needs to work toward bringing parents on board by equipping them with how to carry out their God-ordained mission. The book first sounds the alarm, quoting both secular and Christian-based research showing just how many children are leaving the faith after graduating high school or college. The numbers are scary. Scarier yet is the conflict many churches feel between being culturally relevant and biblically faithful. The question is put point-blank: has it become more important to be trendy than to present the Word? This is not a book that presents a problem and then walks away from it. I love the way reThink champions the family and provides a model for the church to partner with parents. Steve Wright discusses how to plan, organize and navigate the transitions necessary for reshaping both student ministry and parental discipleship. reThink is an enjoyable book, written from a youth pastor's perspective but capturing a much wider audience. If you want to know what you should be collaborating on with your church, this is it.

An Engaging Reflection on Student Ministry

Over Christmas I was able to finish reading reThink by Steve Wright (with Chris Graves). Wright has served as a student pastor for more than twenty years. In the introduction, Wright explains: "This book was born out of deciding to rethink student ministry. We started by asking some tough questions, searching the Bible for its framework for ministry, looking at the latest research and being honest about the problems of student ministry." Though the book is written primarily for other student pastors, I found the book helpful as a young father, a college professor and an involved church member. It probably helps that I've given some thought to the extended adolescence problem and have reflected a bit on the youth ministry issue (thanks in part to books like Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham). It is beyond dispute that much of student ministry today, over the long haul, bears little fruit. Wright cites numerous sources in painting a bleak picture: 58-84% of children from evangelical families are leaving the church as they enter adulthood (in their college years). The Southern Baptist Convention has seen a 6.5% reduction in baptisms from 1976-1990 to 1991-2005. Over the same period to time, the SBC saw a 35-40% reduction in baptisms among teens aged 12-17. With regard to biblical literacy, the data are equally perplexing: In a study of teenagers of which 70% were active in church youth groups, and 82% identified themselves as Christians, Barna found that 63% believe Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and all other people pray to the same god. While 87% believe Jesus was a real person who came to earth and 78% believe He was born of a virgin, 46% believe He committed sins and 51% believe He did not rise from the dead. 58% believe that all religious faiths teach equally valid truth. Why the lack of biblical clarity? Wright notes, "Student ministry in many cases has become the local YMCA or teen amusement park; students check in and out, but mostly out. After all, once they have experienced years of fun-and-games, all-you-can-eat, no-responsibility, free-from-parents amusement, then we have helped train their appetites for pleasure to find more alluring fulfillment in the adult world." Yet students hunger for strong teaching. The Barna Group found the most common reason students gave for attending church was "to better understand what I believe." In response to these results, Wright laments the fact that some parents see spiritual formation as the exclusive job of the youth pastor, who in turn too quickly accept the responsibility. Instead, Wright argues (from Deuteronomy 6 and elsewhere) that parents have a primary responsibility for the discipleship of their children, both prior to and during the pivotal teen years. He calls upon youth pastors to come alongside parents in this venture, equipping both the students and their parents. Here, Steve Wright voices a respectful disagreement with Voddie Baucham, whose organization (Visi

A Must Read!

In this book Steve challanges both youth leaders and parents alike. One of the things I personally appreciate about Steve's book is his humble, honest admission of his own struggles. In reThink Steve Wright challanges us as parents and youth leaders to look past business and get to the heart of the matter which is raising the next generation of godly youth. Thank you Steve for "locking arms" with us and coming alongside and equipping us parents who didn't have godly role models growing up. reThink is biblically-based and puts parents God-given role of discipling their kids in perspective. Thanks Steve for the wake-up call!

Parents need to reThink too!!!

PARENTS: This is a must read for all of us, not just our youth pastors. I had heard Steve Wright speak about student ministries' partnering with parents before, so I thought that I'd just give his book a glance and stick it on the resource shelf in our study at home. Certainly there wouldn't be anything I hadn't heard. Oh boy!!! When I sat down to read the book, I got hooked in the first chapter. reThink gives radical clarification of the relationship between student ministries and biblical parenting. It made me ask myself: OK, what are we doing as youth workers vs. what are we doing as parents? Are the sixth graders in our Sunday school class getting more of God's Word from us than the three kids living under our roof? Why? What do we need to do differently at home? How can we be more deliberate about discipling our own children, instead of just relying on those "teachable moments"? Those serendipitous points of connection with our kids are awesome, but the Lord hasn't left us to seize upon rare moments of revelation alone. His plan is undeniably deliberate and faithful. What do we need to do as a family to grow together in the Lord, earnestly and consistently? Our family is taking a different course as a result of reThink. Lines of communication are opening up. Our kids are talking to us more honestly and freely than ever before. We are able to encourage other parents as we pursue a clearly articulated vision for growing our kids in Christ. We are rolling up our sleeves to get involved in student ministries beyond Sunday morning and the occasional ski trip or bowling party. What a blessing it has been to "reThink" our ministry in our own family as well as in the larger Body of Christ!

A Book That Will Change The Way You Do Ministry.

I have read many books about student ministry. Most of the ones out there raise questions but never really delineate exactly the problems youth ministry professionals face. This revolutionary, book by Steve Wright, tackles the heart of the matter: the need for parent led discipleship. In his research, Steve Wright demonstrates that the thing that many student pastors dread, i.e. partnering with parents, is the only thing that will keep students from "Graduating from God". I highly recommend this invaluable resource.