Have you ever wondered what would happen if you locked youth ministry thought leaders, academics, and practicioners in a room and asked them, “What will be the big issues in youth ministry five to 10 years from now? And what should we start doing now to get ready?”
The articles below contain the overall findings of the Center for Youth Ministry Training‘s Fourth Annual Lilly Laboratory Think Tank and the eight “Big Issues in Youth Ministry.” Each is an individual article and each has a Facebook plug-in at the bottom so that you can join the conversation. These are written in a “white paper” style, so they are not definitive—there are still questions to be answered and resources to be developed.
Will you be the one to answer the questions posed below? Do you agree? Disagree? What other issues might be missing?

Findings from Think Tank 2012: 26 issues that will affect youth ministry in the next decade

  1. The Need for Ecclesiology
  2. Wrestling the Holy Bible to an Aha! Moment
  3. Youth Ministry as the Great Co-Mission
  4. The Weakness of a Domesticated Gospel
  5. Youth Ministry as Healing and Restoration
  6. Ready or Not
  7. Youth Minister as Equipper of the Household of Faith
  8. The Theology of Personhood