Relationships Unfiltered : Help for Youth Workers, Volunteers, and Parents on Creating Authentic Relationships

For more than 50 years, relational or incarnational ministry has been a major focus in youth ministry. But for too long, those relationships have been used as toolsÙas a means to an endÙwhere adults try to influence students to accept, know, trust, believe, or participate in something. While our motives may be good, itÆs possible that by focusing on these goals, weÆre not ministering the whole person. When we choose not to engage in the full life of a student, we run the risk of failing them and our ministry. In this thoughtful and insightful book, Andrew Root challenges us to reconsider our motives and begin to consider simply being with and doing life alongside teenagers with no agenda other than to love them right where they are, by place-sharing. As he shares stories of his (and othersÆ) successes and failures in relational youth ministry, youÆll find practical ideas to help you recreate the role of relationships in your youth ministry.If youÆre involved in the lives of teenagers, whether as a youth pastor, volunteer youth worker, church leader, or parent, youÆll want to read this book and work together to discover the value of place-sharing in the lives of teens. YouÆll see that itÆs time to tear down the old structure of relational youth ministry and start again.

Andrew Root is assistant professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (IVP, 2007) and has worked in congregations, para-church ministries and social service programs. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen and Maisy, and their two dogs.