YOUTH MINISTRY AFTER CHRISTENDOM

The author identifies historic factors supportive of the 20th-century church's embrace of a program model for youth ministry while showing how its location outside the centering practices of the church by century's end produced a strong theological critique. The presence of both qualitative and quantitative research data and the reality of post-Christendom strengthens this theological turn. Current youth ministry proposals are described as centered by the presence of vibrant, multigenerational, theologically involved congregations, an emphasis on the interpretive practices that help form baptismal vocational identity, and the presence of biblical narrative performances in the co-construction of congregational worship. Two authors of such proposals are discussed. Those who are asked to lead in such models will need competency in facilitating communal relationships as well as the ability to engage in the co-construction of a community's response to God in ministry and in worship.